You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
Our passion is to experience and express grace.
Join us.
Better y'all singing that than me trying it during the sermon.
Enjoy that more.
That song's not just fun.
It also reminds us of an important truth that we're going to talk about this morning.
This morning we're back in Ephesians chapter 4.
Let's remember where we are in our study of the book of Ephesians.
Paul has started out this letter to the church in Ephesus telling them about what God has done for them.
About how he's connected us by grace and in Christ to each other.
Paul has begun in chapter 4 as we've kind of crossed the midpoint of the book to start applying that to specific situations in our lives.
What's that going to mean for us in this situation or in this stage of life or in this area?
And he started inside the church with what it looks like for us to have true unity with brothers and sisters who are otherwise very different from us.
And then we looked at how there's diverse gifts given to those people who are unified in order to serve and build up the body.
And now he comes to his heart for the body of Christ.
What is it that he wants to see the church be and become?
These people who have unity through having the same father.
Who have this diversity of gifts for the sake of the kingdom.
God's now working them together toward maturity.
Church growth.
Not perhaps numerically the way we often think of church growth.
But spiritual maturity.
What will that look like in the body of Christ?
Will spiritual maturity be what we expect?
Ephesians 4 starting at verse 11.
These are not my words about church growth.
These are God's words.
So let's pay careful attention to the reading of his word.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors 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.
All scripture is God breathed.
These are his words.
Let's ask for his help now.
Pray with me.
Father, we do indeed ask for your help.
We come to your word and are expectant.
Because we know that you love.
Love to make it come to life in our hearts.
To show us what it looks like for your bride.
To be the church that you've created her to be.
Oh Jesus, don't just teach us this morning.
Change us.
Transform us individually and as a church.
That we would be everything that you've designed us to be.
We ask it in your name.
Amen.
I thought about playing on the screen this morning.
A live feed from the one-year-old nursery.
As an illustration.
Just picture it though.
It would come in and you'd see a kid.
And in the span of one minute, he would play with ten different toys or books.
Right?
He'd pick one up and he'd look at it and play with it.
And then he'd see another one.
He'd throw that one down and pick up the next one.
And then a shiny one would come over there being played with by another kid, of course.
Which would make him want it even more.
And he'd put his down.
He'd grab another one.
Continuing to move from one toy to the next really quickly.
Kids are like that.
Especially young kids.
Easily distracted.
Right?
Not often intently focused on one thing for a long time.
I remember reading books with Lily, my two-year-old, when she just got strong enough to turn a page.
When you read the book, there aren't that many words on a page of a kid's book to begin with.
But you'd only get four or five of them in and she'd just flip the page.
And then you'd get the first four or five words on the next page and she'd flip right through and get to the end of the book and throw it down and grab another one.
And you really wouldn't even know what the story was about.
But that's all she wanted was to make it through the book and turn the pages.
Part of the immaturity of infants is that they lack focus.
They're easily distracted or confused or tricked if you're that mean.
But we can be like this in our Christianity, can't we?
We can have what you might call a Pinterest Christianity.
Where, you know, I met Jesus a while back and he was neat.
But now what my Christian life looks like is grabbing at the latest and greatest idea.
A blog over here, an article I read over there.
And, oh, and then there's a really good book coming out.
I bet it's going to tell me what it looks like to really be a Christian.
And pastors are really good at this, by the way.
I'm describing something that I live with.
You know how many articles and blogs there are about being the pastor you're supposed to be
and making the new thing for your church so that you're really the church you're supposed to be?
There's a lot of those, and I read them.
And we can fall into that, moving from one thing to the next
and not ever going too deep for too long on any one thing.
We've certainly read more blog articles in the last year than chapters of the Bible.
So we easily get blown around by every wind of doctrine.
We get distracted, for example, by the good feelings of the prosperity gospel that we hear so much.
We think, I'll be a really mature Christian and avoid all that pain and suffering at the same time.
That'll be great.
That's what I'll do for a while.
We begin to buy the bill of goods our culture has been selling for years,
that truth is individual.
It's what's good for me, but it may or may not be what's true for you.
And so truth has become cheap, right?
Pragmatism, individualism have become much more valuable.
If we evaluate our Christian lives, our relationships with God,
if we're really honest, we feel like we're just floating along,
kind of in the same place I've been, just kind of making it through,
wondering if I've really got this figured out,
or if there's not something more to following Jesus,
still feel immature, confused about what following Jesus is really about.
Have you ever felt that way?
I've felt that way.
Paul describes this kind of spiritual immaturity in verse 14 here.
Remember what he says?
He talks about us being children tossed to and fro by the waves,
carried about by every wind of doctrine,
by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
Paul doesn't want this for us,
but he says we're just kind of floating out there on the ocean,
easily blown around, easily taken in.
And sadly, many days we're quite content with that, aren't we?
It feels pretty nice out here on the waves,
just floating around, nothing too much to think about.
But not every day will be easy.
Storms will come, and Paul wants us to be anchored,
to have a mature and firm grounding.
This passage is undeniably about church growth,
not about numbers of people in the pews or dollars in the budget,
but about spiritual maturity of the body and its individual members.
Just look in six verses,
we read about building up, mature manhood,
grow up, grow, build up, over and over.
This is what Paul's getting at.
He's explaining,
how does this unified body with diverse gifts develop and mature?
What keeps it strong and healthy?
What makes it flourish?
How do you know when it's really going strong?
And our natural tendency,
when we think about maturity,
is to think that,
hey, we'll get it to you.
We'll be this great church,
a strong, vibrant, healthy place
where we've been around long enough
that we've kind of figured church out,
and we've got lots of good stuff going for us.
Maturity will be us getting it together as a church.
Of course we think that,
because that's what maturity looks like
in the other areas of our lives, right?
When you grow up into adulthood,
maturity means you need mom and dad less and less.
That's what your parents are raising you towards, right?
That you can leave and survive on your own,
that you'll be independent.
And at work,
you begin to mature into upper management,
which means what?
You need the oversight of your boss less and less.
You learn to work independently.
But Jesus says it's different in my church.
Maturity is not independent success,
but being increasingly dependent,
being connected to, bound to,
anchored in Christ, right?
In Him, the most important thing,
and then to each other in His body.
Look at verses 15 and 16,
the way He says it.
Rather, speaking the truth in love,
we're to grow up where?
Grow up in every way into Him
who is the head,
into Christ,
from whom the whole body,
coming from Christ,
the whole body,
joined and held together
and each part working properly
is going to grow
so that it builds itself up.
That's how the body builds itself up.
That's where growth comes from.
The image is of dropping anchor into Jesus.
Not running around looking for all sorts
of new and improved ideas
for the latest and greatest way
to be a Christian or a church,
but dropping our anchor down deep in Jesus,
focusing on the one thing
that's most important.
The Bible talks about it in a lot of ways.
It talks about it as abiding in Jesus,
finding our rest in Him,
being connected to Him.
We strengthen our connection
to the head of the body,
which builds us up
and grows and matures us
because that's what He does.
We need to learn of Jesus more
as we grow in our faith,
not less.
We need to hear the gospel more
as we mature in our faith,
not less.
And that may seem obvious or churchy,
like of course we want to talk about Jesus,
but you'll hear very different things.
You'll talk to people who will say,
hey, you know,
I heard a sermon about
Jesus rescuing sinners
and the wonderful grace of Jesus
that saved us from our sins,
and you'll hear somebody say,
you know, that was a great sermon
for someone who's never heard
the gospel before,
but I don't know,
I'm a mature Christian.
I've followed Jesus a long time.
I want more meat.
I want something else.
And Paul says maturity means
never getting over Jesus,
never moving beyond Jesus,
always asking how Jesus impacts
this situation in my life,
dropping the anchor down
deeper into Jesus,
not hauling it up
and going in search
of more exciting waters,
not setting him aside
for the next shiny toy
that we notice,
going deeper into Jesus.
It's actually why this passage says
Jesus gave evangelists,
shepherds, teachers,
and so forth to his people,
because they're supposed
to build the body up
in the knowledge
of the Son of God,
experiencing him more,
becoming like him,
verse 13.
That's maturity.
He doesn't want the latest heresy
to confuse you.
He doesn't want the storms of life
to wash your faith away.
He doesn't want the shiny toy
to outshine the beauty of Christ
in your mind and eyes and heart.
So he says those who teach
are to show us the beauty of Jesus
over and over and over,
to help us learn more of him,
to know him more deeply,
to drop our anchors down in Jesus.
Don't ever think you need him less,
or that if you did,
it would be real mature
to need him less.
I saw this pretty clearly
in the text as I was reading it.
It's in other places in the Bible,
but I thought it would be helpful
to talk to some people
who've been following Jesus
a few more years than I have,
to see if it's practically true,
if they've found this to,
in their lives,
really to be true
of what maturity looks like.
I was thinking about
some of our senior members here,
and I thought,
you know what?
They pray a lot.
They're here a lot
in worship and Sunday school
and small groups
and Bible studies,
and that's not necessarily
a mark of spiritual maturity.
Attendance at Sunday school
doesn't qualify you
as spiritually mature,
but I wondered
why they're so regular.
Even after all these years
when six or eight decades
into following Jesus,
surely they're not coming
to hear something new, right?
Thinking they're going to
learn something else,
and I know from talking to them
it hurts to get up in the morning.
It's not easy to get up early
and get going.
Why such a priority?
So I thought I'd talk
to a few of them,
and I won't mention their names.
Their ages are all under 100,
but over 80,
and every single one of them
told me without hesitation
that it's true.
They feel their need for Jesus
more now than ever before.
One lady I interrupted
somewhere in the middle
of Deuteronomy, I believe,
said, and I quote,
the older you get,
the more you realize
you can't do it yourself.
They told me lots of things
like digging into God's Word
is the way they get their strength,
that they're constantly learning
and needing to remember
that God's in control
because they do things
like worry about their kids.
Isn't that crazy?
Worry about their kids?
They're actually struggling
with what I'm struggling with,
and they need to go back
to Christ and remember
how much He loves their kids.
Other things like that.
They said they need to hear
about Jesus
and be with people
who point them to Jesus,
that they're desperate for it.
And I said to one,
really,
I said to one of them,
seriously,
like a Sunday school class
taught by someone
half your age,
aren't you just being nice?
Oh, it helps me,
she said.
It helps me so much.
Maturity.
Dependence.
The older you get,
the more you realize
you can't do it yourself.
Don't take it from me.
Take it from people
who follow Jesus
longer than you've been alive.
I find that's always a good idea.
John Lennon wrote
the number one hit
that we heard
just a minute ago.
After he'd had
a lot of success,
a lot of things
had gone well
in his singing
and songwriting career,
and he'd been writing
about a lot of things,
but this was kind of
a turning point
where he decided
to write a song
that was honest
and truthful
about what he was learning
about life
and what he was seeing
in himself.
And you see what he says?
When I was younger,
I never needed
anybody's help.
I was strong
and capable
and self-assured.
But now something's changed.
My life has changed,
and maybe my favorite line,
my independence
seems to vanish
in the haze.
I need you.
I have need.
I'm not capable.
It's not that I don't need anybody.
I have great need.
I'm not independent anymore.
I thought I'd get here
and find myself
to have arrived,
and instead not.
more of Jesus,
being anchored in him.
That's how maturity occurs.
That's how church growth happens.
I'd ask you this morning,
what's informing your thinking?
What's shaping the way
that you live?
Ask yourself that question.
What things are impacting you?
Is it or he or she
pointing you to Jesus,
teaching you more about him?
I'm not anti-blog articles.
I read some of them.
I write some of them.
I don't have anything against them.
But we ought to ask ourselves,
what's shaping me?
Is it anchoring me to Jesus,
or is it leaving me adrift
on a sea of good advice?
We are to grow up
in every way
into him who is the head,
into Christ.
It's about him
and knowing him more
and going deeper
into Jesus.
But how do I know?
How would I know
if I'm maturing?
How would I look at my life
and how would I look
at my church and say,
what would it look like
if I was maturing in Christ,
if this was really happening?
Do I just kind of think,
well, maybe I feel more mature
than I used to.
I'm kind of happy
with where I've come.
How can I look at my life
and know if growth is occurring?
If this is really going on.
Paul says in this passage
that maturity will look like
truth and love being connected.
Let me show you this in the text
and then we'll talk about
what it means for us.
It's so, so beautiful.
Truth and love being connected.
Paul begins the passage
talking about truth,
about teaching truth,
the importance of good teaching
and understanding
and learning things.
that we're building up
the body of Christ
as that happens.
And he ends the passage
saying that connected to the head,
the body builds itself up in love.
Verse 16.
Truth and love,
truth and love
all through these verses.
And then notice verse 15 again.
Remember, this is the verse
that's contrasting
with the immaturity of verse 14
where we're blown around by the waves,
carried by every wind of doctrine.
What's the contrast to that?
He says,
rather,
what I don't want you to be
as spiritually immature children,
rather,
speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in every way
into Him who is the head,
into Christ.
Speaking the truth in love.
There's actually not a word there
in this passage for speaking.
It's really,
in the Greek,
truthing in love.
Truthing in love,
so connected to each other,
living the truth.
It's not less than
speaking the truth,
certainly,
but it's not just,
I say true things calmly
and with a smile on my face.
Speaking truth in love.
Sometimes that's all we think about
when we hear
speaking the truth in love.
I will say,
true things calmly
with a smile on my face.
It means more than that.
It means being about
the truth in love,
living in such a way
that truth and love
are connected
and intertwined
that you can't
pull them apart.
And what Paul's saying
is that as we connect
truth and love,
we grow up into Jesus,
right?
Rather,
speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up
in every way into Him.
As we speak the truth in love,
we grow up into Jesus,
right?
Why?
Because that's exactly
who He is.
You see,
for most of us,
truth and love
are mutually exclusive
in our lives.
Most of us are much more
comfortable with one
than the other,
aren't we?
And if you don't know it
about yourself,
ask your friends,
they know.
Are you more comfortable
with the truth or love?
Which one?
For many of us,
impersonally,
we are very passionate
about truth.
Look at your Facebook posts.
Man,
I'll tell you about the truth
on Facebook,
but then when I get
face to face with you,
I'm spineless.
I don't want to hurt
your feelings.
All of a sudden,
I can't love you
and speak truth
at the same time.
They seem mutually
exclusive for us.
We have to pick
one or the other.
But for Jesus,
truth and love
are never an either or,
but always a both and.
How is He described
in John 1
when He comes
from the Father?
Full of what?
Full of grace
and truth.
Jesus spoke
some of the toughest
moral teaching
in the history
of the world
and shared life
with some of the most
immoral people
of His day.
That's how He lived,
right?
Some of the most
stringent moral teaching
ever,
and yet He's hanging out.
He's relating
with immoral people.
He was a religious leader
who befuddled
religious leaders.
sinners.
And then in the greatest
union of truth
and love
ever in the history
of the world,
He went to the cross
for sinners.
The cross where the
just and holy God
of the universe
speaks truth
about sin,
how He hates it,
how serious
the offense is,
what it deserves,
and He pulls
no punches.
And the cross
where the
just and holy God
of the universe
loves sinners.
Where He sends
His Son
and sacrifices
His Son
for them.
Absolute truth
without compromise
and amazing grace
without measure
in the cross.
Isn't it glorious?
Isn't it beautiful
what Jesus
has done on the cross?
We sing about the cross
but stop to think
about it.
The truth
and honesty
about what our problem
really is
and the solution
to it,
I'm not just going
to tell you
what you deserve,
I'm taking it
for you.
See Him again
on the cross.
No soft selling
the truth.
All self-sacrificing
love.
That's what our
head is like,
right?
As we learn
more about Him,
anchor ourselves
more deeply
in Him,
are equipped
from His heart
of love
to grow as His body
as verse 16
describes,
that's what we
will begin
to look like.
People in churches
who ooze truth
and love
in the same moment,
whose lives
are full of grace
and truth.
Listen,
love without truth
is at best
mere sentimentality
and at worst
false hope.
And truth
without love
is at best
mere moralism
and at worst
false teaching.
They're both
terrible
if you divorce
them from each other.
Francis Schaeffer
once said,
biblical orthodoxy
without compassion
is surely
the ugliest thing
in the world.
Truth without love
doesn't become
truth anymore.
It becomes
something ugly
and disfigured.
truth.
But truth
thing in love
while not easy
is Christ-like
and counter-cultural
and glorious.
It's the glory
of our Savior
and who He is.
How He came,
how He lived,
what He did
on the cross.
Truth and love
together.
So what might
maturing look like
at Southwood?
What would it look
like for us
to grow into Christ?
To be true thing
in love?
I want to suggest
a few things
this morning
some of which
may make all of us
think a little bit.
The first thing
I think it would
look like
is that people
would have trouble
fitting us
into a box.
They wouldn't know
how to categorize us.
They'd hear
what we teach
and assume
we must be
conservative,
Bible-thumping,
intolerant fools.
They'd see
how we love
and assume
we must be
liberal,
open-minded,
anything-goes hippies.
As we mature,
this is what I mean,
I should get calls
from other pastors
in town
who see
how we
relate to,
speak of,
and befriend
our homosexual
and transgender
neighbors.
Others who are
marginalized
and people might
expect to find
rejection
from church people.
And I ought to
get a call
from another pastor
saying,
hey,
I'm confused,
I'm a little concerned.
Are y'all
compromising?
Have you gotten
lax on
biblical teaching?
And I ought to
be able to say,
no,
not at all.
We're just
starting to learn
together what
true thing
in love
means.
What it means
to have
truth and love
in the same
moment,
in the same
relationship.
I think it would
look like our
small groups
and our
closest friends
challenging us
on personal
things like
how we spend
our money,
who we're
starting to
spend time
with and
getting a little
bit too close
to and
pushing us
away from
those relationships
back to
our spouse.
Starting to
hear hard
things like
that that we
usually don't
talk to,
even talk about,
even with our
close friends.
And it would
look like us
receiving those
challenges as
love,
not antagonism.
You see,
if truth is just
individual,
if I haven't
firmly anchored
in truth,
then I have no
basis on which
to speak into
your life and
say anything
because,
I don't know,
I might think
this is good,
but it might be
fine for you
to be doing
that.
I can't love
you enough to
speak into
your life at
all.
But if we've
together anchored
in the truth
of Christ,
then I have
to love you
enough to
call you back
to Him away
from your
idolatrous or
immoral pursuits.
And I may have
to call them
what they are in
order to actually
be loving you.
You may need
to hear it in a
way that shocks
you and gets
your attention.
And those people
willing to speak
and those people
willing to
receive would
actually become
best friends.
And you'd
really have a
small group.
You'd be
truthing in
love with
each other.
I think we'd
start to realize
our dependence
on Christ so
much more that
we'd need a
new room for
prayer gatherings
due to
overcrowding.
We'd repent
of the scorn
and hatred
in our hearts
for others
in the church
who we felt
were underdressed,
too wealthy,
or made the
wrong schooling
decision for
their kids.
We'd stop
looking down
our noses at
them across
the sanctuary
and we'd
repent of
our sinful
hearts.
Our concerns
about the
worship and
the sermon
would be that
it didn't
exalt Christ
enough,
not that it
didn't entertain
me or it
went too
long.
We would
no longer
be comfortable
letting the
church be
known as the
place of truth
and the
government the
place to get
love and
help.
We'd have
session and
diaconate meetings
where we
brainstormed and
discussed how to
maintain our
commitment to
biblical truth
while reaching
out in new
ways to our
community.
There's lots
of things.
Go think for
yourself what
would it look
like.
I had to stop
the list at
some point but
I do have one
more.
I think we'd
become a refuge
for the broken
that they run to
when crisis and
hard times hit
because we're
anchored to a
rock.
People struggling
through divorce.
People beaten
down by alcohol
addiction, caught
in pornography
would find hope
and a home
right here.
Gordon
McDonald visited
an Alcoholics
Anonymous group
for several
months to
report on what
he learned and
to watch and
observe and be
part of the
group.
He writes this
about one
interaction in
the group.
One morning
Kathy, I
guessed her
age at 35,
joined us for
the first time.
One look at
her face caused
me to conclude
that she must
have been
Hollywood
beautiful at
21.
Now her face
was swollen,
her eyes red,
her teeth rotting,
her hair looked
unwashed, uncombed
for who knows
how long.
I've been in
five states in
the past month,
she said.
I've slept under
bridges on
several nights.
Been arrested,
raped, robbed.
She's crying now
uncontrollably.
I don't know
what to do.
I don't want to
be homeless anymore.
But I can't
stop drinking.
I can't stop.
I can't.
He says,
next to Kathy
was a rather
large woman
named Marilyn.
Marilyn had
been sober
for over a
dozen years.
She reached
out to Kathy
with both arms
and pulled her
head to her
chest and
stroked her
hair.
He writes,
I was close
enough to hear
Marilyn speak
quietly into
Kathy's ear.
honey,
you're going
to be okay.
You're with
us now.
We can deal
with this
together.
All you have
to do is
keep coming.
You hear me?
Keep on
coming.
And then
Marilyn kissed
the top of
Kathy's head.
I was
awestruck.
The simple
words,
the affection,
the tenderness,
how Jesus
like.
I couldn't
avoid a
troubling
question that
morning.
Could this
have happened
in the
places where
I have
worshipped?
Would there
have been a
space in the
program for
Kathy to
tell her
story?
Would there
have been a
Marilyn to
respond in
this way?
How Jesus
like.
I'm so
thankful that
I've seen
Marilyn's at
Southwood.
They're great,
great people to
have in your
congregation.
It's a gift
to have
someone who
will pull
you close
and comfort
you like
that.
I've heard
just recently
from a
former member
who shared
with some
of us a
deep addiction
a few years
ago.
She says
looking back,
quote,
I thought
guilt and
shame would
absolutely
kill me,
but not one
person looked
on me with
judgment,
only love
and grace.
And these
loving members
got her to
rehab.
They wouldn't
ignore the
truth.
Today she
calls her
story a
story of
redemption.
She met
Marilyn's
at
Southwood,
full of
truth and
grace at
the same
time,
both extended
to her.
I think
that's what
happens as
we grow.
We more
and more
are a
refuge for
broken people
for each
other.
We meet
each other
right there.
And this
isn't simple.
It's not
neat and
tidy.
Every
one of
these
situations
requires
wisdom
and talking
together
about how
best to
approach
them.
There are
lots of
challenging
cultural
questions these
days.
Lots of
questions we
could ask
in each
one of
them.
But one
filter we
should have
on every
Facebook
post,
every
conversation,
every
decision is,
does it
connect
truth and
love?
What great
conversations to
be having,
y'all.
Oh,
that we would
have conversations
like that
more and
more.
We'd be
having them.
The great
thing about
having a
tough conversation
like that is
that you can
have them in
the comfort
that this is
true.
You're not
going to
out-truth
Jesus and
you're not
going to
out-love
Jesus.
Neither of
them.
Neither of
those things
is going to
happen in
what you
come up
with.
So having
these
conversations
will push
us into
Jesus,
will anchor
us deeper
in Jesus,
make us
increasingly
dependent upon
Jesus.
Our head
because he's
the one
we know
who's the
only one
who's perfectly
brought grace
and truth
together.
He's perfect
in truth
and in
love.
He's the
one who
ultimately
guides his
body and
grows his
body and
that's good
news for
us.
Let's ask
for his
help.
Jesus,
help.
Help us.
We do
not naturally
love people
like this,
but you
do.
It's how
you love
us.
It's what
you did
on the
cross.
We're so
thankful for
it.
It means we
know it's
costly and
we're not
really eager
honestly to
sacrifice a
whole lot.
Oh,
Jesus,
would the
fullness of
grace and
truth that we
see in you
be so
beautiful,
so glorious
to us and
so grip our
hearts that
we would
grow into
our head in
every way.
Father,
make us like
Jesus.
We pray in
his name.
Amen.
For more
information,
visit us
online at
southwood.org.