Ephesians 4:1-16, Get with the Team

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Ephesians 4:1-16 Get with the Team

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Ephesians chapter 4, we'll be reading verses 1 to 16. Hear the word of the Lord. I, therefore, a prisoner for the
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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 with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the
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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
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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all and through all and in all.
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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.
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In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
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He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
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And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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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.
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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.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Now, when
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I was a junior in college, running on the cross country and track team, my university put a lot of money, suddenly, into the athletic program, and they hired a track coach from LSU and recruited a lot of star runners.
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That led to the very unusual situation, by my senior year, of a sudden influx of all freshman stars, with only me left from the old team.
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Each one of those guys was probably the fastest from the high schools they came from, and so they were used to being the top guy.
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Now, we had to take all these hot shots and make them into a team. At one practice, the coach gave us just one instruction, run together for 10 miles, stay together, he said.
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And off we went, through the hilly suburbs, south of Birmingham, Alabama. I was the captain of the team, so I felt it was my job to try to get the team to follow the coach's instructions.
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And so, as we started to get strung out, obviously, some are faster than others, I told the guy in the lead, name is
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Chris, I told him, told Chris, after a while, double back, to go back to the stragglers, and so that we're occasionally regrouping.
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But he didn't want to do that. So, with about a mile to go, I asked one of the freshmen to run with me and help each other to catch
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Chris, the guy in the lead. So, at least some of us are coming in together. Well, he didn't understand that.
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He didn't understand the idea of helping another runner. And so, contrary to the coach's instructions, we came in all strung out, one by one.
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The coach is mad, not in a loud shouting kind of way. I don't ever remember him doing that.
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But he quietly walked to the middle of the field, and we sensed that we were just supposed to gather to him. We did. And then he said sternly, if we don't want to follow his instructions, then we can quit the team.
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It's my way or the highway. He literally said that. And we all slinked away.
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The next day, I felt it was my responsibility to apologize. I'm sorry we didn't all come in together.
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I didn't try to explain what happened to make myself look better, explain that I did what
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I could to get them to stick together, but they didn't listen to me, coach. I tried.
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Now, doing that would be merely me looking after myself. Here I was apologizing for the team, and we were wrong.
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No excuses. Even though I was the only one who tried to follow his instructions.
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And that's how you build a team. Listen to your coach. Try to get others to listen to him when they're going off their own way.
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Do what you can to keep the team together. Tell the hot shots to get with the team or to get going. And finally, apologize, even sometimes when it's not your fault.
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Coaches value team unity, chemistry, esprit de corps, or whatever you might call it, because they know that unity is essential for being successful.
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Modern Christians don't value that because they don't know that. Coaches are right.
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Here the apostle Paul tells us to basically get with the team in three parts, from verses 1 to 6, unity, from verses 7 to 13, maturity, and finally from verses 14 to 16, eventuality.
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Paul begins in verse 1 basing what he is about to say and what he has already said. Notice how he begins.
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I'm a prisoner of the Lord. In other words, he's in prison. I urge you, therefore. Well, what's the therefore?
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Therefore. It tells us that what he is about to urge us to do is a consequence of what he's told us before.
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It is based on what he's already laid down. So because of what he said earlier, particularly in chapter 2, where we're told that Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between people and created one new humanity.
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Remember, one new man, one new humanity. And then in chapter 3, that that was the mystery that was hinted at in the
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Old Testament but not fully revealed until now. And God gathers all his people, no matter what race or nationality, for the purpose, in chapter 3, verse 10, of creating a church that displays, for the whole universe to see, displays the multifaceted manifold plan of God to impress even the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.
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So because that's the reason for the church, then, therefore, in chapter 4, he urges us to do the things that accomplish that purpose.
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He urges. Notice he doesn't just say, I suggest. My recommendation is that you do thus and so.
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No, he urges because it's important. It's what Jesus came to accomplish. How do you impress angelic or demonic or even earthly powers?
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How do you impress them? With unity. Practically, how do you achieve heaven -impressing unity?
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Well, here, in chapter 4, he tells us, walk. Now, in their day, most travel was done by walking.
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You might walk to town or walk to the market or walk to a neighbor's house. Along the way, you might see a friend and stop and talk.
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You might see a stranger. How would you react? You might get invited to come into someone's house for a drink or you might see an immoral person tempting you or a gang of local ruffians wanting to make you part of their gang.
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You might see someone hurt. What are you going to do? Are you going to help or someone who needs help carrying something?
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You might walk like you have all the time in the world, stopping at every distraction, smelling every flower along the way or you might go quickly toward your goal.
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Walking, then, shows a lot about you, about how you treat others, about what you're drawn to.
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What are the kind of people you like? What are the kind of people are like you? It was a part of life and it was a picture of life.
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We've been called to be one new humanity, a united people of God with the walls of division broken down so walk like that.
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Now, what does that look like? First, walking in unity is being simply humble.
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Walk with all humility, he says in verse 2, like Jesus who did not count equality with God a thing to grasp.
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You know, like in the garden where you pray, not my will, but yours be done. Unlike our first parents,
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Adam and Eve, who wanted that equality and they were in another garden and instead of saying
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God's will be done, they said my will be done. So they reached out and they grasped for their will, for that forbidden fruit.
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And all sin since then is an attempt to grasp something that doesn't belong to us, to arrogantly exceed our place.
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Maybe by saying that something is right because it makes me feel good.
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I like it, so it must be right. Something is wrong because I don't like it. If every one of us is acting like we think we're
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God, grasping for authority that doesn't belong to us, divisions crack open because I might not agree that you're
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God, believe it or not. Shocking idea, I might not agree that you're God.
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Conflicts then erupt. There can only be one God and so if all of us think we're Him, we'll fight over who is right.
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No, I'm God, not you. That's why we need each other to settle in our minds.
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Each of us need to settle in our minds with all humility. Shocking idea. Think about it.
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I'm not God. Just consider that occasionally. I'm not
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God. Churches have divided over choosing the color of the carpet. That's kind of a famous thing.
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But that, you know, people almost joke about that. They'll divide over that, but that actually kind of happens.
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It starts out merely as a difference in taste. Some want blue, some go for red. Their choice of the color of the carpet begins to mean more than anything.
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More than the bond with other church members. Or they may divide over the music.
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Someone will decide that whatever the issue is, that it's a big deal to them. That it's even essential.
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And often they will dress their arrogant insistence that things be done their way in the respectable garb of sophisticated theology.
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But the reality is that it's about pride. My will be done.
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And how dare you have to assert your will against mine. But here we are urged to walk in all humility.
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That means don't get your, don't get your way sometimes. Just, you know, let someone else have their way.
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If you're running, run at their pace, even if they're slower. Or double back and go with the stragglers.
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If someone in church does something that you don't like, now, unless it's a matter of sin that's spelled out in Scripture, humbly realize that you are not the standard.
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You, here's another shocking idea, you could be wrong. Christians about 200 years ago when rates of drunkenness were very high said that drinking any alcohol, any alcohol was wrong and they divided over that, over anyone who wouldn't agree.
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Now, that's not humble because God didn't say that. Opinions raised to the level of God's word, my opinion, and you make it like it's
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God's word, which are then imposed on others and then separate you from others. That's a failure to walk in all humility.
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We can't be united around your opinions, only on God's word. As Matthew Henry said, the more lowly mindedness, the more like mindedness.
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We're almost at the 10th year anniversary. It's a horrible anniversary, but I think it'd be next month.
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Almost a joke. It's church split over the color of the carpet. We had people, I had a division here over what to do with the old floor tiles.
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We got them up and because they were popping up and we replaced them with these we have here now. And some people said we did it wrong.
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They weren't here. They didn't know what they were talking about and they wouldn't listen. They were implacable. And it's just so immature. Now, this is a reformed church.
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Some people have the idea, well, that just means we're going to preach predestination. So our doctrine will be a little bit different and everything else will be the same.
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But when you do that, you import the same problems with this whole religious culture all around us and you just do the same things over and over again.
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Problem of egotistical will, my will be done, not listening to anyone, walking instead of all humility, walking in ego and what
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I insist on, that's not just going away because you start preaching about election. It's going away because you have to deal with that character issue.
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And some people didn't here. And about 10 years ago, some of you left because of that because they don't like the way we took up floor tiles.
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It's the same thing again. But you have to change that core issue. Walk in all humility.
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The more lowly mindedness, the more like -mindedness. The second quality of our walk is that it is to promote, to promote unity is gentleness or meekness.
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It is a willingness to forego one's rights for the sake of others. If you lose a vote, you don't storm off in a barrage of accusations.
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That's what happened 10 years ago, by the way. We had three elders and we just said, well, we need to take up testimony about how the tiles were taken up.
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And I thought we should take up that testimony. Another one who was just so implacable, another elder said, no, we should, we should just leave it secret.
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The decisive vote came to the third elder. And I said, if he votes with you, you person that's just so angry and unreasonable, he votes with you.
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I'll submit to that decision. And if he votes with me, you should submit to that decision.
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You too should be gentle and meek. And the guy voted with me. He decided with me.
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So two to three, we decided to take up a testimony about how the four tiles were taken up.
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And he just found that just incredible. He couldn't submit to it. He just, he would not listen.
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He even said, this is not a plurality of elders. What are you talking about? You lost the vote. It's one to two.
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It's not hard math to do when you only three of us, three elders, one to two, you lost. You're supposed to submit. He wouldn't listen to it and he stormed off.
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But that's not walking in gentleness and meekness. If you lose a vote, you don't storm off in a barrage of accusation that he did.
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They had to accuse of all kinds of things up. He just made up often exaggerated or made up because you don't want to admit that the real reason you're mad is because you didn't get your way.
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Meekness is being so absorbed in some worthy goal. You know, in athletics, unity because the players, the athletes, they understand the goal.
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It's usually pretty clear. We want to win. Maybe in politics, the same thing. There's a goal that unites them.
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And so they're willing to be in the second team. That's what come in. Just come into a place every once in a while because they understand the goal and that's what they have to give toward it.
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What about for the church? What's our goal? What about Jesus's goal? Jesus's reason for coming. We've seen up so far in Ephesians.
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Let's create one new humanity. Save people from all kinds of races and make them one. Our church's goal that should so unite us that you refuse to be distracted from it because maybe you were slighted.
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Your feelings were hurt. You feel insulted. You thought the wrong decision was made. A meek person realizes it's not all about him.
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There's something much greater going on. What Paul talked about at the end of chapter three, the glory of God in the church, that God is glorified in the church.
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That so consumes you that it unites us. The third quality that you need to get this unity that Jesus died for is patience.
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Literally, long suffering which means you suffer long. It means you go through a lot of suffering.
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It doesn't sound very attractive but that's sort of what it is. I believe he expands on in the very next phrase bearing with one another in love.
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Now think what's implied by the word bearing. You're going to have to bear something and this is not a large mammal that growls.
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I mean bear, I mean the verb. You have to hold up under it. Think what's implied by that bearing.
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There are going to be temptations just to chuck it. To cut and run. To say
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I'm not putting up with these people anymore. I'm going elsewhere or I'll just stay home and listen to my favorite preacher and pretend that I love the
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Lord whose body I'm actually shunning. No. God calls us to walk worthily with other people.
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Notice that it's a specific group of people you're bearing with. Notice that this requires real church membership, not just attendance.
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Someone can faithfully attend churches going every Sunday but as soon as there's something that has to be born, there's some irritation, some disappointment, some burden, some decision was made like about the floor tiles that they don't like.
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Well then they'll go attend somewhere else and all along they'll say well I'm attending church. That's all that matters.
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No. They're attending but they're not bearing. You can't fulfill this passage just by being a faithful attender.
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You have to be a member attached to a particular group of people bearing with one another, suffering long and that tells us that we are sometimes going to drive each other up the wall.
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If we were all perfectly holy and graciously sanctified, there wouldn't be anything in each other that we would have to bear or suffer.
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But sometimes, secretly speaking for myself, we're jerks.
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Now are you going to bear with jerks? You better because God bears with you and between the two of you, guess which one is a jerk?
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To have the unity Jesus died for, you have to put up with each other. The church
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Jesus died for has people in it who will annoy you. They may do things you find irritating, express opinions you find offensive, inconsiderate of your culture.
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They don't understand why your English isn't perfect and sensitive and consistent. Maybe opinions sometimes are inconsistent with being a
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Christian. If only they would sit down and think clearly through the issues like you have. But your maturity isn't only shown by having thought things through better.
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It's also shown by bearing, being willing to bear with them.
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We won't have an absence of offense, but we can have the patience to work through it.
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Now all of these we will have, humility, gentleness, patience, if we are, in verse 3, eager to maintain the unity of the
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Spirit in the bond of peace. That is, if we have a zeal, that eagerness, a passion for what
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Jesus died for, a united church, then these things will matter more to us than getting our way about the color of the carpet or the floor tiles or how cautious to be about the coronavirus or whatever.
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We want peace and unity more than our opinions. After all,
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Jesus wanted peace and unity among his people enough to die for it. There is a bond of peace because we are bound together by the principles.
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Even if what separates us is race or politics or nationality or culture, what binds us is much greater.
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There is, in verse 4, one body, the church, one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whom all true
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Christians have. We all have one hope in Jesus, one Lord, Jesus, one faith in Jesus, one baptism commanded by Jesus when we choose to be disciples of Jesus.
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There is, in verse 6, one God and Father of us all. He's speaking to believers. And for us believers, this one
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God, he says, is over all. He's ruling. He's through all, providing, providing through your family, through your job, through everything.
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And he is in all, sustaining. All of this, all of the really important things, we share.
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And that should be enough. That should be enough to fire in us an eagerness for the bond of peace, for unity.
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Unity does not mean, no, uniformity, or to be bound together. But we're not to be the same.
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We each have different gifts. And if the gifts are combined with the unity, we have maturity.
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Unity produces maturity. Starting in verse 7. So we have all these foundations in common.
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One body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God, and Father. But our one
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Father deals with each of us differently, giving us different gifts.
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It is very divisive sometimes to expect everyone to be gifted in the same things you are.
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Someone's gifted in evangelism, they can just sit down and naturally lead a conversation toward evangelism.
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They go to dinner and they can somehow naturally share the gospel with the waitress. Some people have a gift for that.
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If you expect others to be able to do that, you don't understand. Maybe you think they're carnal, they're sinful, they're weak. Well, maybe they just don't have a gift for that.
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It becomes divisive when you expect everyone to be gifted in the same way you are. The gifts are for the maturity of the body.
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That's what Jesus descended and ascended for. In verses 8 to 10, Paul tells us how
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Jesus got those gifts. Remember, what was the reason Jesus came? Remember, about the third or fourth time?
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He created one new humanity called the church. And for that church to show to the universe
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God's manifold wisdom, the greatness of the gospel. So after he descended to the earth, descended to live as a man, he lived that perfect life that we couldn't and he took the punishment that we deserved and he rose from the dead so that we could have life.
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He descended to purchase his people and then he ascended to equip them.
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He ascended to heaven over those rulers and authorities and heavenly places far above all the heavens that he might fill all things, says in verse 10, winning like spoil in a war, loot, winning, spiritual gifts.
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What are those gifts? Well, they are certain people. They are apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor, teachers.
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And here, by the way, is the only place in the New Testament where the word pastor occurs. It's a noun, literally meaning shepherd like it is in the
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ESV here. And it's combined with teachers. All pastors are teachers.
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Who are they given to? They're given to the church. What are they given for? Maturity. The focus of this passage is really not on the gifts but on what the gifts are to produce.
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Maturity. The gifts are given in verse 12 for the equipping of the saints.
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And that's you. You're a believer. Saints doesn't mean that he's especially holy people in the past. They mean
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God set apart people. And the gifts are to equip them.
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They don't exist for the titles and the career they can have. They can be called apostle and get a lot of money. They exist for others, for God's people, the saints, that one body that all believers are a part of.
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But notice in case we think, well, they exist for us. You know, like the restaurant exists to cook and prepare food for us.
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I just go in and give them money and they give me food. The hired contractor exists to do work for us. These gifts exist to do the ministry for us while we just write the check.
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It's the way a lot of people think, right? The pastor and so forth, they do the ministry. We just kind of pay them to do it.
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Notice carefully in verse 12 because this blows apart, verse 12, blows apart that way that we often think.
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It's totally contrary to the way we often talk. We often talk, he's in the ministry.
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I'm, I just go and I listen to him. The pastor, we think, does the ministry and we do, what?
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Maybe, maybe nothing. Maybe, maybe just attend. Maybe just give money.
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But the pastor teacher and the others in verse 12 are given to equip the saints.
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Again, that's you. Train them, prepare them, give them what they, give you, need for, for what?
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For your entertainment? No, for the work of the ministry. Who's doing the ministry in verse 12?
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You are. All the saints, every church member are called to, notice the way he puts it, the work.
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Otherwise it's going to take effort. It takes some strain, you know, just kind of throw it together at the last minute.
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Many of you don't know. Rachel comes usually every Sunday an hour early before everyone else and works on this music.
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She works on it in the week too. Takes some work. Whatever you're called to, it may take some work. The work of the ministry to build up the body of Christ.
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That's what you are called each to do. Work in a service in a way that builds up the body, that adds to the growth of the church, makes the members more mature, makes, maybe brings more people, whatever.
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I'm called to help you do that. That's what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Preparing you to serve in some ministry that strengthens the church.
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That's why we say that our, you know, here, most churches have an evening service. Our evening service is when we run ministry services like Jim, or Jim Jr.,
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in which you can come and help serve. Now soon, probably, probably by the beginning of next school year, hopefully we'll be able to get back to our normal with our outreaches and we'll need people to help run especially
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Jim Jr., help engage the kids, help drive vehicles and do the work of the ministry. Works of service to help us reach out and minister to the youth.
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You need to serve. You need, you need to serve. It's partly for you, for what you need to serve in some way that builds up the church, the body of Christ.
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And that depends on the grace. How you do it depends on the grace or on the gift that's given to you.
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And it's different for each one. Our gifts are not for uniformity, they're for maturity.
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That's what each of us is supposed to do, to be working to do. Make the body more mature.
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You think, what do I have, what can I do to help make this body more mature, help it grow either numerically or in maturity.
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What does maturity look like? He describes that in verse 13. We work until we reach the goal.
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The goal is maturity, which is all of us, even the stragglers, being united in the faith, not divided over silly little matters.
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You know, some people like to debate about theories about the end times, what's the rapture going to be, our politics, our egos, and insistence on our own way.
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But so eager for the faith that is the gospel that saves people who were dead in their sin, but now by grace through faith, not of ourselves, they've been saved.
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So excited and consumed by these great truths, by the gospel, that we don't get distracted and divided over those little things.
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Where there's maturity, there is unity. Maturity is about a full knowledge of the
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Son of God, knowing Jesus. And you'll know Him by His Word, not only the Gospels, but all of the
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Word of God, the Bible, because it bears witness to Him and the Spirit. And this happens when the prayers in Ephesians are answered.
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Remember from chapter 1, the eyes of your heart are enlightened, and then Christ dwells in your heart through faith in chapter 3?
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That's the goal of spiritual growth, being like Jesus. And to grow us toward that,
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God gives gifts. Apostles who bear witness to Jesus, like Paul here in Ephesians. Prophets who speak to us like they did in the
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Old Testament. Evangelists to spread the good news. Pastors, teachers to shepherd the flock with God's Word.
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They're to give you what you need to do what you are supposed to do to build up the body.
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And if you're a believer, you are called to some kind of ministry. You're supposed to join the team and get to work building up the body.
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We have the unity, then the maturity, and finally, the eventuality.
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Starting in verse 14, if every member is serving for maturity, then the eventuality is this.
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Starting in verse 14. What we are to grow out of and grow into.
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The goal, maturity. The way to get there. The gifts and truth and love and work.
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You are to work at the ministry until we arrive at unity, and the fullness of Christ, which means that you'll be doing it all your life.
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We are not going to perfectly reach that goal until Jesus returns, but you are called to keep working toward it.
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In verse 14, in order that we won't be immature infants anymore, thinking only of ourselves and our feelings and our preferences and our comforts about whether we are being catered to or we are being made to feel important because our vote holds the most sway and people care only what we think as if we feel we are the most important person here.
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And if we aren't, then like an infant, we'll make everyone else feel miserable.
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Jonas, yeah, it's okay for him. He's at that age. But if you're, if you've been alive for a while and you're still making everyone else feel miserable, you don't get your way.
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There's a problem. Don't be just a fat little baby. He wants his bottle and you don't mean maybe he sampled solid food once or twice, but he says doctrine leaves him cold as ice.
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Two comparisons here of immaturity. Paul uses two comparisons to compare what immaturity is like.
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Well, first children. What are children like? They usually think of themselves and of right now.
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And that's about it. They don't think of anything else. They want to go to the playground. If you're busy today, promising tomorrow doesn't help.
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They don't feel sorry for you that you're burdened today and will easily add to your burden by throwing a fit, pouting, crying, pouring on the guilt.
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You were really a loving parent. You'd drop everything and take me to the park now. They'll easily add to your burdens if they'll think that that will get them their way.
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Spiritual children in the same way. We'll divide the church or try to over little things.
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Blowing those little things up into what they say is some huge principle. But really it's nothing more than them being a fat little baby.
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We are called to the ministry until we are no longer like that. He also compares immaturity to a ship at sea, especially the kinds of sailboats that he has in mind.
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The immature are like sailboats in rough waters, going up and down. They're up one day when they feel like God is blessing them.
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Things have been going well for them. They're happy. They got a raise at work. You know, they got a tax refund or whatever.
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Something came through. They got the gift they wanted. They got the recognition they crave at church.
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And then they're down. Down the next day, they've been ignored. Work is dreary.
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The pastor didn't pay them any attention. They didn't get thanked for the last thing they did. No one called on their birthday.
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They're blown around. They were blown around by some new doctrine. They hear like a sailboat blown by the wind really can't control itself.
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They hear that they can get rich and healthy by naming it and claiming it. They hear confident predictions about the rapture and the end times, and they just love that stuff.
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They hear insistence that only their preferred kind of music can be sung at church or only their favorite
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Bible translation could be used. Or they're blown away by that group comes knocking at their door and says, they are the restored church, founded on tablets found in the woods that no one has ever seen telling stories about Indian tribes that never existed.
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Or they say they've finally thrown off all the man -made traditions. People call them, you know, like the
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Trinity and the Divinity of Christ. And they use the true name for God. They say, Jehovah, nevermind that the
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Hebrew language doesn't have a J sound, which kind of seems odd. How does that work? They're blown away. These immature people by the simple idea that they really can't have their best life now, that God really does exist to make me feel better.
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That's what he's up there for. All for me. And so they'll go to conferences and revivals and temples and kingdom halls and are really excited about the next new thing they've heard and never seem to care about weighty things, about Christ, really, about Jesus, who he is, justification, election, the atonement.
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They're children if they're converted at all. Now, we, all of us, are to stay at the work of the ministry until we outgrow that kind of foolishness, the clever traps that people have concocted in order to draw people in and catch them, that prey on their weaknesses, deceive them, take advantage of their lack of knowledge.
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We're to stay at the work of the ministry until we're no longer like that.
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Eventually, God's people will mature if, in verse 15, we speak the truth in love.
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And it takes both those things, truth and love. But know two things about that.
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Those who are not God's people, and not all people are God's people, those who are not God's people will reject the truth.
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And secondly, no matter how lovingly it is shared, they will say it's hateful.
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No matter how lovingly, they won't accept it. We saw that at Averitt about a decade ago. Joe did a marvelous job loving in tone and in content of telling a young man who insisted on making homosexuality the issue and Joe told him the truth in love.
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But not only was the truth rejected, Joe was slandered as, quote, harassing. He wasn't harassing. He told the truth in love.
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Mary and I overheard him around the corner, so we know. The world doesn't want the truth, and it doesn't really want love either.
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It wants to be coddled and catered to. It wants its own way. And if we find someone who claims to be a
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Christian and we offer them the truth in love and they respond with rejection and accusations showing that they don't love the truth or care about the bond of peace, they may be a fat little baby or they may not be converted at all.
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Keep speaking the truth in love to them until they grow up or until they finally, really, believe in Jesus.
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Within the church, we're to speak the truth in love so that by it, we grow up in every way to be like Jesus. We are the body in verse 15, but with truth and love, we can grow to be like the head,
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Christ. Because from Jesus, he says the whole body, all of us, gets his life.
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And if every part is doing its job, every member is active in the work of the ministry, the pastor, teachers are equipping and we're maturing the body, telling each other the truth lovingly and doing it in that gentle, loving way because you want the babies to grow up or really finally be converted.
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If that is happening, eventually there will be growth, spiritual growth, sometimes true conversions of the hypocrites.
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That's growth. Growth isn't just about you. Notice what kind of growth he's talking about.
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Don't say growth just through individualistic lenses. I want to grow, which is a good goal for yourself. We've been taught that growth is all about me, but that's not the growth he's talking about here.
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In verse 16, growth for the whole body, each part is working, each part of the body is growing, makes the body grow.
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This isn't merely about our individual growth. He's talking about the team. Every part is helping the team, the body, the church to grow and grow to be more like Jesus so that the church as a whole seen together is like Jesus on earth.
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None of us by ourselves can be another Jesus, but the team, the body of Christ combined, each with their gifts, can be.
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Some Christians run as if no one around them is running. Some walk as if it was just Jesus and them, as if Jesus died merely to save a few scattered individuals and they're just happy to be one of them.
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But he didn't. He descended to purchase a church.
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He ascended to equip it. And he calls that church to run and walk together in unity toward maturity, eventually as a church becoming like the head,
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Jesus. It's time we grow up and realize that there are other people around us who we are attached to, who we are responsible for, people for whom
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Jesus also died. It's time we join the team.