The Whole Body, Part 14: Growing Up (Conclusion)

Well, this morning, we are concluding our series. It's now been several months that we've been looking at this idea of a whole body, as we often take breaks between larger stretches or expository series and look at a topic.

This was a rather lengthy investigation of this topic of a whole body, and we're looking forward now to begin the next series, even next week, which is working through the book of Ecclesiastes.

And I think, just in terms of God's providence and some of the things that came up from the

Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 6 and so much of what we looked through last year, I think a lot of the fruit of that can be found in a book like Ecclesiastes.

And I even gather some of you are currently reading books about Ecclesiastes, which warms my heart absolutely.

As always, what we put into God's Word is largely what we can expect to get out of God's Word.

And so, I would just encourage you all, even this week ahead, to be preparing, even praying for the

Lord to give you that wisdom that will come with Ecclesiastes, as Ecclesiastes, as the preacher, guides us into the big questions and the big issues of life.

What is it all for? Where does it all go? Why does it matter, if it matters at all?

Now, this morning, we're concluding the whole body. And again, whole meaning sound or complete or healthy, and that began about 15 weeks ago with the head and the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the heart, the spine, the shoulders, the hands, the stomach, the knees, last week, the beautiful feet that preach the gospel of peace.

And then this morning, we come to part 14, and we're concluding, and I've called this growing up, and taking that from the charge in Ephesians 4.

We are to grow up into all things, into Him who is the head,

Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

And so this is the charge, for us to grow up into this whole body, and I want to look at this charge of growing up in three parts this morning.

A lot of the material, I hope, will be a reminder, a spark, a flare of things we've covered over the past months, but putting that all together,

I want to look at it in three parts. First, growing up by growing from, growing up by growing from.

Secondly, growing up by growing in. And then lastly, growing up by growing for.

So the way that we are to grow up requires us to grow from something, in something, and for something.

Growing up, first, by growing from. Ephesians 4, Paul's desire is that we, as a body, as Christians in fellowship, may grow up in all things into Him who is the

Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined in it together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of work by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edification of itself in love.

Now that's a mouthful, and for that reason we focused toward the end. We might have missed the emphasis that lies at the beginning, that we would grow in all things into Him who is the

Head, from whom the whole body is joined in it together, from whom every part is supplied, every part is able to do its share, every part is able to build up the whole body in love.

Where does that begin? It begins in Christ, from whom all of these things occur.

So, what you notice is this, the body grows into what it grows from.

That's the first thing I would point out from Ephesians 4, that we would grow in all things into Him, from whom the whole, you see, we grow into what we grow from.

That's unlike any experience of growth we have in this life. We don't grow into the things we grow from.

Those are two separate things. We grow from applesauce and Happy Meals and Flintstone vitamins.

We don't become those things. Despite what your grandparents told you, you become what you eat. Well, thankfully that's not true.

The point here is that in every way of growth that we can think of physically, we don't grow into the things we grow from.

We grow from certain things into what we will become. Those two things are separate, but not here in Ephesians 4, not in terms of the church body.

The Christian body grows into what it grows from. We grow into Christ as we grow from Christ.

Everything that takes place in the Christian body is a result of the work, the effective work of the

Spirit of Christ. So, the Holy Spirit working in the body in that perfect unity, that perfect harmony

He has with the Son of God by the will of the Father. So we have this

Trinitarian cascade that's always animating the life and the growth of the body. That's the life we receive and that's the life that we're growing into.

And this shapes the way that we live our lives in fellowship. If I recognize that I'm growing into what

I'm growing from, it changes the way I look at the church body around me. My desire is to actually see the body of Christ as the body of Christ, growing from the life of Christ, growing into the image of Christ and the glory of Christ.

That has to shape the way that I look around at my brothers and my sisters. It has to change the way that I fundamentally conceive of church.

Is church just something that I do, a box to tick off on a

Sunday morning? And the rest of the day, like the rest of the week, is mine, it's for me. Or is there something fundamentally foundational to what it means to be a

Christian and have my life bound into the body, the life of Christ, growing from Him and into Him is a corporate activity.

You cannot conceive of growing as a Christian unless you're growing into the body of Christ.

You cannot conceive of growing as a Christian unless you're growing from the body of Christ.

You see, the life that we now live by faith, we live together by faith in the

Son of God. It's the Spirit who accomplishes these things in us corporately. This is the whole point of Paul, not only here in Ephesians 4, but in 1

Corinthians 12. When the eye says to the foot, I no longer need you. When the stomach says to the brain, good riddance.

When the hand says to the knee, I'm better off without you. The whole body falls apart. Where is the life?

Where is the proper function of even those parts? Where is the hearing? Where is the smell? Where is the taste? It's the logic of corporate fellowship that holds together our

Christian life. So this shapes the way we view the church. The Lord Jesus Christ isn't an individualized

Savior. You don't break off the foil seal and partake of Him in isolation. He is the head, the

Savior of His body. It's very important we understand this. The way that we contemplate what life is for, what it means to be the bride of Christ, how we contemplate and face difficulties, temptations, the ultimate goal of Satan, the evil one.

When we encounter weakness and difficulty, we remind ourselves of this truth, not that I am an individual

Christian, autonomous from all other Christians, but I am a member of the body of Christ.

I am in Him who is my head, growing into the very life

I receive from Him, along with all of my brothers and sisters who belong to His body, who pray for me and labor alongside me, who encourage me and exhort me, who use their gifts to bless me even as I steward what

I've received toward them. This is the logic of Christianity. This is the logic of the whole body. Paul does not go around to save individual sinners.

Paul saves individual sinners into the churches that he's planted. The logic is always the body of Christ.

We find this very hard to hold together in a westernized, modernized, consumerized way of life.

It's the entertainment service, the thing that I attend, the service for my benefit. And if it's not cutting its weight, then

I'll go find a better service. And churches become essentially sources of marketing and amusement.

As Spurgeon would always wryly comment, it's not hard to attract goats, but we're not in the business of attracting goats.

We're here to relay the voice of the shepherd so that the sheep may enter the flock. That's the call of the gospel ministry.

So we're always in Him, but in Him is not some isolated, abstract thing. We are in Him as members in this indissoluble connection between us.

We've been baptized, Paul says, into one body, not baptized as some individual. Some televangelist says, listen, if you're watching me right now, go to your bathtub and be baptized.

What is that? That's not a baptism. Paul says you're baptized into one body, by one spirit, one bread that we break, one cup that we drink.

Do you see the logic is there's a radical unity, so the body does things as one man. Now, what is

Ephesians 4 holding out? Ephesians 4 is holding out to us that we would grow with such radical unity and love that we would have, as it were, one mind, one voice, one heart, one labor for the kingdom's advancement.

That there'd be such a unity that the things that so separate and distinguish us would begin to dissolve into our

Christlikeness. That's the idea. That's the calling. We're always in Him.

Christ is the head of the body. We are the parts of the body. Paul wants us to understand that we are not complete bodies in ourselves, but rather joined and knit together as joints.

A jointed way of life. That is the Christian life. Joined and knit together by what every joint supplies.

This effective working that every part must do its share. Its share of what?

Its share of life in the body. Its share of growing into Him who is our head.

From whom? The whole body becomes whole. The whole body becomes complete.

So this means that though I can truly say of myself as an individual, and at the bar of history

I must be able to say as an individual, when Christ was crucified, I was crucified.

My old man was crucified. When Christ rose again, I rose again in Him. I am now dead to sin and alive in Christ.

I'm dead to the law. There's no longer condemnation over me because I have put my faith in the Son of God who lived for me and died for me and rose again for my justification.

I have to be able to say that as an individual. But in Paul's mind, this is something that is a corporate confession.

It's the eye of the body. You might as well translate it as we.

We who have died to sin. How shall we live any longer in it? This old man, this body of death, this way that once characterized our lives has now been put aside.

If then you all be risen with Christ, set your affections on things above, not on things in the earth.

Reckon yourselves all dead to sin but alive in God to Christ. So we grow up into the things that we grow from.

We grow up into Christ because we grow from Christ. This is why

Paul goes on to say, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil.

Cling to what is good. Be affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another.

Paul is laying out the conditions for us to grow in unity, to grow in oneness. This love, this forgiveness, this consideration, this preference is a way of actually maturing into the

Christlikeness that befits our calling. This isn't just be kind.

This isn't Mr. Rogers telling us to behave. These are practical steps so that we can become one.

That's the whole idea. This is what's preventing you from being unified and whole. This is what will keep you short of fulfilling

Christ's image in your life. You must understand what it means for you to love one another, to walk with one another, to consider one another.

If you would grow into maturity in Christlikeness. That's the idea. And that's the challenge.

A Christian fellowship must be a fellowship of the gospel. And that means the gospel is always at work.

It's always at work. Every day it's at work. Every day I'm recognizing my sins, my need for mercy.

Every day I'm recognizing the humbling gift that I've received and what that means for my life.

As we'll see in the second point, my life is no longer my own. I died to myself.

My life is now hidden in Christ. I belong to him. That means something radically different, not for just my life as an individual, but for my life together with your lives.

You see, when our life belongs to Christ and we understand the calling of Christ is to become one body with one mind and one heart, that means the life that I now owe to God is a life that is carried out in community, in fellowship of the gospel.

And this is why we must love without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kind, be affectionate with brotherly love, giving preference to one another.

Why? This is how we actually grow up into him who is our head into Christ.

And so we ask the question, am I walking in gospel fellowship in this way?

Do I see the corporate dimensions of my life? Do I recognize God's desire for my life isn't merely to make me whole, but to use me in order to make a body whole?

That's the calling of Christ in my life. The whole body growing whole by what every joint supplies, every part doing its share.

If you're not thinking of your Christian life as a part or as a joint, you're not thinking of the Christian life.

No one here can afford to think of themselves as a radically isolated individual.

They do not exist in the kingdom of God. Why are we called sheep who have heard the shepherd's voice and enter by the gate?

Because sheep flock together. Is there an animal that's more definitively herd mentality than a sheep?

We've talked about this in the past. Do sheep have claws? Do they have any defense mechanism?

Nothing, nothing. Soft wool. They don't even have hard skin.

It's like fluffy wool. No sharp teeth. No claws. No bark.

No roar. They have literally nothing to do to defend themselves. It's not just the wolves.

And like, have you seen these videos where like the big golden eagles swoop in? It's like they pray for everything.

A goldfish could take down a sheep. But you see that the logic there is we're actually called to be together in a flock.

Jesus prays that there would be one shepherd over one flock. This is the idea.

There's always a corporate connotation to the Christian life. So do we have this gospel fellowship?

Am I walking in this gospel fellowship? Do I understand the logic of the body and what that means for my old life, my

Christian life? The question you ask is, am I a barrier to the whole body?

Or am I a means to the whole body? Am I living my life as not a joint, not a part?

Or am I conceiving of my whole life as a Christian to be the part doing its share, the joint, being knitted and joined together, right?

The whole body cannot come unless we all have this understanding, unless we actually heed what

Paul is saying. Do our lives adorn this gospel fellowship in this way, living out the call and display of the gospel in the ways that we think of one another, in the ways that we bless one another, the ways that we so freely and easily forgive, the ways that we think and behave and regard?

Does our conduct actually demonstrate the reality of the gospel? Are we microcosms in all of our relationships of the gospel, of grace that we have believed?

The grace that we have received so that we're not just the fruit of the gospel, but we're beginning to display the content of the gospel in our relationships.

This is what it means to grow up in what we're growing from.

You're growing from the grace that you receive. You're growing from the presence and work of the spirit of God.

Are you growing in the fruit of that spirit? Are you going in communion with your

Savior, with Christ? We grow up by growing from.

That's the first point. Secondly, we grow up by growing in. Again, this is a little earlier in Ephesians 4, but looking at Ephesians 4 in the first few verses,

Paul says, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

So we grow up by growing in. What's the in? It's the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

That's what we grow up by. We grow up by having this unity of God's spirit in this bond of peace.

Remember that word peace. It has this connotation of wholeness or completion or maturity.

And we can see just from this whole chapter, Ephesians 4, that Paul does not pretend unity is some easy thing.

It's really hard. That's why he keeps calling for Christians to learn how to forgive, to learn how to be longsuffering, to bear with one another, to put away all clamor and evil speaking, to have a right regard, right thoughts, a right attitude about one another.

He wouldn't have to keep repeating these things in all of his letters if it was easy, if it was natural. It is not.

It is not what our flesh wants to do. Paul doesn't pretend it's easy.

He also doesn't pretend that unity comes about by dodging tough situations. In other words,

Paul is not on this quest for the lowest common denominator of peace. Oh, that doctrine is divisive.

Let's ignore that. This way of doing service, this is going to be ruffling too many feathers. Let's forego that.

And eventually, you just get down to the lowest common denominator. And you're where we mentioned a few moments ago.

You're marketing to goats and amusing them, entertaining them. You don't actually have people that have any interest in growing in the grace and knowledge of the

Son of God. So unity is not easy. Unity doesn't come about by dodging tough situations, avoiding difficult topics, keeping plenty of distance, pretending that that's real peace.

I hear of churches, of bodies of Christ that, you know, every

Sunday they have name tags. It's like, are you in my body? I don't know.

Are you in my body? You might never, you might be in a body with someone for three years you've never met.

I think that's a problem. I don't think you can actually be a meaningful body of Christ if that's the case.

At least you have to work really, really hard. And your Facebook friends are going to explode.

And your hospitality is going to be endless. But the idea is we actually have to have this unity of the

Spirit in a bond of peace. That requires contact, not distance. Our church has no divisions, no clamor.

We have a thousand members and none of them know each other. Well, that's why, that's why. Everyone comes for half an hour and they leave and they have name tags and they all remain anonymous.

It's easy to keep the peace if that's the case. But when you're actually a body that's growing together, there's going to be closeness and proximity and friction and irritation.

You're going to start to see things. That shape and change, I never realized so -and -so was like this.

All of a sudden there's these frictions and these potholes. The way seemed to be going well and then just like when

I cross over the Hubbardston line into Barrie and it's like entering flak in a

World War II bomber. It's like, whoa. There's sinkholes and potholes everywhere, depending on who's getting what road done at any given time.

The idea is there's actually going to be the things that Paul is warning about. The things that Paul is saying,

Christian, repent of these things, guard against these things so that you can grow in unity.

So if you don't need to do that, then Paul's writing in vain. Paul is presupposing what proximity and fellowship is going to look like in a

Christian body. It's going to look like a constant temptation for evil sight, evil speak, for jealousy, for pride and envy, for slander, for gossip.

That's what it's going to look like. And the body being able to grow into him who is the head needs to put all those things away.

Repent and be on guard against those things. Uproot those things so we can actually fulfill this unity we have by God's spirit.

Actually grow in this bond of peace. That's God's desire. Satan in our flesh, war against it.

We should not be surprised by that. It means we must be lowly, gentle, long -suffering, bear with one another.

You think, I don't know if I can bear with this person any longer. That's what bearing with one another actually looks like.

You say, I've borne too long. I can't do it anymore. That's when bearing actually begins. I've had it.

Now you're just starting bearing with one another. I can't do it. Now you've just begun long -suffering, you see.

Too often as Christians, we think that, you know, we've just finished the trial when it's actually just begun.

This call of perseverance, this call of actually preferring one another in love. What does

Paul say? It's an endeavor. It's something that requires labor. It has a goal that is oriented within it.

It's an endeavor. Strive after this. Labor to keep this. Be aiming for this every time you gather.

It fundamentally changes the way we not only view one another, but the way we view ourselves. If I feel the grit or the rub of a brother or sister,

I should ask that question, why? If it really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them,

I should also think in this way. Wow, who am I like that toward? I must be sandpaper to someone in this body, and I don't even realize it.

You start to realize I might be detecting pride in this brother or this sister, not because I have the discernment of God's spirit, but because I'm so prideful.

You start to realize the things that irritate you most are usually the things that are blind spots in your own life.

A prideful man is quick to sniff out pride in others. An impatient man is quick to react against the impatience of another.

You start to realize the things that you might be reacting against have a lot to say about you in a

Christian body. And the answer to all of that is lowering of yourself.

In lowliness, regard one another. Lowering, lowering, lowering yourself.

It changes the way you think about compassion and forgiveness in that very way. I forget the church father who said it, it might have been

Irenaeus, and he said, you know, when you face some injustice, your heart in the flesh, it desires to get even.

You know, the injustice says, I'm now below this person. Look what they've done to me. I'm below. The flesh says, get even.

Get up to their level. And he says, let me tell you a way to be actually above the level. Justice, out of that hurt, out of that wound, justice says,

I'm down here. Let me get even. But there's a way to be above forgive. But actually, forgiveness says,

I'm actually above because I'm lowering myself. But it's one of those things, if you're thinking in that way, you're not actually lowering yourself.

So sometimes forgiveness isn't real forgiveness. Well, I'm happy to say, I'm so merciful.

I've decided to forgive you. I'll wait for applause. Was that Jeb Bush? Please clap. That's not lowering yourself.

That's not actually reflecting the way that Christ forgives. A lot of times, we're still priding and puffing ourselves up, even in the ways we allegedly show compassion.

It's not real compassion. Real compassion, real forgiveness begins by actually lowering yourself.

What did Christ do to accomplish forgiveness on our behalf? He lowered himself.

Lower than the angels for a time. Lower than a slave becoming obedient, even to the point of death on a cross.

That's the paradigm for Christian lowering. So we grow up by growing in something.

This unity of the spirit that comes about by endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in this bond of peace that requires lowering, long suffering, requires compassion and forgiveness, requires intentionality, gentleness and kindness, warm affection.

All of this is so that we can actually maintain what we already have in the spirit. Unity is the reality of a

Christian body. We are unified. What does Paul say in Ephesians 4? We are joints.

We are parts of a body. That's not something you opt into. That's not 10 years in.

That's just what you are if you're a Christian. You're a part of a body. I hope you're actually part of a body and you're not an amputated digit on a styrofoam box of ice.

Christians, it's a corporate logic. Christians are meant to be joined and knit together with one another in a body of Christ.

There's no place for me, myself and I kind of thinking. It's because of our sanctification, our growth.

All that the Christian life requires is bound up not only in my Savior, but in the body of my

Savior. That's what he will use to grow me. That's what he will use to guide me. That's what he will use to call me over all the seasons and trials of my life.

So Paul tells us we already have this unity. We actually have to keep it. We actually have to endeavor toward it.

We actually have to allow this reality to take hold of our minds and our lives. And again, where does that come from?

I mentioned would get here. It begins with this sentiment. My life is no longer my own.

Who can live this way? What modern American in the year 2026 can live this way?

You go up north to our friends in the Granite State. What do all the license plates say? Live free or die.

I love that sentiment. That's glorious and it has its rightful place. But as a

Christian, that's not my mentality. I do what I want. I'd rather die than not be able to do what

I want. No, the Christian's mentality is my life is in my own.

I don't belong to myself. I belong to my Savior. He bought me. Paul says to the

Corinthians, you were bought with a price. You were bought with a price.

That's something that Paul never forgot. That's why so often throughout his letters, he sews in either his testimony or a confession that he's the chief of sinners.

He knows the debt that he owes that can never be repaid. I start living for myself when

I start forgetting about the debt that I can never repay. I start living out of my own selfish instinct when

I forget that I've been bought with a price and what that price really was. It was the perfect life in atoning death of Jesus Christ.

That's the debt that I owe. It's not a debt that he'll come collect.

He gave it freely. But my life now belongs to him. I was bought with that price.

I wasn't saved to go on my merry way and just sprinkle in Jesus at opportune moments.

My life belongs to him now. That's the beginning of understanding how I can be long -suffering, how

I can afford to be lowly, how in compassion and forgiveness I can actually walk with other sinners on this way to glory.

It begins by recognizing my life is not my own. So I don't view

God as some vending machine in the sky. And somehow I'm mystically doing him a favor by just being here this morning.

I'm really in good with him now. It's like, what? Is he some vending machine?

Are you only chasing favors at last but a moment? Are you hoping that that current trial and struggle will work itself out?

You know, go to church a few times and then this little area of my life will get untangled. It's like the nine lepers.

They get cleansed and they never look back. And I've seen that time and a time again in ministry. People who want something in their life worked out, as soon as that's untangled, they don't have a thought toward God.

They have never approached him in the sense of being a debtor or being in bondage to sin, being utterly and woefully helpless apart from his grace.

They've never had that sinner's cry. Who will deliver me? I'm wasting away.

I feel the heat of hell breathing down my neck. What can I do to be saved? They've never had the

Philippian jailer's mentality. I'm dying. Woe is me.

Who can save me? And if you've never had that understanding of desperation, the price means very little to you.

No wonder as soon as your life is a little bit better, Christ means nothing to you. But those who understand the price that has been paid because of the debt that they owed,

Christ is everything to them. Christ is my life. Paul says, I'm not even living anymore.

It's just Christ in me. I know you need me, Philippians, but frankly, I'd rather be with him.

He's heaven to me. He was the Puritan who said, some of you don't even love

Christ and you long for heaven. If you don't love Christ, heaven would be a hell to you because Christ is heaven and heaven is

Christ. Heaven is replete with the glory of Christ. Christians don't long for heaven.

They long for the presence of the one their soul loves. They long for the presence of the one who bled and died for them.

Their life belongs to him. Whatever he says is what they strive to follow, strive to keep.

That's the beginning of corporate logic. My life is owed to God and therefore, in some sense, my life is owed to my brethren.

I have responsibilities toward them. I now serve a new

Lord, a new master, one who's proven his love to me at the cost of his own life on the cross.

And therefore, my life belongs to him. I've been bought with his blood and he tells me I am to be a part of the body and to serve him by serving these brothers and sisters, to be a part doing its share, to help this body by whatever gifts and graces and experiences

I have, to be able to grow into him who is my head, my Lord, my love, my life.

It all begins with this sense of gratitude. I'm not my own.

It's an owed life. So real life, the

Christian life, consists in knowing and loving and serving and glorifying and fellowshipping in Christ.

That's the purpose. And it's the result of forgiveness. Because I've been forgiven, because I've been bought with the price, because I've cried out of my bondage and death for salvation, and I've received it freely.

I've received it fully. There's no condemnation now against me. My whole life as a response is marked by gratitude.

Gratitude. What does it look like to endeavor to keep the unity of the

Spirit and the bond of peace? Let me just give you a big hint. It all begins with gratitude. What do you want to grow up in?

Into Christ. How do you grow up into Christ? Start by recognizing your life belongs to him because of the debt that you owed and the price that he paid, and respond to that free gift of grace with gratitude.

That will disarm and deflesh you enough that you can actually be a meaningful part of a

Christian body. This forgiveness becomes the basis for gratitude.

Paul again and again and again will repeat these things. He does it in Ephesians. He'll do it in all of his letters.

We once walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the

Spirit who now works in sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh.

These things used to characterize us, Paul said. In that tyranny, in that darkness, we were just living like everyone else lives, going the way that everyone else goes.

Every man for himself. What were we fulfilling? His desire? No, our desire. We were just walking according to the lust of our flesh.

That's how we carried out our whole way of life. It's not just that we stumbled into it.

Paul says we fulfilled it, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. He says, by nature, we were like everyone else, children of wrath.

But now, that's where the gospel comes in. But now you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified.

What is that washing? What is that sanctification? What does that justification mean? It means that now we live our lives in an entirely different way.

We no longer live for ourselves or fulfill the lust of our flesh. We fulfill not our own desires, but God's desire.

By his spirit, that desire is growing us into Christlikeness. How does that Christlikeness come about?

By every joint being joined and knitted together, every part doing its share.

That's where Christlikeness comes from. And all of that is a result of this forgiveness, this freedom.

What did the Ephesians do in between this gap? All right, you start with, you once walked like this.

You once lived like this. Your lives once looked like this. But now you've been washed.

Now you've been justified. Now you've been sanctified. What did they contribute to that? They didn't wash themselves.

They didn't justify themselves. They didn't do any of it. They walked in a way of death, and then

God washed them. And then God saved them. And then God justified them. What is the response to that but gratitude?

Old hymns capture this so well. Living for Jesus who died in my place, bearing on Calvary my sin, my disgrace.

Such love constrains me to answer His call, follow His leading, give Him my all.

Do you understand what the hymn is saying? I will have no reason, no motivation, no compulsion to give the

Lord my all. Maybe not even half if I haven't understood what He's done for me.

If I'm not living out of gratitude, I'm living for myself. Gratitude is going to free me to live for Him.

So when I recognize He died in my place, He bore my shame, He bore my sin.

Now I have a desire, a motivation to give my life to Him, to serve

Him, to fulfill His good desire. To be worthy of that calling, as Paul says.

Begins with gratitude. You have never heard of or perhaps met a missionary who doesn't understand exactly this point.

And the missionaries are not superheroes of the Christian faith, though we sometimes treat them like that. Or we regard them with hagiography.

You know, sort of, there can be no taint of sin or flesh in their biography. It's like they came as angels almost, as Melchizedek.

No, please normalize missionaries. They're just like you and I. But by God's grace and by His effectual call, there was a point in their life when they were so awestruck by who

Jesus is and what He has done that they said, that's it. My life is entirely in your hands now.

Wherever you send me, I will go. And there's no other difference.

No other difference than that. It's simply acknowledging and being lost in the wonder and praise of who

Christ is and what He's done. And then saying like Isaiah, send me, send me.

I have to go. They're not superheroes in the sense that it's somehow naturally easier for them.

They don't have trials and temptations like the rest of the Christian lot. I can only imagine what it's like to move and relocate in an entirely different area and culture and language.

And every day you're dying to yourself and you still have the same sins within you and in your marriage and in your household like every other

Christian. But every day you have to recall, why am

I here? What am I here for? Why am I living in this way? Why am

I putting myself and my wife and my family through this? And the answer will always be, he died in my place.

He bore my sin and disgrace. It compels me to answer his call, to give him my all.

Do you see what I'm saying? You don't get to all to him I owe without Jesus paid it all.

You just don't. You just don't. We all experience this, don't we?

It may happen in the course of a day or over a week. Nothing melts my heart but this recognition, this glory of who

Jesus is and what he's done. And in that moment, it's the warmth of his love, his compassion, his worthiness.

And alongside it, this mixture of sadness and despair because of my selfishness, because of my hardness of heart, my dullness.

And in that wrestling match, we recognize I have to live a life of gratitude.

If I'm not deeply meditating on this price that has been paid, I'm not going to be able to live the Christian life.

I'm not going to persevere in the slightest thing. Fight against sin? Forget it. Exist in a church with other sinners?

Not even worth it. You'll only ever have diminishing returns of obedience because you haven't understood where the

Christian life begins. A response of gratitude to God's free grace. All to him

I owe. Nothing good have I whereby thy grace to claim.

I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's lamb. When before the throne

I stand in him complete, when the body is finally whole. What do the lips repeat?

Jesus died my soul to save. My lips will still repeat even in glory.

This is the difference between those who, oh, I hope the man upstairs is pleased with me. I did start going to church lately.

Maybe I'll make it to, you know, the clouds someday. There's no love for Christ. What does this person understand in the hymn?

They come to glory and what's their whole profession? Jesus died my soul to save. You see that gratitude is something that gripped this life.

Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

That life of gratitude is a life that's now pliable. Where you send me, I'll go. What you obey, what you command,

I will obey. In all the things that you want this body to be, Lord, I will do my part. I will be the joint doing that share.

Lord, humble me and help me to be low. Help me to love in the way you call me to love. Not like everyone else.

Not measuring myself against everyone else. But Lord, unto you, out of gratitude to you.

So there's no place for, yeah, yeah, I believe Jesus paid it all. I actually believe in substitutionary atonement.

So I'm actually really good there. Jesus paid it all and now I'm kind of free to live the rest of my life. I do go to church very faithfully.

I give very faithfully. Hey, you know what? You'd be hard -pressed to find a Sunday where I'm not there.

I'm good. It's not Jesus paid it all. I'm all set now.

Isn't it nice that I now straddle between living for myself and living for him? No, it's

Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. My life's not my own. I don't belong to myself.

That guy died. I now belong to him. I now belong to my brothers and sisters.

I now belong to his body. Our gratitude is what enables us to give ourselves to him.

And frankly, our gratitude is what enables us to give ourselves to one another.

Can you look around this room and say, I am grateful.

I am grateful for my brothers and sisters. Gratitude enables us to give ourselves to him and gratitude enables us to give ourselves to each other.

You want to walk in lowliness of mind? You want to walk in humility and love for one another? Walk in gratitude.

Walk as though you don't belong to yourself. Because you don't. This means we live as forgiven debtors.

And we already know from scripture how forgiven debtors are to live. We don't go clutching people by their collar and saying, pay me what you owe.

We live by grace. We live by mercy. We live by patience and long suffering. In these ways, we become like our savior.

That begins with gratitude. I cannot forgive unless I realize the weight of how I've been forgiven.

When we say at the end of Ephesians 4, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

I will never do the also you must do unless I actually stop and begin to feel the weight and the horror and the glory of how

Christ forgave me. What did that actually mean for him? Oh, you don't understand, pastor.

This would be a huge blow to my ego. I haven't even begun to think about how

Christ gave up his life freely for mine. Freely. Didn't hold anything back.

And even as he was agonizing to catch breaths, as he slowly suffocated, stretched out on the tree, what was his heart cry?

Father, forgive. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do. So it begins with gratitude.

Begins with hiding our faces as we seek to lower ourselves in light of our own debt.

Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears. This is

Isaac Watts. Listen again. Thus might I, like if I actually understand this, this is what

I'll do. I'll hide my blushing face when his dear cross appears. What is that doing?

What is that glimpse of the gospel doing? Dissolve my heart. In what?

In thankfulness. Melt my eyes to tears.

Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears. Dissolve my heart in thankfulness.

In gratitude. Melt my eyes to tears. What is that accomplishing?

Nothing. Drops of tears cannot repay the debt of love I owe. Nothing could repay that debt of love.

It was an infinite gift. It was the life of the Son of God. So tears, grief,

Sunday attendance, that can't actually repay the debt of love I owe. So what can you offer?

Though it's a match against the sun, what can you offer? Here, Lord, I give myself away.

It's all that I can do. The dear cross appears.

The gratitude dissolves our heart. And the response is, my life does not belong to me.

It belongs to you. I give myself away, even as you gave away your life for me.

So that's growing up and growing in. And then lastly and briefly, growing up by growing for.

Back in Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 11, the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

So we grow up by recognizing what we're growing for. Paul says we're growing for love.

The upbuilding of love, the edifying of itself in love. Growing from the head as body parts results in the growth of the body.

But that growth of the body is going somewhere. It's for something. It's for love. Please understand this is not some cheap sentiment.

This is about as deep as theology can get. Paul recognizes love is the fulfillment of the law.

The body's growth from Christ into Christ as parts joined and knit together is actually a growth into love.

Perfect love of God and perfect love of man. That's deep theology.

That's what a body is growing into. That is what a body is for. A temporal display and in consummation a fulfillment of God's perfect love for man, man's perfect love for God, God's perfect love for the body, man's perfect love for one another, for the body.

It's the fulfillment of God's law. It's the fulfillment of his purpose to actually make known the love of Christ.

So this means what the body is growing for is something that should always be occupying our minds and our prayers and our hopes and our dreams.

The body grows for love. I need to grow to be loving. I need to grow to be lovable.

This is what the body's growing for. This is what the body's growing in. I need to get my mind around the depthless, heightless, widthless love of Christ.

Ever extending and reflecting at deeper and deeper levels about this love that is the beginning of my salvation and its end and its goal.

It's the love of Christ that has no measure. For that to be fully known, fully displayed, to actually now understand this attribute of the love of God.

God is love. And how is that fully manifest in the Son of God who gave himself to save us as his bride so that we would actually be perfected by that love?

And in that love, we would reflect God's love and the love we have for him and for one another. We're to be growing in that love, edified in that love until it's consummated.

Look around you. If you have brothers and sisters in this room, one day you will have a perfect love for them and they will have a perfect love for you.

You should be striving toward that kind of love now. It means

I don't harbor pockets of my flesh and jealousy and selfishness, which is not to build up the body, it's to undermine.

It's to threaten the upbuilding of the body. The effect of God's work always has this end in goal that his love for us in Christ by his spirit would be on display.

That he would be glorified in this very way by us becoming more and more like him who is glorious.

By us more and more having a testimony of the fullness of his love. Read 1

John just to see this point again and again and again and again. We know we've passed from death to life in this, we love the brethren.

Love is the beginning of new life in Christ. When Christ saved me,

I began to fall in love with church members. All of a sudden, I was ditching my high school friends to go hang out with 60 -year -olds at a

Bible study. And it was the joy of my week. People would have thought

I was getting paid as some volunteer or something to assist elderly people to Bible study.

It's like, hey brother, are you picking me up on Saturday? Sorry guys, I gotta miss the football game.

I'm going to Bible study with a bunch of 60 -year -olds. It was the joy of my week.

That's not of me, that's just the Lord. That's what the Lord does. We love the brethren.

Christians love Christians. The whole body is growing in this way. And so this love of Christ, if it's truly dwelling within us, it must bear fruit.

It must have an out. It cannot be that we're somehow growing in the love of Christ and not simultaneously growing in love for one another.

It cannot be. Let us not say or think for a moment we're growing in the love and knowledge of Christ if we're not growing in love for one another.

It is a package deal. You can only grow in love for Christ as you learn how to grow in love for one another.

Loving Christ is loving one another. That's why Jesus says, listen, the least you do to one of these, you do to me.

The least you regard, these my brethren. This is how you're treating me. How you treat them is how you treat me.

How you love them is how you love me. So we ought to love believers in the way that we love

Christ. And that begins by recognizing the way that Christ has loved us.

Again, it begins with gratitude that answers, I no longer am my own. I don't belong to myself any longer.

Paul says, God demonstrates his own love toward us.

What is a demonstration? What a beautiful, I love good word choices, and that is an excellent word choice. The translation committee deserves a round of applause on that.

In this, God demonstrates his own love for us. What is a demonstration? I grew up at watching,

I used to work at a grocery store. I was in high school and I'd get home around 11 .30 at night and I'd put on the late news and then

I'd watch, the only thing that was on cable at the time after midnight was infomercials. And I had my favorites, the

Ron Coe Showtime Rotisserie. I probably watched that a thousand times. I could almost repeat the whole script.

I loved all the fake, you know, wow, this is amazing. And you'll throw in the knife that cuts through a phone book.

It's like, why would I need that though? You just watch it. What are they doing in all of those demonstrations?

They're saying, look at, look what you can do and you should do this too. If you get this, you'll be able to do it.

That's a demonstration. I'm showing you this, not just so that you can see it, but so that you can do it.

God demonstrates his own love toward us. What is that demonstration? I'm showing you something, not just as a spectacle, but as an example that can be followed.

I'm showing you the way that I've loved you in Christ. I'm showing you what Christ's love for you has meant.

Now you go and do that. That's a demonstration. God demonstrates his own love toward us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We demonstrate our love for one another in this way also, while we are still sinners.

We sacrifice for one another. We bear with one another. We pray for one another.

We lower ourselves in preference to one another. We, in short, love one another. We're simply following the demonstration of God.

Again, Ephesians 2, a few chapters before where we are, God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespass, made us alive together with Christ.

Why did he do it? Paul told us, because of his great love with which he loved us. That's why.

Was it anything in those who were dead in trespass and sin? No. It was only out of the basis of his own love, his own goodwill, his own mercy and compassion.

How are you to love, Christian? Is it the worthiness of the object of your love?

They just don't deserve it. Is that how God loved you? We should be so thankful that God didn't love us on the basis of what we deserved.

Because there would be no love, only wrath. But out of his love, his matchless, infinite love, he saved us.

He made us alive. That was a demonstration for us to follow. We don't love one another because we are somehow more or less worthy of that love.

We love one another because Christ has loved us. And in the way

Christ has loved us, we seek to grow as a joint, as a part, doing its share. The whole body grows in love.

We come to a conclusion here, and I'll just add with that, that Ephesians 4 says that part of this love is a love that is stirred up.

It's spoken, speaking the truth in love. In the Greek, that verb is simply truthing in love, as we said.

That's a good translation, to make known the love or speak the truth in love.

And Hebrews 10 says we're to consider one another and stir up love. So it's something we endeavor.

It's something that we see as the goal of our fellowship, the goal of our body. It's the end of our salvation.

The end of human creation is to actually perfectly reflect and distill the love of God made known in Christ, and we're to, along the way, stir up and prod and pray for this kind of love.

So that means, brothers and sisters, however much we may know, however much we think we understand, on May 2nd, when we all gather and form lines and we take out our church covenant and just kind of walk through all these little verses and footnotes and proof texts about what we're supposed to be as a body, if we know it at that level, if we think about it in that dry, immature way, we have not even begun to understand the call of Christ for our lives, what it means to be a whole body.

However much we know, we are not mature believers, and we will never be a mature or whole body until we've understood the reality of Christian love, of Christ -like love.

That is the beginning and end of it all. Growing up by growing for.

So that's been our series, and we're going to gather again this evening. We're going to look at all of the body parts and ask very practically, in light of this body part, where are we at?

We're just going to go down the register. What's our big takeaway from these past three months? What will we commit to grow in as a body and also as individuals?

Some of us have worked out things in different areas but are weak in others. We all have to come together and understand what it means for us to be made whole in this way.

Growing up by growing in, growing up by growing for. May the Lord help us to grow up into all things, into him who is our head, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies.

According to that, effective working by which every part does its share causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

Lord, bless us. Bless us as a church body. Help us,

Lord, to not treat these things passively. Help us not,

Lord, to have a blind eye toward what perhaps your spirit is pressing on us as a church.

Lord, help us to grow. Lord, even as my brother called for prayer earlier about a church building,

Lord, as we renew our efforts to pray that you would lead us to a building of our own, Lord, we recognize there's no point in having a building if we're not a whole body.

If we don't see ourselves as a body, Lord, we don't need to do anything but to stay here and actually repent and grow in the ways that you've shown us.

And so, Lord, help us. Give us that conviction with which we can turn to you, turn from our ways and begin to walk in your ways.

And Lord, let that be a response not of guilt or of shame or of status, but rather a turning that comes from this debt of love.

Lord, we simply recognize we're not our own anymore. Let us turn to you because we belong to you. We long to glorify you.

We want to obey all that you've commanded because it pleases you and because it's right and it's good and it's holy.

And it's blessed. And so, Lord, let us turn from that very desire. Let us have lives that are for you and for one another as a result of this gratitude for the love you've demonstrated toward us in Christ.