Our reading this morning is from the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 1 to 16.
If you have Bibles with you, then please go to Ephesians 4.
! There are Bibles at the back as well if you need some.
The text is also here on the screens and in your bulletin.
Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 to 16.
I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love,
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Therefore, it says,
When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.
In saying, he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves
and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head,
into Christ, from whom the whole body,
joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,
when each part is working properly,
makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
This is the Holy Word of God. Amen.
One year ago, we looked at Ephesians 1 to 3,
and here we are a year later, the return of Ephesians, Ephesians 4 to 6.
We're going to look at from now till the summertime, till July.
This is a letter written by the Apostle Paul.
It's called a circular letter.
The scholars will say that.
That means that Paul wrote it to Ephesus in the early 60s,
but it was meant to be spread around so the Ephesians would have received it,
and they would have made copies,
and then they would have sent it to all the churches they knew about.
And in some manuscripts even,
there's a blank where it says,
a letter written from Paul to the Ephesians.
In later manuscripts, there sometimes is a blank there,
meaning put your church's name in the blank.
So because God wrote this letter through Paul by the Spirit,
you can read in Ephesians 1.1,
a letter written by Paul to the church in Edinburgh, to St. Columbus even.
It's to any church.
It's from God to us right now.
So this letter is for us.
It's for today.
And what you get in Ephesians,
we spent a few months on this last year,
you get God's perspective on all that's going on in your life and in the world and in all of history.
So it's a God's eye view of everything.
So you, for example,
you might have become a Christian,
and you might ask,
what happened to me when I became a Christian?
Like, how did it actually happen?
And he says,
well, Ephesians 2,
you were dead,
and the Spirit came and made you alive in Christ
by giving you the gospel through faith.
So he explains what happened to you,
or even back up to chapter 1,
he says,
look, let me take you back to even before history ever began,
time ever began,
God knew you in Christ
and blessed you and redeemed you
before the foundation of the world.
So it's this God's eye perspective.
It's things that you could never know
unless God pulls back the curtain
and tells you how it all happened,
what's happening.
And really the heartbeat of it is to say,
Jesus Christ makes sense of all of human history.
Everything from beginning to end
is all focused on what happened with him
in the middle of human history.
So that's really the heartbeat.
But last year,
we looked at it from a broader lens.
One of the questions that it really focuses on
in the first three chapters is,
who is the church?
What is the church?
And in Ephesians,
you get, I think,
I think the only moment
in the whole New Testament
where there's an actual definition of the church.
So in Ephesians 1 verse 22,
it says,
the church is the body of Jesus,
the body of Christ,
the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Now that is not an easy sentence to understand.
The church is the fullness of him
who fills,
feels,
fills,
all in all.
What does it mean?
I used this illustration last year.
This is the best thing I can think of,
I think,
to make sense of it.
Imagine that there is a king
and he's ruling the land
and he's got a meeting with his council,
his advisors,
and they're sitting around the table
and the king is a great king
and he is filling the land
through this meeting
with wisdom
and with love
and with justice
and with power.
He's filling up all things in the kingdom
through this meeting
and then all of a sudden
the doors to the meeting room burst open
and his little kids are there
and they've completely interrupted it
and what does the king do?
The king doesn't say,
get out of here little kids.
You know,
we're in a very important meeting.
No,
he scoops them up in his arms
and he gives them a big hug
and he says,
you know what?
You fill me up.
And what is he saying?
He's saying that his kids
in that moment
fill him up with joy
as he fills the whole kingdom with joy,
with love,
with justice,
with power,
with wisdom,
right?
So,
what is the church?
Ephesians says,
you,
Christian,
the church
are the very joy of Jesus Christ,
his body.
Somehow,
someway,
you fill him up
as he fills the world,
the kingdom of God
with wisdom and justice
and power and love
and that's the definition we get
that's a beautiful image.
There's a lot of beautiful images
in this book.
There was a theologian
named John Mackay
who was born in Inverness
in 1889
and he moved over
to America
in the early 20th century
and he became
the third president
of Princeton Theological Seminary
in New Jersey.
But later in his life,
he was invited back
to Scotland,
to Edinburgh,
to give a series of lectures
at the university
and he talks about Ephesians
in those lectures
and in them,
he tells the story
of how he came
to follow Jesus,
how he came to faith
in Christ
and he says
that he was 14 years old
and he was walking
through the highlands
north of Inverness
and he was reading
the book,
this letter,
Ephesians
and he says,
he says,
to this letter
I owe my life.
In it,
I saw a new world.
Everything was new.
I had a new outlook,
new experiences,
new attitudes
to other people.
I loved God.
Jesus Christ,
when I read this letter,
he became to me
the center of everything.
I have been quickened.
I was made alive.
I was really alive.
Then he writes,
this letter
is pure music.
What we read here
is truth
that sings
doctrine set to music.
That's the letter
to Ephesians.
I hope that
as we go back
through it again,
the back half,
you feel like
you get that experience too.
There's a piece of music
in it
at the very end
of chapter 3.
If you have a Bible,
you can see this.
We didn't read this piece
but chapter 3
verses 20 and 21
is a doxology
and he says here,
all glory
from the church
be to God the Father,
God the Son,
God the Spirit.
Then it feels
almost like
that's the end
of the letter.
This doxology,
letter done.
But then chapter 4 starts.
The reason that last year
we stopped
at chapter 3
is because there's
a very natural break there
with the doxology.
Praise be to God
for all these things.
Now,
then he says
in chapter 4 verse 1,
I therefore,
Paul,
write the next thing
to you.
The therefore
in chapter 4 verse 1
is pointing back
to everything
he's already said
in chapters 1 to 3.
One of the ways
you could think about it,
we've got to have
a little bit
of a longer introduction
today to get back
into the letter
we've left for a year.
One way to think
about it is
scholars will call this
the indicative
and the imperative split.
The credenda
and the agenda
as it's often put.
What does that mean?
Indicative statements
are statements of fact.
So chapter 1 to 3
is statements of fact.
You were dead,
but the Spirit
made you alive.
You were lost,
but now you're found.
You were Jews
and Gentiles
that hated each other,
but now you are
one church.
Facts,
declarative statements,
indicatives.
And then chapter 4 to 6
are imperatives.
Now,
what could you do
in the light of that truth?
You were called,
now,
here's commands.
Right?
And so if you look
at the very first thing
he does
in chapter 4 verse 1,
he says,
I therefore call you
to live in a manner
worthy of the calling
to which you've been called.
So the very first thing
you get is a command.
So chapters 1 to 3,
who's the church?
What happened to us?
How do we become Christians?
What is God doing
in all of world history?
Chapter 4 to 6,
what should we do now
in the light of who we are?
So chapter 1 to 3,
who are we?
Chapter 4 to 6,
now what do we do?
How do we live?
How do we go forward?
How then shall we live?
And so we begin
with this command,
walk in a manner worthy
of the calling
to which you've been called
and that structures
the whole of the last
three chapters.
If you were here
in January,
I know,
I see guests here today,
I know some of you weren't,
but if you were here
in January,
one of the things
I said is that
if there was a unifying theme
to the whole semester,
this spring semester,
it is spiritual formation,
it is how can we grow together?
And if there's one sentence
that unifies the whole
of this semester
and all the different series
we've looked at,
it is this,
that true discipleship,
true formation,
growing by the Holy Spirit
as Christians,
is just this command,
become who you already are.
Be who God has already
made you in Christ.
And here,
what he's saying
in this argument
in chapter 4,
1 to 16,
is he's saying,
let me summarize
all of 1 to 3 for you,
you have got the life
of God in you.
You've got the Spirit,
you've got the triune God
with you,
blessing you,
redeeming you,
you've got the life
of God in you,
now be,
grow into who you really are
in that light.
And we've said that,
this is probably
the 10th sermon
that's been the thesis
this semester,
but that really is
what the New Testament
says over and over again,
become who you already are
in Christ.
You've got everything,
you've got all the treasures,
you've got the life
of God,
now become that.
Two ways today,
every week,
for the next couple months,
we'll ask the question,
what does the church do,
what are we to do?
The answer today is,
seek unity
and seek maturity.
So Paul,
in these 16 verses,
says,
be one,
be unified,
and seek spiritual maturity.
Let's take him in reverse.
He does unity,
then maturity,
I want to do maturity,
then unity.
All right,
so first,
seek spiritual unity.
That's what we're told
to do here.
If you're a believer today,
God has saved you,
you were dead in your
trespasses and sins,
by faith,
in Christ,
by grace,
God made you alive,
you're saved.
Here's the church,
that's what the church is,
here we are,
right here.
What are we to do?
Verse 13,
if you look at it with me,
he says that the big goal,
he's talking about the goal
here of our Christianity,
and he says,
we strive after unity
until we attain
the unity of faith,
the knowledge of the Son of God,
and then here's the clause,
unto mature manhood.
Now,
he puts that in the masculine,
that's just the way people
talked in the first century.
You could translate it like,
until we grow up,
all the way,
until we become adults.
So,
he's talking here about
the big goal
of the Christian life,
and he says it's
spiritual adulthood,
spiritual maturity,
that's the big goal
of the Christian life.
When you become a Christian,
you start out
as a spiritual baby,
a spiritual infant,
and Paul says the goal
in the Christian life
is to grow up
and to become
a full-grown adult
in the spiritual life.
Now,
we have a baby
at my house right now.
It's our baby.
The baby we have
at our house
is our baby.
And,
she can't do very much.
She's very needy.
She's very dependent.
Right?
So,
she cannot talk.
She cannot walk.
She cannot feed herself.
She can grab
a little bit and feed.
But a couple weeks ago,
she did start crawling.
She started,
you know,
the baby scoot
across the room.
You know,
the scoot.
And,
she probably about
a week and a half ago
was the first time
she was able to make it
across the whole room.
And,
you know what we said
to her that day
when we saw that?
We said,
Isabel,
little baby,
you know,
scooting across the room
is nice,
I guess,
but all the other kids
can run.
You know,
we said,
scooting,
crawling is okay,
but walking
is far superior.
And,
even better than that
is running
and even better than that
is sprinting.
And,
most of our kids
can sprint.
No,
right?
It's good to be a baby
when you're supposed
to be a baby.
And,
if you are a new believer,
if you are an early Christian,
it's good to be a spiritual baby.
It's not bad.
You're supposed to be.
You're supposed to
become a Christian
and then
learn to crawl
and then learn to walk
and then learn one day
to sprint.
And so,
it's a very good thing
to be exactly
where you are
when you come to faith
in Christ.
And,
Paul says here,
the goal is to grow
in spiritual maturity
unto full adulthood,
manhood,
womanhood,
as Christians,
right?
So,
it's good to be a spiritual baby
if you are a new Christian.
Christian.
And,
if,
if I came back up here
and we looked at this passage
again in three years
and I said,
Isabel is still crawling.
She hasn't quite gotten
to walking yet.
You see,
it's a beautiful thing
for Isabel to be crawling
right now,
but it would be a terrible thing
if in three years
she can't walk,
right?
We would be searching out
help for that.
So,
it's very good today
if you're a new believer
to be a spiritual baby
and it's not good
to stay that way.
We've got to grow,
Paul says.
So,
the Christian life
is all about
starting out as a spiritual infant
but growing.
Now,
how do you know
if you're a spiritual infant?
He tells us here
in verse 14.
He says,
grow up from spiritual infancy
to adulthood
so that you may no longer
be tossed to and fro
by the waves of deceit
and cunning
and doctrine
and Bible teaching
from all over the place.
So,
he says,
he says that when,
one of the ways
you can know
am I a spiritual infant
is that you're still
struggling
to tell the difference
between teaching
that comes directly
from the Bible
and false teaching.
So,
you still are in a place
where you can be
tossed to and fro
by false teachers,
by cunning,
by deceit,
by schemes of people.
You might turn on the TV
and you watch TV preaching
which is usually
false preaching
and you're sort of
mesmerized by it
and he says
that's when you sort of know
that you're not yet,
you haven't yet grown
into spiritual maturity.
You can't yet
tell the difference
between good teaching
and false teaching,
biblical theology
and false theology.
You know,
Isabel,
Isabel tries to eat Legos
so we could put food
in front of her
and we could put Legos
in front of her
and she just,
both,
they're equally good
to her,
right?
That's an issue
of discernment.
That's being a,
you know,
a spiritual baby
cannot discern
good and bad
all the time.
What are the details
underneath that?
It'd be something
like saying
you might,
you're not expected to.
When you just become
a Christian,
you shouldn't yet
be able
to discern exactly
because you haven't yet
put all the pieces
of the Bible together.
And I don't mean
just knowing
the Bible stories,
I mean being able
to put the theology
of the Bible together
in your head,
in your mind,
in your heart
and being able to know
who is God,
what is a human being,
what is wrong
with the world,
all the different pieces
of theology together,
right?
That's an issue
of discernment
and time.
It takes time.
Nobody should be
at the finish line
on that.
If you're a new Christian,
you shouldn't know
very much about it.
But he's saying here,
but it is time to grow.
It's time to take
the next step.
Another aspect would be
that you're just now
learning to walk
in a manner
worthy of the calling
to which you've been called.
So you don't,
you might not even know
what's happened to you yet.
There are a couple
new believers
in our congregation
right now
and talking to them,
I know that they say,
I don't quite know
what has happened to me,
but I know that
I was lost
and now I'm found.
And then Paul says,
well, read Ephesians
and it can explain
to you a bit more
about what the Spirit
did in your life
and exactly what happened,
but you shouldn't
necessarily know
the full of that
on day one,
not at all.
You're a spiritual baby.
That's okay.
But you may find,
what does he say
right after?
Walk in a manner
worthy of the calling
to which you've been called
by putting on humility,
gentleness,
patience,
forbearance,
bearing with one another
sins,
love,
he says.
So you may be in a place
where you're looking back
and thinking,
I have yet to kill
the sins
that I really,
really struggled with
before I became a Christian.
And that's okay.
That's the process
of sanctification.
So you might say,
you might look up
and say,
I have yet to put to death
the impatience
that I really had
before I was a Christian.
And that's because
you're a spiritual baby.
It's okay.
It's a process.
Sanctification is a long road.
Or you may look up,
and I think this is one
that's subtle in the text,
but a little bit hidden,
but there
and really important.
How do you assess
your own spiritual immaturity?
Are you a person
who is tossed
to and fro
week in and week out
by experiences
and feeling
more than anything else?
In other words,
is your spiritual life
and the health
of your spiritual life
conditioned on whether
or not today,
this Sunday worship service
was good for you or not?
So do you walk away
thinking,
you know,
I enjoyed that today.
I got something
from that today.
My feelings
were struck today.
I liked the music.
I liked the sermon.
Or I didn't.
And if that's
sort of the primary way
you're assessing
your Christian health,
you're a spiritual baby.
You're still in infancy,
right?
Because you've yet
to learn the ordinariness
of the Christian life,
which is to come
week in and week out
with God's people,
worshiping under
the command of God
that says,
come and be with God's people.
Take up the duty
until it becomes a delight.
And you know,
sometimes it won't be a delight.
Of course,
sometimes the preaching
is not good.
Sometimes the music,
well,
that's rare,
but every once in a while,
right?
Of course,
but if your Christian life
and your spiritual health
is judged based on
experience of feeling,
so in other words,
if you don't have
a mountaintop moment,
if you feel a little bit
in the valley,
you don't know what to think
about your Christianity anymore,
you're at spiritual infancy,
right?
So you've yet to learn
that Christianity
is actually a long obedience
in the same direction,
slow,
a marathon,
right?
Not a series of mountaintops,
but more like a series of valleys
that you're working through.
And so one of the things
I think that I've seen
is when people in our community
become Christians,
sometimes one of the experiences
that they have
is six months in,
maybe there'll be a season
of I don't know,
I don't even know
if I'm a Christian anymore
because I'm struggling
to read my Bible,
I'm struggling to pray,
and what you're just doing
is entering into
that first valley
after the mountain peak
of coming to faith in Christ,
right?
A long obedience
in the same direction.
Lastly,
verses 15 and 16,
he says,
what is the goal
to grow up together
in maturity,
in deep community,
the kind of community
that says,
I can speak the truth
and love to my Christian neighbor
and we're okay,
we're walking together
in the same direction.
And so another sign
of spiritual infancy
is just sort of
a lone wolf mentality,
an individualism,
where maybe you've yet
to come to see
the real vibrancy,
the depth,
the reasons
that you need
the spiritual community,
you need the community
of faith deeply,
you can't walk alone.
There has to hit
some point along the way
in your Christian life
where you realize,
boy,
the church has been
sort of peripheral to me,
I go,
but I'm not deeply embedded
in the community of faith
until that moment
where you find out
how much you need it.
And then you grow,
you come up
out of spiritual infancy
into maturity.
Now,
will you ask this week
the question
I'm asking me,
I hope right now
you're willing
to ask yourself,
am I a spiritual infant?
And when you look
at that list,
the answer is,
of course.
You know,
in some sense,
yes.
In some sense,
every single one
of us in here
have not grown
into full adulthood
in some of the ways
I've just talked about.
And we've yet to grow
into the mature manhood
and womanhood
of the Christian experience
in a way that we could have,
of course, right?
So let me,
I've culled together
a list of questions for you.
And I've taken these
from three different authors
on spiritual health.
And I just want to ask them to you,
it'll take one minute,
ask yourself these questions.
I'm asking myself these questions.
Number one,
do I have more theological
and biblical understanding
today than one year ago?
Number two,
have I overcome
any patterns of sin
as of today
that were very present
in my life
one year ago?
Number three,
am I more patient,
long-suffering,
and gentle
with people
that I struggle with
regularly
than a year ago?
Number four,
am I more of a refreshment,
I think this is
the most important one,
am I more of a refreshment
to the body of Christ
than I was a year ago?
Number five,
I think I've got ten,
do I love the saints?
Do I love the church
more than I did a year ago?
Do I love the body of Christ,
my local church body?
Number six,
do I have Christian friendships
that exist
to help me grow
by being able
to speak the truth
and love to me?
So do I have
a real Christian friendship
where somebody can,
verses 15 and 16,
speak the truth
and love to me
because I want
to grow up
in the Christian faith,
I want to put on humility
and gentleness
and patience?
Do I think about God
more on a daily basis
than I did a year ago?
Do I pray
and do I delight
in prayer more today
than I did a year ago?
And lastly,
am I more aware
of my need of grace today?
Do I know my neediness,
as Ryan preached
on last Sunday,
do I know my neediness
today more than I did
a year ago?
So as I've grown up
in the faith,
I'm more aware
of my need of grace.
So some questions.
Now let me say this
before I move to the close,
the second thing.
One writer puts it like this,
if you've really done
that assessment,
probably it breaks you
a little bit.
And the most important thing
that this passage
is saying at its core
is you are not saved
by your spiritual maturity,
but by Jesus Christ.
You don't come into the faith
because you're strong.
You come into the faith
because you're weak, right?
You're not saved
by spiritual maturity,
but by Jesus.
And so at the very center
of this passage
is the idea
that you're not saved
because of maturity,
but unto it, unto it.
And at the heart
of the passage,
if you look at the center
with me,
verses 4 to 10,
I can just briefly summarize
the argument here.
At the very middle,
he puts the grace
of Jesus Christ
in this passage
from Psalm 68
that Christ ascended
and he led captives
out of captivity.
We just sang it
in Psalm 68.
But you look at verse 4
and following,
he says,
you are one church,
one people,
one faith.
Jesus is the one object
of your faith,
one baptism.
So if you've been baptized
in the name of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit,
you share in the one baptism
of the church,
of Jesus Christ, right?
No matter where that happened.
You have one faith,
one people,
one spirit.
There's only one Holy Spirit.
So if you're a Christian,
you have the Holy Spirit.
So you're united
by the Spirit
with all the other Christians.
There's not multiple spirits.
So you can be Baptist.
You can be Christ.
You can be Presbyterian.
You can be Pentecostal.
You can be any of it
and there's still
only one faith.
And he says,
why?
Because Jesus condescended.
He came incarnation.
He came down
and when he ascended,
when he went into heaven,
he gave all the gifts
of grace to the church.
Meaning,
you're not saved
by what denomination
you're in.
You're not saved
by your maturity.
You're not saved
by any of it.
What is the condition
of being one of the captives
that the Redeemer
is set free?
The condition?
Being captive.
It's being weak.
It's being imprisoned.
It's being in darkness.
It's being dead, right?
You're not saved
by your strength.
You didn't get out of captivity
because you're strong.
You got out of captivity
because of your immaturity,
your weakness,
your deadness, right?
And now you've been set free
to grow into maturity.
So today,
no,
I'm not saved
because of my maturity
just like I'm not cast away
because of my immaturity.
So if you look today
and say,
I am a spiritual infant,
that's a wonderful thing
to realize today.
It's so good.
You're not cast out
by your infancy
and no more than you're brought in
by your maturity.
Instead,
you are saved
unto
taking up the call
to the full stature of Jesus
as he puts it in verse 14.
Now secondly and finally,
that means
that we're called then
as part of our maturity
to seek unity.
That's the second and final thing.
All right,
now for Paul,
maturity and unity
are deeply connected.
So maturity breeds unity
and unity breeds maturity.
They're completely intertwined here
in this passage.
So he's talking here
to Jews and Gentiles
and they hated each other
truly
far more than we can understand.
And he's saying,
but now you are one church,
one people,
by one spirit,
one baptism,
one faith.
Jesus is your saver.
So you've got to actually pursue that
and be eager to maintain
the unity Jesus has created
in the bonds of peace.
You've got to take that up.
You've got to actually be one.
Imagine,
imagine a family,
put it like this,
imagine a family.
Maybe you get invited over
to somebody's family home
and you don't know them very well
but you go
and you visit the home
and you observe
how the family functions
and you go to dinner
and you're kind of there
for a few hours.
And one of the things you notice
is how tight
everybody is in the family.
Parents and kids
and there's a lot of respect
and love
and it's just a really warm environment.
You kind of feel like,
have I stepped into a hobbit hole?
It just feels so wonderful.
You're like,
this is exactly where
I want to be right now.
The food is great.
The company is great.
You've maybe had
those hospitality experiences
with people like that
and you've noticed
with the kids,
you think the kids
are so mature for their age.
What does that look like?
It looks like humility.
There's not a lot of pride.
Gentleness.
Even one kid
tries to start a fight.
You know,
they say something
and you think,
boy,
that could be fighting words.
But the other child
is forbear's patience
and just swallows it
and lets it go.
Why?
Because they're mature enough
to think,
I'm not going to start
a squabble right now
and they let it go.
And you have this experience
and you say,
what is it that made them
so mature?
What is it that made them
like this?
And you realize
it's their unity.
Their love for one another
is based on a deep bond
and unity
and that unity breeds maturity
and that maturity breeds unity.
And he's saying here
that unity and maturity
are so hand in hand
that the church,
this St. Columbus,
we ought to look,
ought to be like that.
This family
where people come
and say,
boy,
they're so for one another
that they're also
spiritually mature
and they're so spiritually mature
that they are for one another.
They really love each other
desperately.
You see how those things
fit together for Paul?
In other words,
he's saying,
a church
that is truly unified
is desperately serious
about discipleship.
And a church
that is desperately serious
about discipleship
exhibits in unity
in avoiding faction
and really being
for one another
and that's all born
out of a killing pride,
being humble,
meek.
The word here,
gentleness,
in this passage
is the Greek word
for meekness.
It can be translated
either way.
And meekness
is not weakness.
Meekness instead,
this Greek idea
that Paul attaches here
is the strength
of a lion
but self-controlled.
The strength
of a lion
that's a person
that's so strong
they're gentle.
Right?
A person that
underneath their gentleness
has unyielding strength
knowing when to exercise
strength in the right time.
Right?
And that's the word
he uses here,
not weakness
but meekness.
Right?
And he says
that the church
should look like a family
that has those virtues,
has those things.
Now there's an interpretive
tension here
and it's in verse 4-6
and related to verse 3.
In verse 4-6
he says
you are one.
Radical unity,
Baptist,
Pentecostal,
Presbyterian,
all these different
denominations
and factions
of the church
we see all throughout
our city
and the world.
He says
but there is only one faith,
only one baptism,
only one people.
And he says
but in verse 3
be eager to maintain
the unity of love
and the bonds of peace.
Now what does he say?
Which is it Paul?
Are we one people
that can never be divided
or is it that we have to fight
to maintain the unity
of the spirit
and the bonds of peace?
And the answer of course
is yes.
Right?
What is he saying?
He's saying that
our calling here
is to maintain
visibly
what can never be broken
invisibly.
So in other words
the invisible church
is the one church
of Jesus
saved by the gospel
no matter where people
go to church.
There are true Christians
all over the world
in all sorts of churches
of course.
And he's saying
that invisible unity
can never be broken.
That's called
the church organic
the organic church
the living body
the organism.
It's invisible
to our eyes right now
because right now
we're here
and Charlotte Chapel
is over there
and Chalmers is over there
and Becloos over there
and Corubbers is down the street
and so we can't see
the unity of the church
visibly today
right here
but he's saying
in your local church
and in your mind
and your heart
you've got to fight
to maintain
the invisible unity
in a visible way
as much as possible
until you see it all
come together
visibly one day
when the king comes
to establish the kingdom.
Right?
So he's saying
you've got to have
the spirit in your heart
but then to the local church
to us today
as we close
you've got to
fight
be eager
to maintain
the unity of the church
and the bonds of peace
right here
in our little
visible community
of unity
one faith
one baptism
one people
right here united together
on this Sunday.
So look
what does that look like
practically?
Let me be practical
don't
don't let the sun
go down
on your anger today
towards somebody else
in the room.
Don't
don't let anger
and little tiffs
separate
and schism
the church
at all.
What else does it look like?
Don't let factions
in here
of friend groups
get in the way
of including
people who are new.
Don't
don't create
an inner ring
where nobody else
can get into
your friend bubble
within the local church.
What else does it look like?
It looks like
being a person
who speaks
the truth
and love
in other words
we've got to fight
to avoid flattery
with one another
meaning we're just a place
where everybody's nice
to each other.
Really
what does
what does Christianity
do for you?
Well it made me really nice.
No
it made you into a person
who's meek
meaning
strong as a lion
but knowing
when to use that strength.
In other words
you're able to speak
the truth in love.
You're not
merely words of niceness
and flattery.
You're able to have
such real Christian friendships
that you can tell
your neighbor
the truth
about their struggle
because you love them so much.
Or
avoiding
mere bluntness.
Words of truth
some of us
you see
some of us
flatter
and we're too nice
others of us
we
tell the truth too much.
Words of bluntness
without
the real reason
for that love
right?
And he's saying
that's what
maintaining
the unity of the church
and the bonds of peace
actually looks like
at a local level
in the day to day
true unity
seek the bonds of peace.
The word bond
there
is the word
sinew
or muscle tissue.
So he's saying
maintain
to be connected
as muscle tissue
to the ligaments
and joints
as much as you possibly can.
Be eager
fight for it
don't separate
the only condition
of separation
is false teaching.
That's it he says.
Other than that
fight
to maintain
the unity of the spirit
and the bonds of peace.
I look up
at St. Columbus
and I think
we've got pretty good unity
around here
by my perspective
and I'm very thankful
for that.
I recognize
it's not something
that I created
but I stepped into
and received
from many of you
and from our predecessors.
Paul is telling us here
the most dangerous position
that we could be in
is to be complacent
about that.
that either
we are growing up
in spiritual maturity
or the weeds
are growing
and we're moving
towards schism.
One of the two.
Either we're growing up
together and saying
I'm a spiritual infant
I need growth
in my life right now
or the weeds
are growing up
and we're preparing
for the next separation.
One of the two.
And he's saying
be eager
fight to maintain
the connective tissue.
Make visible
what is true and visible.
One faith.
One body.
One baptism.
One people.
Now next week.
Come back next week.
Because I didn't talk
at all about spiritual gifts
which are at the center
of this passage.
We're going to do
a whole week next week
on the spiritual gifts
that God gives us
to maintain this.
But I'll finish with this.
Paul says
in chapter 4 verse 1
I Paul
am a prisoner
of the Lord
for your sake.
Now that is
the third time
Paul
in this short letter
has mentioned already
prisoner for the Lord.
He really, really, really
wants you to know
he's in prison
when he writes this letter
and he is.
He's in prison in Rome
when he writes this letter.
One of the first times
he says it
he said
I'm a prisoner
to the Lord
and this time
he says
for the Lord.
In other words
he's saying
I am in chains
as I write this letter
because the Lord Jesus
is my master.
I am in chains
as I write this letter
because I'm willing
to serve
all the way
to the point
of imprisonment
and death
for the sake
of my master Jesus.
Now let me translate
that to as practical terms
as I can say it.
I think Paul
because he said this
three times
is trying to get us
to see this
our greatest need
at St. Columbus
as a church family
is not wonderful circumstances
but Christ-like character
humility, gentleness,
patience,
forbearance,
and love.
our greatest need
is not great,
beautiful,
wonderful circumstances.
When Paul says
how do you maintain unity?
How do you grow
in spiritual maturity?
There's nothing here
about our budget.
There's nothing here
about a great building.
There's nothing here
about how many people
are coming today
relative to a year ago.
Nothing.
He says
you don't need
great circumstances.
You need
the character
of Jesus Christ
in your life.
And how do you get that?
How do you get
his humility?
The word
Paul uses
for humility
in this chapter
is a unique word
for humility
and it's used
of Jesus
in other parts
of the New Testament
for the fact
that he did not
consider equality
with God
something to be held on to
but made himself nothing.
That's the word.
How do you grow?
How do you kill
spiritual pride
that could divide a church?
church
you just gotta
go and look at him
and you've gotta
be with him
and you gotta
sit with Jesus
in order to
become like him.
So it's as simple
as that.
What's the
real secret
of true unity?
Be with Jesus.
What's the real secret
of spiritual maturity?
Be with Jesus.
If you're not
with him
relationally
sitting down with him
you're not going
to become like him.
Be with Jesus
and you'll become
like him.
Let us pray.
Father we ask
for renewed
spirit
of a desire
to seek
maturity
in the faith
maturity in Christ
and we pray today
that the big thing
that would happen
is that we become
more like you Jesus
because we've got
your grace
and so
we want
your humility
your patience
your forbearance
your love
your gentleness
your meekness
and we want unity
together in the light
of that.
So Lord
convict us
in exactly the places
we need to be convicted
of a lack of maturity
in Christ
and then
encourage us
with the words
of the gospel
and then send us on
to grow.
Lord
so I pray
that each one of us
in this room today
would want to want
to spend time
with you
would want
to want
to become
more like you.
That's my prayer
for me
it's my prayer
for all of us
in this room
Lord
we pray it
in Jesus name
Amen.