Growth from the Head - Brandon Scalf

All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians chapter 4, and we will be continuing on in our series through Paul's letter to the churches in Ephesus.

Today, we will be looking specifically at verse 16, finishing out, really, the first section of chapter 4.

So Ephesians chapter 4, verse 16, and today's message is entitled,

Growth from the Head. And so if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and supremely sufficient word.

For the sake of context, we will begin reading in verse 1. We will begin reading in verse 1.

This is the word of God. Therefore, I, the prisoner in the

Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called, and one hope of your calling, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean? Except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth.

He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.

And he himself gave some as prophets, and some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the

Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature, which belongs to the fullness of Christ, so that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love.

We are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is

Christ, from whom the whole body, being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever, amen? Amen, go ahead and have a seat and get your eyes on verse 16.

Just a matter of weeks ago, I was at a local bookstore, and it is also a large chain, so don't stretch the word local too far.

But one of the things I noticed is one of the biggest sections in that bookstore was that of self -help and or self -improvement.

And what I found interesting about that is it seemingly is on the forefront of everybody's mind that they need to get better, that the way in which they exist is not going to sustain them for the long haul, whatever their aim might be.

And of course, as we have examined chapter four of the book of Ephesians, this same reality is pressed ever before our faces.

And that is, if we want to be a mature church, if we want to be a doctrinally drenched church that grows into Christ's likeness, then we are going to have to do some improving.

In fact, the entire Christian life is one of constant improving.

But the reality is this improving is not an improving that we do by ourselves.

See, we stand opposed, and we stand in a different plane, as it were, than those shopping at this bookstore who would not name the name of Christ.

Most of these books were not Christian in nature and had expletives in the title. But here in the church, we understand that we can't self -improve, we have to be

God -improved. And so the world offers countless paths to self -improvement that we assemble, not as ones who improve ourselves, but as a supernatural body joined and held together and improved by Christ, who is our head.

Last week, we talked about the reality that we needed to grow in doctrinal maturation. And over the last couple weeks, we have talked about how it is that we go from doctrinal immaturity to doctrinal maturation.

And that is we use the gifts God has given us according to verse seven of chapter four to love on, to essentially help equip and to serve one another.

But then God has also given men gifts, that is certain offices to govern his church and to cause them to be more mature, especially as it pertains to doctrine.

He has given apostles for that task, he has given prophets for that task, evangelists for that tasks and pastor, teachers, of course, evangelist and pastor, teachers being the only ones that are still in operation today, though apostles and prophets are not unimportant.

In fact, they are ridiculously and irreplaceable important.

They are the foundation on which the entire church is built according to Ephesians chapter two, verses 20 through 22.

Christ Jesus, of course, being the cornerstone. And then we got into the specifics about how we needed to be protected from horrible doctrine and how we're easily tossed to and fro like children.

And so we understood that it was time for us, if we are to be a mature church, to grow up into Christ.

Today, however, we are going to look at not so much that how to grow, but the who does the growing, right?

Who does the growing? So let me ask you this before we start. Does Jesus grow the church in maturation?

Do we grow the church in maturation? Which one is it?

No certainty in this room. All right, well, check it out. Here's the deal. Yes, right? Jesus is behind it all as the sovereign architect and the one who sovereignly orchestrates fruit to be bore on our tree, as it were.

And yet, because of that working and because of the gifts he has given us, we are to engage one another.

We must understand ourselves as the body. So if we are to be a mature church, there is no program, no strategy, no man -made vision that will be able to make us the people

God intends for us to be as the church. It is only, only by divine work through Christ that we are able to mature as the truth is spoken to one another in love.

And so as we fix our eyes on verse 16, Paul is going to paint for us a picture of the growth that can only come from the head.

And we will see, of course, that Christ initiates, Christ sustains, and actively, purposely, and sovereignly grows his body by ordaining each member's place, purpose, and gifting.

And so if you're looking for a blueprint for how the church grows, look no further than the sovereign hand of our sovereign

Savior, Jesus Christ, our head.

So the first thing that I want you to see, this is point number one, the sovereign architect of doctrinal maturation.

The sovereign architect of doctrinal maturation. Look with me at verse 16. Of course, we pick up in the middle of a thought, but it is important that we pause here and consider what's being said.

In verse 15, it says that we are to speak the truth in love to one another, and this is because we must grow into all aspects into him who is

Christ, the head. And it's from him, right?

So when it says here, the first two words of verse 16, from whom, who is it talking about?

It's talking about the antecedent, the thing that came before it, right? He's talking about Christ, who is the head.

He is the head of the whole body. And it's him who is sovereignly architecting, as it were, or sovereignly building, to use an actual word, the church.

We're not building the church. Christ, the head of the body, he is the one that is joining and holding together the church by what every joint supplies.

So you see here, he's sovereignly orchestrating, sovereignly building the church.

He's joined us in one body, he holds us together, but he does that through what?

Through you, you're the joint. You're the joint, according to the properly measured working of each individual part.

So you see here, the apostle begins with a clear proclamation that Christ himself is, in fact, the architect of our maturation, of our growth.

What this means is, even though we've talked about the importance of the pastor -teacher, that there is no person, no pastor, that can initiate or sustain this type of work.

The only thing that I can do, or any pastor of this church can do, is to motivate you up until you get to that door.

And then, of course, the spirit has to do his work. In fact, that's what his unity is based around, which we are working hard to protect, according to chapter four, verse three, right?

We must be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. So our unity and our maturation is, in fact, the work of Almighty God.

In the parallel passage in Colossians chapter two, verse 19, Paul is rebuking certain people from not holding fast to the head.

And then he says, from what the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

So what's happening here at Heritage is we grow in maturity and we grow in number is completely the work of a sovereign architect alone.

And that means some things. One of the things it means is that Christ is the life and vitality that flows to the church and eventually from the church.

And apart from him, we are nothing but scattered bones, lifeless and motionless, but from him and through him and to him, the mysterious outpouring of his spirit, the church is endowed with every grace and strength that is required for our growth.

So in saying that there is a sovereign architect, namely Jesus Christ, behind our doctrinal maturation, we are saying that growth is not self -wrought in any sense of the word.

It is divinely given and it must be stewarded. It must be stewarded.

This is why Zechariah 4, 6 says that this is the word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel saying, not by might, nor by power, but by spirit, says the

Yahweh of hosts. That is the story of the church. The story of the church is God creating it, bringing us into existence.

And that is literally the argument of Ephesians all the way up until this point, is it not? Chapter one is all about how

God makes individual Christians. Chapter two is about how he essentially does it in space and time.

So in chapter one, it's behind the curtain. It's behind, it's in eternity. It's before the foundation of the world, how the triune

God orchestrates salvation on behalf of his people. And then in chapter two, this is what it looks like in your life.

You're woken up from the dead. You're now able to respond to spiritual stimuli. And then in chapter three, it's all about how he takes two people groups who were divided, the

Jew and the Gentile, and has brought them together into the church. And then now he's telling us how we are to live inside that church.

How one, in other words, ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the pillar and buttress of the truth.

So Christ being the architect, I mean, he gets first place in everything. Colossians 1 .18 makes this clear when

Paul says, he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place.

And everything, Jesus has first place over what? Everything, everything.

And everything is for him and through him, right? And that is what says here, from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies.

Hebrews, the author here, I believe it to be Paul as recorded by Luke.

Although if you don't agree with that, you know, that's fine. There's a lot of debate as to who wrote

Hebrews, but he says this, for it was fitting for him, speaking of Jesus, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering.

Likewise, in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says of himself in verse 27, all things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

So not only is Jesus over everything, not only is he in and through everything, but he is the initiator of everything, including salvation.

Paul makes this argument in 1 Corinthians chapter eight, verse six, when he says, yet for us, there is one

God, the father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one

Lord, who is also the one God, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through him.

You see, in this one verse, Paul is equating Jesus with God and saying, look, everything was made for and through God, the father, the son, and as it is applied by the

Holy Spirit. So the reality is he is also the divine initiator.

He is the divine initiator. Notice Paul's phrase here again, from this phrase here, from whom the whole body,

I'm being joined together by what every joint supplies.

He is the source. He is the source. I want you to notice this body imagery.

Now, we haven't dove into it as much as I would have liked over the course of the last couple of weeks, but I want you to pause here and think about it for a minute, because I think it's incredibly, incredibly important.

The reality is a human body has cells, it has organs, it has veins, and in order for a body to work properly, those things need to be in working order and they need to be taken care of.

And if they do not, we get sick, we suffer, and we might find ourselves on our deathbed.

And so if we want to be a mature church, we must understand that we are in fact a body and that body is governed not by a doctor, but a heavenly physician named

Jesus who nourishes each individual member as we grow in love and the unity and the spirit.

You see, Jesus initiates. Jesus initiates and he sustains. So not only is

Jesus the divine initiator, but he is also the omnipotent sustainer.

The omnipotent sustainer. Paul continues not just by saying from whom the whole body and then what to do, but being joined and held together by what every joint supplies.

I want you to see these two words here and I want you to take them seriously. We have joined and then we have held together.

So Jesus is the one who initiates, and we know that, right? Because it says from whom the whole body being joined together.

And then if you look down, actually, at the end of verse 16, he continues the thought, causes the growth.

So Jesus causes the growth. He's the one behind the growth. And here, as we see these two words, joined and held together, we see that he is the sustainer, the omnipotent sustainer of that growth.

We don't hold ourselves together. Jesus holds us together. Here's what that means. The church, friends, is on Jesus' shoulders.

We don't have to worry about whether or not this thing is going to grow deeper or wider.

We have only to be faithful. That's our only requirement.

That's our only need. I promise you, there is not one conversation that happens in our elders' and or deacons' meetings that goes like this.

What are we gonna do to get more people in the door? Never happens.

The conversations that we have are how do we be more faithful? How can we be more faithful?

Because the reality is Jesus is the one who initiates the church. He's the one who sustains the church.

And so we ought not freak out or fret if people start walking away, so long as we're preaching the word.

In fact, 2 Timothy promises that if we do preach the word, people will not like that and they will leave.

So God will sustain it as he sees fit. And so he has joined us. He has brought us together in the church.

Not only that, but he holds us together. He holds us together. That is that he binds us together in unity, and in order for that to happen, we must grow.

A unified church is one who is growing, and it is one who is a mature church.

And a mature church is, as we discussed last week, marked by love toward one another.

Friends, do you see that as a beautiful reality, that Christ is actively holding every part of this body and every other body that is honoring to him in place?

He's doing that for the universal church and every local expression of that universal church.

Oh no, the election. If the candidate that we don't want to win wins, then, you know, dark days for the church ahead.

No. No. Because Christ has initiated the church and he is sustaining the church, and here's the deal.

The church always grows with the sprinkling of blood.

This is why the early church often said, it is the blood of the martyrs, the blood of the martyrs that caused the church to grow.

It was the blood of the martyrs that was the seed of the church, is the exact quote. So hard times produce growing and maturing church members.

And why is that? Well, in Oklahoma, for example, over the past hundred years or so, you didn't have to be a

Christian to come to church. It didn't cost you anything. In fact, by going to church and claiming to be a Christian, you probably got treated better.

Culturally, you were seen as one of the guys, no longer the case.

So if you're sitting in a pew today, or increasingly as time goes on, then you really believe what it is that you're saying.

Because it'll cost you too much. It'll cost you too much.

So knowing then that Christ is our sustainer, let us not worry about what's happening around us, but what's happening here as we strive for unity and peace within the church.

We are called to speak the truth and love to one another and to be those joints and ligaments that hold this whole thing together, avoiding divisions and standing firm in the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

And as we do that, we trust in Christ's power to hold us together. And that empowers us to cultivate relationships and reflect his sustaining love.

Not only that, but this also means that he is the sovereign head.

So he is the sovereign initiator. He is the omnipotent sustainer, and he is also the sovereign head, right?

Now this is implied from the text. It's in the previous verse. But of course, he's speaking of the head that is governing the body.

He's directing, quote unquote, look with me at the text, every joint according, and here it is, to the proper working of each individual part.

You have a role to play in this church, and that benefits not only this church, but the universal church.

And he is using you. He's using you because he is the sovereign head, and he is measuring and coordinating every single detail.

The body operates as each part fulfills its function under his authority. And so when we look at this phrase, according to the proper working, it shows us that Christ gives each member a unique role because he's given them, as we've seen in verse seven of chapter four, a unique gift.

And it's all according to Christ's gift, his measuring of it.

In other words, how much you possess. Nothing, in other words, is random.

Each believer is assigned a place and a function in God's sovereign plan to redeem and sanctify a people for himself.

By his sovereign grace, and by his sovereign choice, and by his sovereign working, he imparts gifts as he sees fit.

And as we rest in that and employ those, the church flourishes, not by human wisdom, not by human effort, not by fleshly endeavors, but by the spirit who sovereignly works in and through each and every single one of us.

And I want you to consider then how Christ sovereignly ordered this church and knit it together.

He's not done so haphazardly, but meticulously. And he has arranged each soul, every saint, as a vital member within the body, serving their divinely appointed purpose.

So you've been given to this body for a very special reason. Every single one of you.

Think about it like this. Jesus is like a skilled builder, erecting a structure, right?

Where each stone is securely placed, fitted to one another with precision.

Children, would you look at me for just a second? I wanna maybe try to help you understand what I'm saying here. How many of you have played with action figures or maybe some sort of Barbie doll that like the joints, the arms and the legs and things like that come off, right?

We know that people and these action figures, they need hands, right?

To pick up the other things that are around that you're playing with. They need feet so they can walk from the house to the car, right?

And then you take off one leg and maybe you put on another one if it has fallen off so that the body can do what it was made to do.

In the Bible, in the book of Ephesians here, Christ is helping us understand that the church is like a body, like that.

And he is putting on the legs and putting on the feet and he is, like your hand moves the action figure, moving us so that we might honor and glorify him.

And so how do we respond to all of this truth? Well, we submit to him. We submit to this

Christ who is the head, the sovereign head. And we embrace with tenacity the role that he has assigned to each of us.

Where do you feel called to serve? What God has...

And so you might ask the question, well, how do I figure that out, right? Because so many church will put on big classes and they will put on big conferences and then they will have you take some sort of quiz and test and you'll meet with a spiritual advisor or coach and they'll try to get to the bottom of how

God has intricately woven you and based on these certain tests, it reveals kind of like your inner calling and or gifting.

All of that is trash, okay? But here is the truth. This is how you figure it out.

I'm gonna do what they do in a whole year in five seconds. What do you like to do and what are you gifted at?

Boom, that easy, right?

That's what you serve the body with. Well, I don't know what I'm good at. Okay, well, don't do the stuff that your spouse says you're bad at, okay?

Don't do that, right? The stuff that you get eye rolls when you do, don't do that, right?

But the things that you seem to be able to do without much opposition, that's what the

Lord has called you to do, to serve this body. That's what he's done.

And whatever that might be, the correct response is to not covet the positions that other people have as they use their giftings and as they serve faithfully where Christ has placed them.

He's placed you where he wants you, he's placed them where he wants them, and he's placed us together so that some of us can be hands, some of us can be toes, some of us can be heels, some of us can be calf muscles, some of us can be kneecaps, and on and on and on it goes, and we need all of those pieces or we fall like someone who's missing those pieces.

So we obey his direction, we contribute to the body's health, and display his wisdom to one another and to the watching world.

This ought to humble us and cause us to acknowledge our utter dependence on the one who gives, the growth.

When Paul is writing another letter, he's rebuking the church for having favorite pastors within the same church essentially.

Now there's kind of a division going on, and Paul is saying, what a stupid thing to do, what a stupid idea, right?

What does he say? He says, you know, I may have watered, Apollos may have planted, but it is

Christ who gives the growth, it's Christ, and everybody else is just serving their purpose, trying to honor him and be a help to everyone else as we mature in our understanding of who he is and what he has for us in the church.

Now I hope that you see as we journey along how important the local church is then, right?

It's not just some dude getting up behind a pulpit and monologuing, it's someone who is preaching by the power of the

Holy Spirit, the word that he has given his people, men gifts.

And it is a place where everyone else has given gifts and to operate within one another, to the help of one another, to mature, speaking the truth in love, serving them with the gifts that Christ has given them.

And we do that over and over again and all the time, trusting in Christ's power to work in all of those things, which enables us to speak the truth boldly, knowing it's not our eloquence, but God's power that changes hearts and also helps us to persist in loving truth telling, even when we don't see immediate results, because why?

Christ calls us to grow through all of the joints and so on and so forth.

The second point that I have this evening or this morning rather, feels like the evening, but in a good way.

The second point I have is the sovereignly orchestrated fruit of doctrinal maturation. So yes,

Jesus is the sovereign architect that causes the growth and doctrinal maturation, but there is sovereignly orchestrated fruit that comes from that.

When Christ initiates, sustains, and he sovereignly directs his body, the natural result is growth.

But this growth, as I said, is not done so in haughtiness, trusting in our own ability to self -improve, but it is a

God -improved effort. But not only that, it's not even for self -satisfaction.

It's not just for self -satisfaction. The growth that is given, the fruit that is given, is given for the edification of one another.

So your gift, one of the reasons that you'd not, shouldn't be upset about the gift that you've been given if it's not the one that you want, quote unquote, is because it's not for you.

It's for everybody else around here. It's for every single person sitting in these pews.

Look with me, in verse 16, he goes on, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

And remember last week, we talked about the reality that building up means to edify, to encourage, to strengthen.

And so this head is sovereignly building and sustaining the church and directing its path so that, what, we might be encouraged, we might be edified, we might be built up, and then we might grow.

Now, when we look at this word grow, we have to understand that really, this implies something. It implies one thing, we need growth.

Or else why would we need one another to grow? But also, that there is purposeful activity, right, that needs to happen.

And this is why people who are divorced from the local church, who have theological arguments as to why the church should not be set up the way it is, as far as ecclesiology, as far as being a church member and all of these other things, they're literally cutting themselves off from the

Christian life. They're stagnant spiritually because they have no one to grow them.

Because why? It doesn't say that Christ is just growing everyone in their prayer closets or wherever else they might be.

He's growing them in the context of a fellowship that is set up the way that Ephesians 4 has shown us it is in fact set up.

And growth means that there is intentional activity behind it.

Growth is the divine purpose for the body of Christ. It's not to make everybody else in the world

Christian. That's the job of Christians. You hear what

I'm saying? It is not the work of the church, the responsibility of the church, to make sure that everybody outside the church is

Christian. That is the job of the individual Christian as they're engaging out in the world as the kingdom of God.

The church is a place where people are grown, sanctified and sent out for battle.

That's what happens here. That means that what's going on here as we grow must not be passive maturation, but active maturation as we engage everyone.

We've already seen how we do that. It's primarily through the speaking of truth in love.

But it happens to each one of us and we must all grow. If we're not growing, we're dying.

There is no middle ground. And what you need to understand if it's not clear already is this is not the work of the pastors.

It's not the work of one individual. It is the work of every single person, right?

Look with me at our texts, right? According to the proper measure, working of each individual part.

And this because of Christ causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

So as we submit to Christ, as we love Christ and love one another, speaking the truth in love, we are building ourselves up.

We are growing, maturing in love.

Every believer in other words is called to actively participate in this endeavor.

You do not get off the hook. Children, would you look at me?

I wanna explain to you maybe how this works by using a biblical illustration. In John chapter 15,

Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches. And of course branches, if they are in him, bear fruit.

That means that fruit forms on those trees that are healthy. So I want you to consider that tree that he's talking about.

As the vine bears fruit, it is proving that it is tapped into the source and each branch grows of that tree.

And each one of those branches contributes or helps the other tree, other branches of the tree be healthy.

Have you ever seen a tree, maybe a tree in my backyard if you've been over there for fellowship group or any other tree that might have a limb on it that's dying?

What happens? The rest of the tree, if that's not cut away, will begin to die as well.

And the reason for that is because all the nutrients is gonna try to go to that branch.

But if it's all healthy, the nutrients that's inside the tree coming from the ground is going to go and distribute itself throughout the entire tree, making it healthy overall.

And the church is the same way, right? If we're not each actively involved, then what we're trying to do is we're trying to nourish the dead trees.

And not only does that not help that branch, it needs to be cut off, but it harms the rest of the body, rest of the tree.

So each believer must contribute to the growth of the body as they abide in Christ.

So we must embrace our sovereignly helped responsibility in the growth of the body.

We must engage actively in the very ministry that the

Lord has given each of us, right? And I make that assertion because if you look back with me in the text from last week and the week prior, verse 12, it says these pastors and teachers were given for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, or some translate that the work of ministry.

The idea being here is that we are all ministering to one another with the gifts that the

Lord has given each of us. And if we understand that, guys, that's gonna change everything.

That's gonna change everything about the way that we do church, it's gonna change the way in which the people view our church, it's gonna change the way that we live our lives.

When you understand that it's not just the pastor's job to make sure that everybody's growing, to make sure that everybody is in love being told the truth, that is serving, then heritage will look otherworldly.

It'll look heavenly because we are leaning into the heavenly head.

And in many ways, we already do that and do it well. But as the Bible makes clear, we could always do better.

We can always grow and growth is what we need. And here's the idea, and here's the truth, friends.

That's gonna be hard. There's gonna be growing pains. You're gonna try stuff and maybe it doesn't work all that well.

You're gonna try to serve in one capacity and people are going to run their mouth about how they could do better.

Okay, well, then why aren't you doing it, right? So there's all of these different things that are gonna happen. Maybe you're not gonna feel confident.

Maybe it's gonna require you to say no to some things outside of the church. Maybe it's gonna require a little blood, sweat and tears.

But remember that everything that matters is costly.

Everything that matters is costly. But the

Lord has promised to sustain you. It is he who is working in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

And so how do we attain this growth? How do we attain this maturation?

We achieve it, at least in part, when every believer understands what's at stake and they begin to participate using their gifts and their opportunities to strengthen the body.

Finally, Paul describes this growth as not only growing and edifying, but the building up of itself in love, in love.

This is a theme that keeps being repeated, why? Because we are not, apart from Christ, very loving people.

And we have to be reminded over and over that if we're not doing all of this lovingly, then it's not of Christ.

That's not of Christ. Growth in the body of Christ is transformative in that it makes us more truth -telling lovers of God and his people.

And what's going on here too is this corporate piece.

Remember I said that this is not about you, it's about others. It's about edifying and building them up.

The same is true here. As you are individually matured, this is what happens.

The body itself builds itself up in love. That is not only is the building up or the edifying for the individual believer, but for the entire body.

That's what we're after. We're after a holy church that loves Jesus and has been orchestrated to be a ministering to one another church.

The growth is self -edifying in the sense of the body itself, but from the individual perspective from everyone else.

Now I know that's a hard concept to wrap your mind around because we live in America right now. Everything is insanely individualistic.

I was just talking to somebody I ran into about one of the issues with things like the

American Legion, where we used to meet. We used to meet at the American Legion, which is a place where veterans come and hang out and have kind of a community situation going on.

And part of the reason for its decline here over the last 50 years, 40 years, and especially within the last 10, 15 years is we have become so individualized as a culture that belonging to anything really doesn't matter all that much.

And so why do people flee the church? Why do people not participate in the life of the church?

It's not because they're doctrinally convinced, their passions are governing them and they have bought into the cultural lie that individualism is the best way, but Jesus did not die for you and left it at that.

He died for a body of believers and he is maturing them and he is working in them and through them as they are led by pastor teachers and deacons and evangelists.

And that's the beauty of the whole thing. It's building itself up in love. It's not building up the whole world, it's building itself up in love.

And as it builds itself up in love, then people go out into the world and they make

Christians of the world fulfilling the great commission. Here's what this means.

The body grows as it is connected to the source, Jesus Christ, the architect, as each member fulfills their role.

This result is then a transformation that aligns the church with the image and the purpose,

Christ. Now, I wanna pause here for a second because this helps us to understand something very important, namely that the church grows not merely by knowledge, that is understanding of doctrinal truths, though it can't be divorced from that, right?

We talked about that for like the last six weeks, but sometimes more theology books are more of a hindrance than a help.

Nor is it grown by workings or doings, but it is in love.

And I'll be honest, this is in many ways, as I heard one

Puritan say earlier this week, a most sovereign wonder, a most sovereign wonder.

Why? Because Christ doesn't merely gather a people for himself, like as if he's just saying, come here, learn this stuff, but he is tenderly knitting them together in love by the spirit as they are rooted in the truth.

A love that springs from the very heart of God that is displayed in the crucifixion of the

God -man, Jesus Christ, a love that is unlike anything else.

One Puritan writer said it this way, a love like the dew on mountain Hermon descends from the heights of heaven upon his chosen.

Our love, so feeble, so weak, so prone to fail is sustained by the one whose love is inexhaustible.

Do you know why we will continually be swept up in and sustained in and built up in love?

Because the well of Christ's love, friends, is never ending. The Lord our

God has decreed that his people be not a mere collection of souls, a depository, if you will, but a family knit together by bonds stronger than earthly ties.

For this love is sovereignly imparted, a fruit of his spirit by which we bear one another's burdens, forgive as we have been forgiven, spur one another on toward holiness and Christ -likeness that we might be able to say, yes, we are walking worthy of the calling with which we have been called.

And this love is not a mere suggestion either. It is a divine decree.

You don't get to be the church, act like the church, serve the church in a way that is not loving or you're not being the church.

The church cannot thrive without love any more than body can live without blood.

And Christ's blood spilt is what makes it possible for you to live out the reality that's being talked about here in the face of other sinners who will sin against you.

And it is the sovereign purpose of God that his church should be built up in love where love binds everything together in perfect harmony.

We can see that in Colossians chapter three, verse 14. So we work hard and it is hard, but it's worth it.

And this is how we become a healthy church. If you've been here for the last few weeks, put all of these together.

That's what makes a healthy, maturing, growing church.

And if it were easy to be a healthy church, then everybody would be doing it.

So understand that it is going to take hard work.

So how do you do it? How do you build up your fellow believers in love? Well, we've went over that ad nauseum over the last couple of weeks, but let me just say a few things in closing.

As Christ grows you, you pour out that growth. You pour out that maturation by once speaking the truth in love, telling them who

God is, what he has done, and what the scriptures say in a way that shows compassion for them and not your perception of elitism, your puffed upness, your arrogance and pride.

Encourage one another. I don't know if you know this or not, but life's hard. And life with Jesus is exceptionally harder.

And if anyone told you differently, they're trying to sell you something. And more often than not, we don't need beat over the head.

We need encouragement. Well, I know this sin's going on in their life.

Okay, do we need to get out a projector and see what kind of sin's going on in your life?

Encourage your brothers and your sister in love. Pray for one another.

Pray for one another. Charles Spurgeon often said, and I say this to the guys that were training up for ministry, he often said,

I would rather train 100 men to pray than one man to preach. And the reason for that is because prayer of a righteous man avails much.

And your prayer for your saints, your fellow saints, is more needed than you could ever understand.

And you need prayer more than you understand. And then serve others.

Serve others. Work hard to meet the needs of people.

With your giftings, with your financial means, with your skillset, live for others.

Bleed for others. The model for how we are to love one another,

Jesus Christ showed us on the cross when he lived the perfect life that we ought to live and was slain for our iniquities.

Dying the death that we should have died. So how far are you to go in building up this church in love?

As far as it takes. As far as it takes. Our growth is not for our own benefit, remember, but for the strengthening of Christ's body for the day of trouble or just daily.

To edify every single person that sits here. Do you see growth in this church?

Do you see growth in your life individually? Do you see that you are being transformed?

If not, why not? Are you becoming more loving? Are you becoming more joyful?

Are you becoming more peaceable? Well, it says in this word that we should be if we are plugged into the head.

So as we have seen in this passage, it is our divine initiator, our omnipotent sustainer and our sovereign head who ordains each member and his place, his purpose and his gifting.

Christ our head has given us everything necessary for life and godliness.

And it is in this book and it is in this room right here. Amen for books and podcasts.

What you need is in this room right now. Remember that it is

Christ who is behind it all. And in him and only in him do we grow.

Pray with me. Father, we thank you. We thank you for this chance to crowd around your word.

We thank you for this chance to lovingly consider what it is to be the body of Christ.

And we ask that you would grow us this day, that you would help us to live out our faith in a way that is glorifying to you and edifying for everyone else.

We ask that you would help us to live as the church, to be the church because you have bled and died for the church.