Well, we've come now to what I think is the quintessential text on healthy, authentic,
and maybe even we would say organic church growth.
It would be difficult to point to another passage in the Bible, actually, that more
helpfully summarizes God's plan for building up his people.
In fact, Paul actually uses that type of terminology here in the verses that we just read.
That the things that he is teaching, the things that he is conveying from God's plan to the
people in Ephesus is actually God's plan for building his church, for building up his people.
And in a sense, these verses, especially verses 11 through 16, kind of serve as the heart of
this particular series of studies that we're going through.
It's not the whole of it, certainly not the sum of it, but it is perhaps the heart of
what I'm trying to get to in maybe we would say even casting a vision for what I believe
the Lord would desire for our church to be.
And I genuinely do believe that God will bless and will establish our church for the long term
only as we grasp and endeavor to obey the truths that are represented here in this particular
text.
There are a plethora of church growth experts that have developed all kinds of strategies
to help pastors, quote, build churches.
And most of them are rooted in business culture where an emphasis on hard work, cultural sensitivities,
and commitment to process is what produces profitable results.
Now, those things aren't bad.
Certainly hard work and being mindful of your cultural context and being committed to certain
processes and administration, those things aren't bad things.
But they've made that the whole of it, where if you'll just follow this strategy, it will surely
produce success.
And then ministry success and church health are measured by the same criteria as a secular business,
which would then be organizational growth, brand awareness, profitability.
Do you see?
It's not difficult to see this in the Christian realm, is it?
It's very easy to see that we would gauge by nature, maybe even most of the time,
but we would naturally gauge the success or the health of a ministry based on whether or not
it is growing in breadth, whether staff is being added, whether the income and the giving is
actually going up rather than going down.
Are they developing more ministries?
Is there more happening?
You know what I mean?
And sometimes we can mistake that.
And certainly when the Lord does a unique work in a church, things like that happen.
I understand that.
I'm not saying that that's not true.
But when we gauge the success and the health of a church by those criterias, we actually
go quite wrong.
Pastors end up being lured into lectures that are geared toward topics titled something like
the next 100, how to get the next 100 people into your church, or ways to increase giving
by 60% in the new year.
Those are real lectures, real titles that are often pushed in front of pastors, because that
ultimately would seem to be the goal for many of them.
That the value of who I am and what my church is, is not really based on faithfulness, though
they would care about that.
It's actually based on these tangible things that we can measure.
I'm not saying it's bad to desire that type of growth in your church.
It certainly is good.
If you didn't have a desire for your church to grow, it means that you probably don't have
much of a desire for people to come to Christ or for people to be faithful to the Lord or
for the Lord to do unique works in and through the ministry to which you belong.
Those things are not bad in and of themselves.
But this is just a small sampling and example of what the mindset of the Christian culture
has devolved into when it comes to ideas of church growth and church health.
They just define it in a way that's unhelpful, and I really actually think ungodly.
Where pastors are measured by effectiveness rather than faithfulness.
Ministries are evaluated by creativity rather than fruitfulness.
Services are built on a consumer experience rather than genuine worship.
But that's a problem.
That's not the definition I'm working with when I use the phrase church growth or church
health this morning.
I actually wanted to turn our eyes to actually what the scriptures have to say for us here
about this.
Because when the New Testament speaks of church growth, it does so in terms of maturity, not
metrics.
The apostles weren't concerned primarily with a congregation's size, but its faithfulness to
the Bible and its fruitfulness in the Spirit.
And rather than viewing the local church as an organization that needs to be built, they
saw it more like an organism, living, breathing, growing in the power of God and His Spirit.
And the bottom line is that people, humans, can build successful organizations.
We can do that.
Only God can build healthy churches.
You see, that's the difference.
It's actually God's work to build this church.
And He's actually given us a plan to follow, a plan that He uses, His design, to actually
see this work move forward.
Like I said, verses 11 to 16 is where we're really going to find this process laid out.
But before we get there, let's just walk through verses 1 through 10 quickly.
Let me just point out two kind of categorical things here that are worth noting.
The first thing is our calling, our calling.
Now remember in chapter 2 a few weeks ago, we saw that we are united together on account
of our union with Christ.
That there is a supernatural unifying work that takes place when Christ through His blood
redeems us and reconciles us to God.
And in doing that, He actually reconciles us to one another.
Not that He just brings people from different cultures together with this amalgamation and
mixed context.
It's not that.
He's creating a new people.
His new kingdom people.
It's something that we are called to be in the gospel.
Something that we are called to reflect as we move forward in the gospel as well.
And here, the theological truth of Ephesians 2 is actually coming through in Paul's words
as practical instruction.
Look at verse 1.
I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, listen to the verbs here.
I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.
What's that calling?
That calling.
Chapter 2 tells us that calling is the unity that the Holy Spirit has brought together in
the kingdom people of God, in the church.
We have been called as a people together.
And Paul is saying there is practical instruction in this.
Yes, the Spirit is what brings us together through the gospel of Jesus.
But I am urging you, Ephesians.
I'm urging you.
I'm challenging you.
I'm instructing you to walk worthy of that call.
That the way that you live and move and behave and work with the people of God in the local
church should reflect a life that is worthy meeting the standards of the call that God
has actually put on your life as the church.
And then he tells us how.
With humility and gentleness.
With patience.
Bearing with one another in love.
Those are very difficult things.
Because in the context of the Ephesian church, you actually have real enemies.
Cultural enemies.
And the Jews and the Gentiles coming together.
And then there's all the subsets of problems relationally and socially and culturally that
come from extensions of even that type of enemy.
And we have that in our own churches, right?
We're all very different people.
We come from very different places.
We have very different personalities.
And it requires that if we're going to walk worthy of the call that God has put in our lives as a church,
it's going to require that each of us do that with some humility.
That we develop in our lives.
Some gentleness with one another.
Some patience.
Bearing with one another.
Now, it's really interesting that this is what Paul goes to.
He assumes that in the local church, you're going to have problems with people.
He assumes here that there are going to be people in every church that get on everybody else's nerves.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have to say, bearing with one another.
Right?
Do you see that here?
And his answer is not, when this church really gets on your nerves,
go to one that gets on your nerves a little less.
No, his answer is actually, no, get over yourself and walk in a way that's worthy of the call that God has put on your life.
Learn humility and patience and gentleness.
Bearing with one another in love.
And then he says, being eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
In other words, it is the spirit that brings us together.
But then God calls us to eagerly pursue this unity together.
That we're not looking for ways to be a part.
We're actually looking for ways to diminish our disagreements and our differences
in order that we can pursue the unity that the Holy Spirit is actually establishing in the gospel.
This is what we're called to be.
It's what we're called to do.
And then he makes it even better.
There's one body.
There's one spirit.
You're called to one hope.
It 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.
What a unity that is in the gospel.
And he says, pursue that.
Live as a church in a way that is worthy of that.
So we see our calling.
But then we see our gifting is the next thing.
Our gifting.
So Christ, as Lord, aids us in this calling.
Because let's be honest.
Let's be honest.
If we were all just to sit down at the end of the service and say, all right.
I know a lot of people aren't here today.
If we were to huddle up and say, all right, we're going to do this thing.
We're going to be humble and gentle and patient.
And we're going to bear with one another.
It's not going to take very long for us to fail, right?
Because we can't actually do that.
It's not actually in our power in and of ourselves to live in a way that's like that.
And so Christ, our Lord, who calls us to that in the gospel,
actually begins to aid us in his power through the spirit to do it.
And that's what these verses tell us.
Verse seven.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts.
In other words, Christ is gifting each one of us.
Though we are all called into one body, each individual has a particular gift
that Christ has enabled to help us pursue this calling that he's given.
Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives,
and he gave men gifts.
And then there's this parenthetical, Paul never wastes an opportunity to work in his Christology.
And he says, by ascending, that means that he must have descended,
which goes back to Philippians chapter two.
Jesus was in the form of God, and he thought equality with God a thing not to be grasped,
but he humbled himself and became obedient unto death.
He took on the form of a servant.
He descended to the earth.
And then after his resurrection, he ascended back to the exalted place where he reigns as Lord,
which means that this is his call, but it's also his gift to help us and aid us in pursuing this call.
And it's only at that point that Paul then begins to describe this process,
that he begins to describe the truth about church growth and about church health.
You see, God's plan for church growth and health is very simple.
It's ordinary, intentional discipling.
Discipling being that process by which Christians help one another faithfully follow Jesus
in the power of the Spirit through the teaching of the Bible.
And that's what Paul goes on to describe here.
It's not flashy.
It's certainly not fast.
It's not typically easy, and it's almost never convenient.
It requires commitment.
It requires labor.
It requires sacrifice.
Most of all, it requires genuine love.
But according to the Bible, this is actually what God's plan is.
So let's look at it together.
Number one, I want you to see God's program.
God's program.
Verse 11, 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.
Three phrases here that I want to work through.
He gave to equip for the work.
Do you see them there in the text?
He gave to equip for the work.
Well, what did he give?
He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers, or shepherd teachers.
So God has gifted every believer uniquely to serve the church, but he has gifted the church with certain individuals to lead it in truth.
Now, what's common about or among the categories that Paul mentions here is that they all possess the gift of helpfully and accurately teaching God's word, the Bible.
They have word-based gifts, and Paul says that they are special gifts from Christ to the church, but they each have unique functions in the church.
But Paul says, first off, Christ has given to the church these people.
Well, I've been trying to tell Julie for years that I'm a gift from God, and here Paul gives me some support.
Well, let's work through these categories.
The apostles were men who had witnessed the resurrected Christ.
They were specially commissioned by Jesus to be a witness to the world.
It was an unrepeatable group, endowed with the Spirit's power that on occasion revealed itself through signs and wonders, and God used them as instruments to give us the New Testament scriptures.
So that's actually a category here, the apostles.
That's who they were.
They were a gift to the church, still are.
Not that they are still, it's an unrepeatable group, not that they are still apostles in that sense, but what Christ gifted to the church is still a benefit to us as we come to the scriptures.
That's the apostles.
Next was the prophets.
These men were close associates of the apostles within the churches.
They were gifted by God to communicate and teach God's word prior to the final completion of the New Testament.
So their prophecies didn't consist of fortune-telling.
That's not what this was.
This wasn't future predictions necessarily, except on very rare occasions we see that in the New Testament.
But for the most part, these prophets and their prophecies were not those things.
It was just simply the ability to communicate God's new covenant truth during the apostolic age.
So there's a significance to these first two categories, the apostles and the prophets.
Kent Hughes tells us the apostles and the prophets were given to the church to get her established, but now their role is assumed by the canonical writings of the New Testament.
So we don't look for the gifts of apostles and of prophets any longer.
We simply go to the New Testament scriptures.
That was their purpose in establishing the church and giving us the word of God.
And let me just show you two places in Ephesians that helps us to understand that.
Look back at chapter 2 and verse 20 with your Bibles open there,
that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
The apostles and the prophets, not themselves being the foundation, but what they taught as it related to the gospel of Christ.
That's the foundation of truth established for the church.
Chapter 3 and verse 5,
So there's a unique function here for these two groups.
And what ultimately we have is the fruit of the New Testament.
Now that moves us on to the next three.
Evangelist is the next one.
The evangelists were and still are uniquely gifted to preach the gospel with great clarity and fruitfulness.
Now every Christian is called to do the work of an evangelist, the work of evangelism.
But God does gift some people in the church to do so with tremendous impact.
Kent Hughes refers to them as the obstetricians of the church.
Those gifted at bringing in new births, so to speak.
There are people that are just uniquely gifted by God to helpfully and clearly preach and share the gospel with other people,
especially those who have not heard it.
We see this so often represented in missionary endeavors.
We're not so much thinking of itinerant missionaries.
We're not thinking so much of camp meeting style deals.
That's not really what we're thinking of here.
We're thinking of in the terms of the local church, people uniquely gifted by God with a passion and a clarity to preach the gospel.
And then he says shepherds and teachers or pastors and teachers.
And many believe that shepherds and teachers refer to a single gift and function in the church rather than two.
And the Greek construction here does actually allow for that to be true, but it doesn't demand it.
So I'm going to let you decide where you ultimately land on that.
It could be that Paul was distinguishing pastors who are gifted to teach.
We know that in the pastoral epistles, you can't be a pastor if you can't teach, right?
That's one of the things that are necessary qualifications for a pastor.
So he could be distinguishing that from teachers who are not necessarily called or gifted to be elders in the church.
It could be that he's making that distinction.
Most people look at this and actually see because of the Greek construction that this is actually referring to shepherd teachers or pastor teachers.
I'll leave it to you to study that further if you'd like.
But the point here is that God has gifted the church with individuals specially gifted to teach and shepherd through the Bible.
So from our perspective today, the apostles and prophets are represented by the scriptures.
Why evangelists, pastors, and teachers are church leaders whose primary function is to teach the Bible.
Paul wrote that these individuals are gifts from Jesus to his church.
Now, for what purpose then did Jesus give these gifts to the church?
He gave, here's the purpose, to equip.
Equip what?
Or equip who?
To equip the saints, it says.
The saints is not a special category of Christians, but to all believers.
And equip here, in this sense, carries the idea of preparation or training.
The Greeks used it in a medical way, referring to setting a bone in place.
And Paul's point is that in God's program, he has given the church individuals to prepare and train all the believers
to fulfill their own function in the church.
Now, what is that function?
That's the next part.
He gave to equip for the work.
What's the work?
He tells us.
For the work of ministry, which is building up the body of Christ.
In other words, Paul says, building up the body, what we're calling discipling, is a work to which every single believer is called.
And while the responsibility for church growth and church health, a prize in a unique sense to church leaders,
the work that produces healthy churches, belongs to each one of us.
You see, this is where so many Christians immediately go wrong.
So many view their role in the church as merely providing compensation for the pastor and staff
so that they can carry out the work of the ministry.
They never really think about being responsible themselves for the church's spiritual health.
They have more of a consumer view.
That they pay the guys to do the things so that they can sit back and reap the benefits of the things that they pay the guys to do.
Now, we've all been in churches like this, where there is a disparity, where there's, on one hand, there is the professional ministers,
and on the other hand, there is the members of the church, and the professional ministers do the work of the ministry,
and the people of the church receive the work of the ministry.
But that's not actually the vision that Paul puts forth here.
That's not actually what God's program is like at all.
God's design is such that he gifts men to train and prepare the people to carry out the work of building up the church.
So not only do we belong together, but we're in this thing together.
Do you see that?
And we talked about the belonging a couple weeks ago, and it's going to be a theme every single week as we come to these passages.
We belong together, and we belong together because God has put us together.
It's not because we chose one another.
It's because he chose us, and in choosing us, he has united us together in his gospel.
So you're stuck whether you want to be or not.
That's just how this works now, right?
And not only do we belong together, but this whole idea of Lakeside Bible Church,
and the work that's being accomplished here, and the growth and the health,
that we're actually in this thing together.
And it's not because I want us to be in it together.
It's because it's actually what God has called us to do.
He gifts his church with people who have the unique responsibility to train and prepare the people
so that the people can do the work of the ministry.
And I think this is something that we really need to begin to understand.
John Stott said,
It effectively eliminates the traditional model of the local church as a pyramid,
with the pastor perched precariously on its pinnacle,
like a little pope in his own church,
while the laity are arrayed beneath and serried ranks of inferiority.
It also shoots down the model of a bus, he says,
in which the pastor does all the driving,
while the congregation are the passengers,
slumbering in peaceful security behind.
Notice the commitment here to the local church
that's required in this call.
You see, that's the implication of this text, I think, is often missing.
I don't mean to say that in an accusatory way.
I mean, you're here today.
All of you are involved in some way or another
in doing exactly this in our church.
I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm trying to say,
but in order for this to actually happen,
this discipling culture that's represented in Ephesians 4,
it requires a unique commitment that goes above and beyond,
actually greatly above and beyond simply attending a service on a Sunday
and signing up for the occasional event that comes our way.
This is actually much grander than that.
It's actually much heavier than that.
Much important or important than that.
And I think probably the reason it has become the way that it has in so many churches
is because pastors that aren't willing to share their responsibility,
that's part of it.
I think part of it also could be that people just are content
with not really being all that committed.
Paul envisions a people
thoroughly developed in the Word
by gifted teachers
that then enables them
to evangelize,
teach,
and encourage others
through the Word.
This is true discipling.
It's God's program for the local church.
And if we're going to be a healthy church here,
it's got to be woven into the very DNA of who we are.
That's God's program.
Secondly, and quickly, we see God's purpose.
God's purpose.
So if God's program for the church
is to develop a discipling culture,
what is His intended purpose or result for it?
And the answer is that the church will grow
in spiritual maturity.
Now, a healthy church will inevitably,
in most cases,
grow in number.
There will be seasons of harvest.
When the wind of the Spirit will blow,
people will be saved and added to the church.
But notice,
the measure of success in these verses
is not the breadth of the church,
but its depth.
And Paul contrasts for us
in verses 13 and 14.
The spiritually mature church
and the spiritually immature church.
Look at verse 13.
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, the stature,
the fullness of Christ.
So three things happen
when a church follows God's program.
It reaches the unity of faith,
the knowledge of Christ,
and the fullness of Christ.
The faith here doesn't refer to conversion,
but to a united commitment
to the body of Christian truth and doctrine.
MacArthur describes this as
the content of the gospel
in its most complete form.
So the faith then
is when a church
is not simply aware of Bible doctrine,
but is steadfastly united
in its commitment to it.
That's an important distinction here.
That as we follow God's program,
what will inevitably happen
is that our church
will grow deeper in the word
to attain the unity of the faith,
the full body of Christian doctrine.
It won't stay on the surface.
It will actually begin to grow deep
into the word,
into our understanding of it.
The knowledge of the Son of God
is what moves us
from the intellectual
to the relational.
It's that place of spiritual maturity
where a believer
is wholeheartedly devoted
to personally knowing Jesus
through worship, prayer, Bible study.
Remember Paul reflected on this
in his own desire in Philippians 3.
Whatever gain I had,
I counted as loss
for the sake of Christ.
Indeed, I count all things as loss
because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord, he says.
He goes on to say later,
my goal in this life
is to know Christ,
to know him,
that I may know him,
the power of his resurrection
being made conformable
to his death.
The fullness of Christ
is when that knowledge
produces and transforms
our behavior.
It's when a church
is marked by its conformity
to Christ,
his ways,
and his teaching.
So the measure of a healthy church
then is when it's marked
by a commitment
to Christian doctrine,
intimate love for Jesus,
and a radical conformity
to the image of Christ.
So then Paul contrasts that,
this mature manhood,
he says,
with spiritual infancy
in verse 14.
Read that with me.
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
and by craftiness
and deceitful schemes.
The church is not faithful
to God's program
or marked then
by this spiritual immaturity.
Paul says they're like a boat
caught in a storm,
constantly shifting
one set of beliefs
to another.
James described these people
as double-minded,
unstable in all their ways.
And according to Paul,
these churches are then
susceptible to false doctrine,
winsome personalities,
and deceptive methods.
So then when a church
becomes less concerned
about biblical fidelity
than it is about
tangible metrics of success,
it will inevitably accumulate
cunning leaders
who develop deceitful schemes
and fall into false doctrines.
So we've got two pictures here.
We've got God's program
and the church
that follows God's program
represented in steadfastness
and in faith
and in unity.
And then we've got those
who abandon God's program
to follow their own ways
and they end up
finding themselves
with leaders
that probably aren't
actually Christian
who have developed
deceitful schemes
to help push them forward
as an organization
but not actually very deep
as a true church.
And notice how important
doctrine is
in this entire passage.
Everything about these gifts
to the church
involve teaching.
Everything about the reflection
of spiritual maturity
is about knowledge
and what that knowledge
then produces
in practical experience
in our lives.
Knowledge of biblical truth
should be a passion
for God's people
not a drudgery.
That doesn't mean
that we all have to be
Bible eggheads
or that we develop
this persona
or this air
that just seems
to take ourselves
too seriously.
But it does mean
that we should take
our calling seriously.
We should take
the Bible seriously.
We should take
our worship
seriously.
And then notice
how long this
God's program
is to be in effect.
He tells us
in verse 13
until all attain.
In other words
it doesn't end
until we're called
to heaven.
Because if the church
is healthy and growing
that means it will
inevitably be evangelizing
which means that
once you disciple
one person
to be united
in the faith
and in the knowledge
of God
and in the fullness
of Christ
there's inevitably
going to be another
person over here
that's just a baby
in Christ.
And they need
your time
and your affection
and your patience
and your gentleness.
They're going to need
you to bear with them.
And you may get
to a point
where you just think
man I'm tired.
Well the job isn't over
until we get to heaven.
Thirdly we see
God's process.
God's process
verse 15
rather
speaking the truth
in love
we are to grow up
in every way
into him
who is the head
into Christ.
Let me
summarize it this way
maybe condensing
the verse down to this
by speaking
the truth in love
will grow up
into Christ.
Speaking the truth
in love
will grow up
into Christ.
This is actually
the process
of how all of this happens.
Now let's break down
this phrase
speaking the truth
in love.
First they're speaking
which means that
even before we get
to the unique giftedness
that Christ has given
to each one of us
we know that all of us
have a word based
ministry to one another.
And this is going to
show itself
in many different ways
based on how God
has gifted you
but at the foundation
of it
is we have a word
based ministry.
We are to know
God's word
and then communicate
God's word
to one another.
It's not all that we do
for one another
but it is the priority
of what we must do.
And once again
the intentional
togetherness
that characterizes
God's people
comes to the surface here.
We are to prioritize
our lives
to regularly gather
with other Christians
to grow together.
We have to speak
which means that
some of us
need to learn to speak.
Some of us need to learn
to let others speak.
I would put myself
in that category probably.
We gotta start
talking to each other
if we're ever gonna do this
it starts with
actually having
a conversation
with somebody
or prioritizing
your time
and your life
in such a way
that you can have
a conversation
with somebody
which I know
comes easier
to some of us
than it comes to other
but it's actually
a responsibility
that each of us have.
Speaking.
The next thing
is the truth.
So we talk
to one another
but then we talk
to one another
about the truth
of God.
So then it's one thing
for faith
for Christians
to faithfully gather
together.
It's another thing
when our conversations
are filled
with the things
of God.
I don't mean
that every conversation
we have
has to be a Bible study.
Sometimes we can fall
into a bit of a trap
with that
where we think
that if we get together
and we don't actually
all pull out our Bibles
and read a text
and actually begin
to break apart
that we haven't actually
done what God
has called us to do.
That's not at all
what I mean.
It's not that every conversation
is a Bible study
but the Bible
should infuse
every conversation
that we have
so that the scriptures
then guide
and confirm
and move forward
our counsel
so that a man
in a difficult place
in his marriage
unhappy with his wife
may go to his unbelieving
friend at work
who might commiserate
with his circumstance
and his counsel
would be
well there's a lot
of fish in the sea
you know
you're young enough
just get out of it
while you can
you'll find somebody else.
Oh but then
but then there's
when that man
sits down over coffee
with another believer
who's really spent
a lot of time
in the word
and he says
no well how much time
have you actually spent
loving your wife
the way that Christ
loves the church
and even if she's
the worst woman
you've ever known
in your life
your responsibility
and covenant
has been made to her
your responsibility
to God
is actually
to be faithful to her
to love her
to care for her
you see
you don't have to sit down
and have a bible study
to do that
you just have to know
your bible enough
so that your conversations
are then infused
with the word of God
the devotional life
that you have
in private worship
should regularly
spill over
into conversations
with other believers
when you're together
and you're talking
about things of life
you should routinely
be making a statement
similar to
well let's think about
what the bible says
about this
like does it
does it tell us anything
that might help us
understand this better
or guide our behavior
in this way
that's what should
characterize our speech
so we're speaking
we're speaking the truth
and then there's this
really hard thing
at the very end of it
that we're doing this
actually in love
you know it's amazing
how often the new testament
reminds us
that love
is to characterize
our relationship
with God
and with others
because it's the hardest
thing to do
it's the hardest
thing to do
even when speaking
the truth
about the bible
it's possible
for us
to lack
genuine love
and compassion
for others
and by the way
people are not
blind to this
people know
if you care
people typically
can pick up
on the fact
of whether or not
you're saying
these things
because you just
want to tell them
how to do things
or because you're
genuinely concerned
for their spiritual
health
somebody the other
day was
made a joke
about how
it seems
that so many
people that have
a familiarity
with the bible
their favorite verse
is judge not
lest you be judged
and we laughed
about it
because well
so many times
that just means
don't tell me
what to do
kind of attitude
but let's be honest
here for just a second
I understand why
a lot of baby
christians
love that verse
because a lot
of other christians
are just jerks
we wield the sword
of the spirit
to harm
rather than
to heal
and we'll speak
and we may even
speak a lot
and the things
that we say
are truthful things
and maybe even
biblical things
but the way
that we communicate
is not a way
that is filled
with the grace
and the love
of christ
and there's a big
difference in that
that's why this
is the hardest part
because it gets
from our heads
to our heart
to where we're
not just spilling
out the things
that we know
about god
but we're actually
communicating them
with what we know
to be true
of god's love
for us
and in conformity
to christ
we then respond
to them
in the way
that christ
would respond
to them
paul said
that when we
speak truth
and love
we grow up
into christ
we grow deep
in the word
colin marshall
said this happens
in our gatherings
but it also happens
day by day
as christians
speak the truth
to each other
and exhort one
another to stay
strong
it happens
in our homes
as fathers
bring up their
children
in the discipline
and instruction
of the lord
it happens
in the world
as we proclaim
the excellencies
of christ
before the nations
and engage
in gracious
salty conversations
with others
giving gentle
respectful answers
about the
christian hope
well let's finish
with verse 16
shall we
speaking of 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
so paul rounds
out the instruction
here
the joints
with which
the body
is equipped
do you see
that in verse 16
the joints
with which
the body
is equipped
refers to
each believer
in the church
this is not
the same
as the training
and preparation
that is mentioned
earlier in the passage
this is actually
referring to people
we are the
things with which
the church
is equipped
meaning that
christ has gifted
and called each
one of us
to build up
the body
and then there's
this other phrase
when each part
is working properly
the body
builds itself
up
now how
antithetical
to the modern
church is it
when god's
program doesn't
ultimately depend
on professional
ministers
who are paid
to do the work
the only way
a church
will grow
in spiritual
maturity
is when the
congregation
takes responsibility
for itself
when believers
are trained
and prepared
by gifted leaders
to help one
another
faithfully
follow
Jesus
and when
each joint
with which
the body
of the church
is put together
and equipped
when it's all
working properly
the church
grows
not necessarily
in breadth
though that will
probably be the
case over time
but in depth
spiritual maturity
and in likeness
to christ
so many christians
seem content
to live out
their christian life
and experience
as consumers
engaging with
the church
only to the
extent that it's
worthwhile to them
but god actually
calls us all
to be consumers
yes that's a part
of it
but to also
be contributors
it's a responsibility
we have
i think it's a
responsibility
for which
each of us
will be judged
because remember
what paul says
before he gets
to verse 11
this calling
and this gifting
comes from a lord
who has brought
us together
called us
into this work
and one day
he will return
to judge
the work
that we've
actually done
and accomplished
you see
that's where
the heaviness
of this responsibility
begins to fall
on us
when we see
that this isn't
just what
jared is telling
us to do
this is
this is actually
something that
christ has
commanded us
to do
and it's not
jared that
will stand
before one
day
it's christ
and as paul
said to the
corinthians
when we stand
before christ
we will be
saved
but there's
a good chance
that a lot
of our works
are going to
be burnt
up
if there
are any
to even
be judged
and so paul
says in verse
one
i urge you
ephesians
i urge you
and if i can
just echo
that
to say i
urge you
lakeside bible
church
i urge you
to do
these things