Building the Household, Ephesians 4:1-16

In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp explores the theme of spiritual maturity in Ephesians 4:1-16. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the New Testament letters' big picture and overarching message rather than focusing solely on the details. Pastor Aaron highlights the need for discernment, selflessness, and steadfastness in growing in spiritual maturity. He encourages listeners to pursue unity in the body of Christ and to speak the truth in love. Ultimately, he reminds us that we are saved by grace and called to live out our faith in obedience and maturity.

Takeaways

• Understanding the big picture and overarching message of the New Testament letters is crucial for spiritual growth.
• Spiritual maturity involves developing discernment, selflessness, and steadfastness.
• Pursuing unity in the body of Christ and speaking the truth in love are essential for growing in maturity.
• We are saved by grace and called to live out our faith in obedience and maturity.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Memorial Day
02:07 The Big Message of the New Testament Letters
04:33 The Application Section of Ephesians
07:29 Building Up the Body of Christ
12:36 The Body of Christ vs. Frankenstein's Monster
20:05 The Problem of Spiritual Immaturity
23:01 The Key Qualities of Spiritual Maturity
26:18 Don't Be Shocked, Be Transformed
34:25 Speaking the Truth in Love: The Foundation for Growth
40:03 Conclusion and Prayer

Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron Shamp

Lead Pastor of Redeemer City Church

What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?

Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.

Aaron Shamp (00:00)
Okay, well, if we're all there and ready, we're going to get started in Ephesians chapter four and verse one. I'm going to be reading verses one through 16.

Therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all.

who is above all and through all and in all. No grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. For it says, when he ascended on high, he took the captive's captive, but he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascends far above all the heavens to fill all things.

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of the ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Then we will no longer be little children.

tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow into every way into Him who is the head, Christ. From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

So as we go here, picking up in the second half of the book of Ephesians,

I want to put forward this question. What if we have been missing what is the big message of all the New Testament letters? I'm sure that you've heard many sermons from Ephesians before. I'm sure you've heard sermons from Romans before and from maybe 1st or 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, or one of Peter's letters or so on. And often what we do is we take one of these letters from Paul or Peter or whoever else and we...

look at it, take a couple of passages and we look at them very closely in detail and try to answer all the questions that come up from them and so on. And this is very good because Paul's letters, you know, I mean even in the passage we just read, are very dense with information, right? There is a lot to be said and unpacked in just a few words, few verses. However, what ends up happening is that if we only look at the letters,

very granular. If we only look at them in the details to try to unpack all that is there, we will end up missing what is the big vision of the letter, right? What is the flow? What is the overarching argument and purpose and what Paul is trying to say or what Peter is trying to say? You know, in Paul's grand explanation of the gospel, in Ephesians 1 through 3 or in

Romans, you know, for several chapters, he goes and explaining the gospel theologically, he makes philosophical arguments, he makes biblical arguments, and so on, right? And we often look at all these things in detail, but then we miss, like, what is the big picture that he's trying to put forward in explaining the gospel? So, what if we have been missing that big picture? What if we have been missing that big overarching message?

because we always tend to look at it in detail. The reason we're going through the whole book of Ephesians and what I'm wanting to do in this series in Ephesians is try to show you what is Paul's overarching argument here, what he's trying to accomplish and do in his explanation of the gospel in chapters one through three. We went through that in part one of this series last year. We looked at chapters one through three. But why does he give us that grand explanation of the gospel? You see, he has a purpose for it.

Chapter four, the midpoint, goes from his exposition of the gospel to application of the gospel. Chapter four, verse one, starts with therefore. In other words, based on everything that he has just said and explained about the gospel, here is how it is supposed to work out and be applied. Whenever we look at the letters in the New Testament, not just Paul's, but others, we see that they all usually tend to follow this framework. They give an explanation, an exposition,

of the gospel, of what God has done, and then they apply it. And what Paul is doing, especially in Ephesians, but once you see it in Ephesians, you'll start to see it in other letters. This is something that dawned on me that I realized and learned a few years ago, that all of Paul's letters tend to follow this basic framework. He explains how what God has done in the world to rescue his people, to establish his kingdom, another way we can put it is to build his household, and then,

The rest of the letter shows us now how it shapes our lives. In other words, how God built his household in the cosmos, in the world, but then how what God has done in the world shapes our households. This is why this series that we're doing through Ephesians is called the Christian Household, because this is what Paul's direction is in this letter. He teaches us about the gospel, but then he starts applying it first to the church, which we see in chapter four, and then to the home.

in chapter five, he talks to husbands and wives, he talks to children, he talks to employees, right? He's saying, you know, the gospel, if we really understand and we receive it, it's not something that we're just gonna hear like on Sundays and then move on from, but it's something that's gonna impact and transform our whole lives. In other words, if we are going to be people who are disciples of Christ, then all of our lives and not just an hour or two on Sunday morning is gonna be impacted by that.

we're gonna have not just church on Sunday mornings, but we're gonna have households that are shaped by the gospel. This is one of the pieces of the mission of Redeemer City Church. One of our goals and our vision is not just that we would hear the gospel preached, the Bible taught on Sunday mornings, and then move on from it, but that instead all of us here in our individual households, whatever that looks like, whether it looks like.

your normal nuclear family, whether it looks like you and your roommates or you and maybe siblings or if you still live with your parents, but whatever your households look like, the goal is that by you being a member of Redeemer, it would actually shape the spirit and the ethos of your homes, that they would be distinct from the world around you, from the homes around you by virtue of you following the gospel. And so,

In this series now, in part two, we're moving into the application section of the book of Ephesians, where Paul begins with his instructions for how we build up the household. And the metaphor that he uses here in chapter four is the body, right? That's just, that's another metaphor for what I'm saying, which is God's household. He's saying, here's how we build up the body. Here's how we build up God's household. Okay? So that's what we're looking at today. We're going to look at the new spirit that Paul says that,

we have that makes us members of the household of God, or members of the body. We're going to look at the problem of spiritual immaturity that needs to be overcome and then lastly how we grow in spiritual maturity. So this new spirit, the problem of spiritual immaturity and then how we grow in spiritual maturity.

So if you've ever, maybe in high school, you had to read Mary Shelley's classic book, Frankenstein. Did you guys read that in high school or maybe read it since then? I actually reread it last year. It's one of my all -time favorite stories. It's a brilliant, brilliant story. I love it. And so in Frankenstein, just to remind you, Frankenstein was the monster. We often have this image in our mind of this big green guy.

with stitches or bolts on his neck, right? And he's called Frankenstein. Frankenstein was actually a doctor, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who had these grand ideas and visions for himself, essentially godlike ambitions that he would, through his scientific endeavors, create life, right? And so what he ends up doing is, over the course of many months, assembling together this monster, right? Stitching together different body parts that he's...

stealing from graves and so on and then giving it a spark of life and it becomes this living being of these stitched together parts. Right? You know, you remember that story. Victor Frankenstein creates a monster out of all these different assembled parts. And then we read in Ephesians chapter four, Paul describing of how we are being assembled into a body. Is Paul describing the body of Christ as something like Victor Frankenstein's monster? Is it a similar image here? Well, no.

And this is what Paul is really driving out here in Ephesians chapter four, that we are not just various different parts kind of haphazardly assembled together, but that we are actually one unified body. This is what he's talking about here. He tells us to walk worthy of the calling that we have been called to, right? He talks about humility and so on. But why? What is it mean? What is the big picture of what it looks like?

to live worthy of our calling. He says to be unified. He says to remember that we are unified in our calling that we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. So the body of Christ is not like Frankenstein's monster, right? Where we are all in this church or in churches around Acadiana and across the world, just all of these random pieces that are somewhat assembled together, but that we are actually,

If we are in Christ, we are all united into one unified body because of this, because we have been given one spirit. That's what he's saying in verses four through six. He's saying we have been given a new spirit within ourselves that unites us into this body. You see, so it's not that just we're taken and then added into it, but that we are made completely new.

And in being made completely new with a new life, a new power working within us, we are now a part of this unified body, which is the body of Christ or the household of God. We have one spirit that brings us into new life. Paul says one Lord, one father, one baptism. What he is describing for us is what makes a Christian. What is it that makes a Christian? Is it something that you do?

Is it something that you confess? Is it something that you believe? Now all these things are important, right? It's important, our morality, our ethics, what we do. It's important what we confess and believe, absolutely, right? There are certain non -negotiables. But what ultimately, what essentially makes a Christian is that the spirit of the trying God is living within you.

The spirit of the God who is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The life of the triune God, if you are a Christian, is living within you. What makes a Christian is not that you are just a nice, moral, Bible -believing person, but that you have this new power at work in you. You have this triune God who has brought new life into your life. Christianity does not make nice people, it makes new people.

This is what makes the Christian. You were made new, not nice. It's not just a way of life or a lifestyle, but it is the experience of having a new life, a great power that comes into you. And it is this experience of new life that we symbolize in baptism that many of you have experienced here at Redeemer, right? Of coming into new life, that new life that God has done in you. Not what you have done, but what God has done in you is what makes you.

a Christian, right? Not based upon what we have done, but God making us new. Not based upon your efforts, but based upon God's great power at work in you. Isn't that wonderful? That friends is what makes us a Christian. Now, here's the issue though. Paul talks about how we are made, what makes us a Christian, but then he starts talking about all the problems that Christians have. He starts talking about,

how Christians essentially are like little children whenever we start. Okay, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about spiritual immaturity. Now, once again, because we're not taking a very detailed look at this, because I want us to get the big picture, the overarching vision of what Paul is giving us here in Ephesians, there's certainly some detailed questions that you might have here that I'm not gonna be able to touch on.

And so we're not gonna be able to get into everything because I wanna hit what is the main points here. Paul is explaining that Jesus Christ by virtue of his death and then resurrection, in the power of his resurrection, he makes us new, right? That's how we are resurrected in him. But then he explains how he gives gifts to his church. And specifically what Paul talks about here in verse 11.

is he is giving gifts of certain people in the church who are equipping. So he talks about apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And he says, there are people in the church who their gifts are specifically giftings for equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. What that means is here is that it is not just those who are given the equipping gifts that are called to ministry, rather we are all called to ministry.

No matter what your gifting is, whether you have the gifting of mercy, whether you have the gifting of administration, whether you have the gifting of communication, whether you have the gifting of hospitality, whether you have the gifting of encouragement, no matter what your gifting is, your gifting is given to you to build up the body. Paul's not singling out the apostles, pastors, teachers, people like me, I'm not an apostle, okay.

but pastor, teacher, right? Equiper, Paul's not singling out people like me to say that we are a higher class. He's just singling out, you know, there's people like Aaron out there who can be long -winded, but God gave him the gift of long -windedness to equip the rest of the saints for the work of the ministry. You see, it's not that there's a special class of people that are saints. We're all saints.

It's not that they're a special class of people who are called to the ministry. We are all called to the work of the ministry. But what for? Why are we all called into the work of the ministry? What's the goal? It is to build up the body. It's to build up the body. It's not to build up brands. It's not to build up followers. It's not to build up social action programs. It is to build up.

the body of Christ, it is to build up the kingdom, it is to build up God's household. So we are called and united into this body, but then once we are united into it, we are given a job to do in the household, you see? God works in us in his great power, but then his great power works in us to do the work that he has called us to, the calling that he has given us. And though we have diverse giftings and jobs to do,

they all are contributing to building up the body. Now, what does it mean to build up the body? There's a lot of metaphors here that I have to explain. It's one of the challenges. The metaphor of building up the body is building up the spiritual maturity of the people in God's household. The purpose of the church, of God giving,

the pastors and teachers, the shepherds, the evangelists, and so on, to equip the saints with the work of the ministry is that the purpose of the church is to grow people in spiritual maturity. To grow people in spiritual maturity. See, the purpose of the church and all of our services and our programs and the different fellowship things that we do and our groups and so on, the purpose is not just to get our name out there. The purpose is not to address some kind of...

felt need. The ultimate purpose is to grow followers of Christ in spiritual maturity because once we are baptized into the faith, once that great power comes and works within us and it makes us new, we start out as spiritual babies. We start out as babies. Notice what Paul says here. So he says, there are people who are given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry so we might reach unity of faith, building of the body, and so on.

growing into maturity, he says in verse 13. Growing into maturity in verse 14, then we will no longer be little children. Remember Jesus's metaphor that he used with Nicodemus. He says, to enter the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, you have to be born again. You have to be made new. And being born again means that you will start out as a spiritual infant.

you will start out as a spiritual baby. The implication here of what Paul is saying, what Jesus is saying, is that we all start out immature. In fact, it's pretty incredible that Paul in verse, I'm sorry, 14, says the first person plural, we. I'm sorry for the grammar lesson here. I like grammar, and so I think grammar is important. He says, then we. He doesn't say then you, he says then we. Even Paul includes himself in this.

that Paul started out as a spiritual baby, that he had to grow from that, and that he still had growing to do. Isn't that incredible? So if Paul was in this category, so are we all. We are all in this category. We all need to recognize that we have a certain level of spiritual immaturity in ourselves. We are all spiritual infants or babies, toddlers, somewhere along the way. But the goal of...

the Christian life is that we would grow in maturity and in our growth of maturity contributing to the building up of the body and the unity of God's household. We are not saved by Christ and then expected to just go on our merry way, but we are saved by Christ and that we are continued to be transformed in the gospel. We all start out as little children, according to Paul. Now, what does it mean to be spiritually immature? Let's look at some things that Paul says.

First of all, he says, so we will no longer be little children as we are reaching unity, we are building up the body. He says, little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness and the techniques of deceit. Let's look at three things that we can read in here of Paul's description of our spiritual immaturity. The first one is this, is that we lack discernment.

One of the marks of spiritual immaturity that we need to be grown out of, which is why the church is here to help us grow out of that, is that we need to be grown out of our lack of discernment. Paul says, we are thrown away by every wind of teaching, right? Babies, actual babies, not spiritual ones, but actual babies, right? For those of you guys in here who are parents, have you ever been around babies?

You know, they reach a certain stage where they can start to grab things. And once they can start to grab things, they start putting things in their mouth. Not just like good food, but everything. They try to eat everything. They don't know the difference between good food, between bad food, and between poison. Babies, just like puppies, right, try to eat everything that they can grab and get their mouth on. I'll never forget the time that...

Layla and I were eating dinner with some friends of ours. They still hadn't had their kids yet and Nora was just an infant and we're sitting there at dinner. We're having a conversation and talking and we look over and Sweet little little Nora. She was just a baby had her mouth on the table Just biting on the table. I stop it. Stop it You know that that's what they do. They just put their mouth on everything. They try to eat everything They don't know the difference. They completely lack discernment

between good food, bad food, and poison. Similarly, spiritual babies like discernment. Paul says, we're thrown around by every teaching. We are deceived by human cunning and by deceitful techniques. We need to be grown in discernment. This is one of the ways that, this is one of the marks of growing in spiritual maturity. Growing in discernment means knowing your way around scripture. It's a good thing we just did a series on how to read your Bible, right?

growing and understanding the word, knowing your way around the scripture, what the scripture means, what is right and wrong, ways to read the Bible, that is growth and maturity. You need to know your way around scripture and you need to be able to grow into knowing and being able to identify good teaching, dumb teaching, and poisonous teaching. There are three categories. It's not just good and poisonous, there's also dumb in the middle, okay? You need to be able to recognize all three of them. This is growth.

in maturity is being able to have discernment. Okay. The second one.

Babies, another thing about babies and children is that they are incredibly self -centered. This is something that parents, you have experienced as well, especially as soon as they are able to talk and as soon as they are able to interact. They do not care what you are doing. They will interrupt it to demand what they want, right? They don't care that mom and dad are talking or that mom or dad is talking to another adult or that they're working on something. They will come and interrupt.

because their need is more important or what they have to say is more important. You have to teach your children to politely ask for things. Because they don't ask for things, they demand them. They don't say, can I have a glass of apple juice? They just say, apple juice. Like they're your boss. Children are incredibly self -centered. That's how we all start out.

They won't share, they don't mind taking what's yours, they will interrupt you and they will demand things no matter how much of an inconvenience it is to you. Spiritual babies also are very self -centered and tend to always think about themselves. Spiritual babies, those who are spiritually immature also tend to be very self -centered about themselves. They are not thinking about what is good for the body, they are not thinking about the concerns and needs.

of others, but they are always thinking about themselves. They are thinking about how does this or that affect me? How does this hurt my feelings? They're always looking at how they're being slighted by this or that. They're always conscious of how are people looking at me? How are they thinking about me? How are they treating me? Am I being treated rightly or not? They're always looking at how things are fair. If they're not fair, they're absorbed with themselves. They're thinking about themselves. They can't take criticism.

They struggle to recognize where they have done wrong. They're concerned about their image and how they look. If this sounds like you, you're a spiritual baby. And here's the thing, if you don't think that sounds like you, you're a spiritual baby. You need to recognize that I just described all of us in one way or another. You know, the older you get, the more that you realize that age does not necessarily make you wiser and more mature.

Okay? Time itself isn't gonna do it. We need discipleship in Christ. We need the church. We need submission to authority, the authority of our Lord Christ, the authority of church authority. We need to submit to teaching. We need to submit to what scripture says. We need to submit ourselves to accountability in the church so that people can see, hey, you're being really immature here.

You know, they can help you point those things out. Call it out. Hold you accountable. Encourage you to change so that they can be whenever you're in the community, you see great examples of maturity that helps you to aspire to it. Other people's maturity in the body will reveal the immaturity in you. Their selflessness will reveal your self -centeredness and then it will inspire you to aspire to greater maturity.

Spiritual immaturity is lacking discernment. It is self -centeredness. It's also lacking steadfastness. Steadfastness, you know, babies once again are all over the place. They are absolutely controlled by their emotions and their emotions are controlled by external factors. They have no internal steadfastness that regulates their emotions despite what is going well or not well, whether they are getting.

their desires are not, it is all controlled by what's outside of them. You know, whenever my kids are kind of growing out of this phase, you know, thank God. But for those of you guys, you know, who have kids who are going into like the terrible twos, the horrible threes, I can't remember what the threes are called, but it's like terrible twos, something threes. Anyway, once they're in that phase where they have no internal controlling mechanism for their emotions, it's incredible how, how,

how a child can be just laughing, happy, having the best day ever. And then I'm telling you like that, it is horrible. Like you took them to the zoo, you gave them ice cream, you bought them a toy, but then something went wrong and it's the worst day ever. They're happy and laughing and then like that, crying, throwing a fit, kicking things over, just bawling.

It's amazing and then as just as fast can go back to being happy. There's no steadfastness at all. How many of us are exactly the same in our spiritual lives though? How many of us, when things are going well, we're praising God. We're saying, he's good. We're going to church faithfully, we're in prayer and so on. But then as soon as things go bad, we go through a rough season, we go through a storm.

we're in a time of spiritual dryness, all those things start to fall away. We're not praising as much. We're not as disciplined in scriptural reading and in prayer. Our church attendance, our group attendance and so on starts to fall off. You know, sometimes it works the other way around, where whenever times are bad, now because we need something, we feel that need, we're more consistent. And then...

once life gets easier and we're not as aware of our need for the Father, then our disciplines and our habits start to fall off. I recognize this in myself as well. I am frequently amazed at how I lack steadfastness and how I find it so exhilarating to praise God whenever I'm getting what I want, but then I'm angry with him whenever I don't get what I want. How I also tend to let my habits,

slip through the cracks, how I don't endure during difficult times. Do you recognize that in yourself as well?

Paul says, tossed about by every wave and every wind, lacking steadfastness. There's no anchor holding you down. There's no steadfastness there. There's no internal mechanism that is keeping you on course. Discipleship, there's a book written by Eugene Peterson called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. And it was a book on what it means to grow as a Christian. Discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction. It means continuing on that same path.

that same direction consistently, devotedly, no matter what, over days, weeks, years, and decades. Discipleship, growing in spiritual maturity is a long obedience in the same direction. You don't live and die by the highs and lows. I'm telling you, that is one of the greatest and most obvious marks that you can use to reflect on yourself of how spiritually mature you are. It's living and dying.

based on the highs and lows, when your prayers are answered, when they're not, when you're getting what you want, and when you're not. You know, whenever I was a younger pastor, I'm still fairly young, but when I was a younger pastor, and we were starting Redeemer, we would have a week where all the seats were full, and I felt awesome, I felt great. My sermons had more energy. And the week afterwards, I was...

I was more eager to get back into sermon preparation and doing the different things. It felt good. And then the next week it'd be kind of like this, you know? Kind of like a holiday weekend where it's a little bit lower. And then I would die. It was horrible. You know, I was questioning everything. I was questioning, why am I doing this? Am I actually called to this? Is this church gonna make it? Is it really worth it? And so on. And then we have another high weekend, I'm back on top, you know? And then low again. And living in high and dying by the highs and the lows.

But over time, the Lord matured me to grow out of that. I still do that in areas of life, but at least in here, the Lord has matured me out of that. OK?

Spiritual maturity is lacking discernment, is being self -centered, is lacking steadfastness. Let me give you a couple of application points on this before we move on. The first one is this, don't be shocked by spiritual immaturity in Christians. Don't be shocked by it. Paul even includes himself. He says, he says, we need to grow. Even he was spiritually immature, right? Don't be shocked by the immaturity that you see in other people in here.

and in the world. We are saved by grace, not by how mature we are. Praise God. God saves some messed up people. And there's some people who are really rough around the edges, who've got a lot to work on, who've got a long ways to go in the church, but they are saints just as much as you and I. Don't be shocked by the spiritual immaturity that you see. Don't be surprised when you see poopy diapers in the church.

You know, over here at Redeemer, praise God, we've got babies coming out left and right. I can't keep track of all of them. And so we do have literal poopy diapers in many of our services. Not today, all the babies aren't here today. They're all celebrating Memorial Day weekend. But you know, we often have literal poopy diapers in here. We've also got some spiritual poopy diapers. Don't be surprised at that. The second thing is this. Don't be shocked when you see it in other people. But secondly, don't put up with it whenever you see it in yourself.

It can be real easy to point it out in other people, but then to overlook it. Do not put up with spiritual immaturity in yourself. Do not just shrug it off. Do not overlook it. Do not be surprised in it, but do not acquiesce to it. Whatever you recognize and see within yourself, whatever you are disappointed with in yourself, do not tolerate it. Okay? I'm not.

By saying, don't put up with it, don't tolerate it, I'm not saying beat yourself up over it, but I'm saying remember the power of God. Remember that you have the power of the triune God living within yourself. So whatever immaturity is inside of you, whatever self -centeredness, lack of steadfastness and so on, do you think that it is any match for the power of God working inside of you? The answer to that is no, of course not.

If you see spiritual maturity in yourself, should you start to be worried that, maybe God doesn't love me? Maybe he's not going to bless me? Maybe he's going to abandon me now? No. If Christ could endure the cross, do you really think there's anything inside of you that can make him give up now?

Let that encourage you to not tolerate it. You can be disappointed by it, but don't let it make you quit.

See it, be disappointed by it, that's okay. But then drawing upon the power of God that is working inside of you, go to war with it. Go to war with it, struggle against it. Take the defeats on the chin and then get up and keep going.

Ask yourself these questions.

Are you more humble? Are you happier? More self -controlled? Do you have more inner peace than you did at this time last year? Do you have a stronger faith? Do you have more steadfastness? Do you have more concern for others than you do for yourself than you did at this time last year? Do you have the courage to ask somebody who knows you whether this is the case or not? Those are a couple of questions that you should be asking yourself every now and then, right?

Ask yourself that, maybe not every single day, you might drive yourself nuts, okay? But maybe, maybe every month, maybe every quarter or so. Ask yourself those questions in prayer, in meditation with the Spirit, knowing that you're saved by grace, so it's safe to ask those questions and see with the true answer, okay? If you are not convinced of grace, you will not want to know the answers to those questions. So do so in prayer and the Spirit, secure in grace so you're ready for the answers to those questions, so you can praise God for how you've grown.

and see the work that they're still left to do, okay? So how do we grow maturity? Paul says that we grow in maturity by pursuing unity in the body. Pursuing unity in the body, what we are doing is we are reflecting the life of the Trinity that brought about this new life and power within us and doing so, working it out in the context of community, working it out in the context of God's household.

He sums up all of this in verse 15. In verse 15, he says, you know, after talking about the spiritual immaturity in us and how God gave the church, he gave the leaders in the church to grow us up, he says, but speaking the truth in love, in verse 15, he says, but speaking the truth in love, let us grow into every way into him who is the head, Christ. That's it.

That's how we grow in maturity. By speaking the truth in love, we are growing in maturity. We will not grow in spiritual maturity unless we are plunged into a community of people who are speaking the truth in love in the power of the Spirit of God. Now, what is a community that is plunged into the truth in love? Well, what is the truth? The truth is that you and I are sinners.

rebels before God. Paul described this in Ephesians chapter two, just a few pages before this. He says, we are children of wrath. We were rebels against God. We were turned against God. We desired everything but God. We were at war with him. That's the truth. The truth is just how far we have fallen short of God's standards. How far short we have fallen from glory.

That's the truth. And the truth is that the consequences for our actions is death. For the wages of sin or death is what Paul says in Romans chapter three, right? And that's what we should have received. It's what we deserve. That's the truth. That's the truth that the world needs to hear. That they have fallen short before God, they are accountable before him and that there will be wrath. There will be consequences for their sin. What does it mean to speak the truth in love?

was what we read at the beginning of our service today. But while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were rebels, while we were children of wrath, while we were running away from the Lord, while we were establishing our own kingdoms as rivals to the kingdom of God, while during all these things, I love that Paul says, but while we were still sinners, before we had made any ounce of change,

before we had even recognized our need, while we were still enemies, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Paul says, but while we're still sinners, God demonstrated or he commended or he proved his love for us by Christ dying for us. In Ephesians chapter two, Paul says, we're children of wrath and so on, but God and his great grace for us has saved us. He has resurrected.

us from our spiritual death. He has rescued us from the consequences, from the wrath that was coming for us for our sin. He redeemed us from the slavery that we were in into new life. He adopted us from being spiritual orphans to being sons and daughters and his kingdom co -heirs with Christ. You see, this is the truth spoken in love, the truth of the gospel, that you and I are far more sinful.

than we have ever dared admit, but that we are far more loved by God than we ever dared dream.

This is the truth spoken in love. This is the gospel, the gospel of what Jesus Christ has done for us and how we are continually being transformed by that truth and love. So how do you grow in spiritual maturity and growing in discernment and freedom from self -sinnerness and steadfastness? It is by being rooted more and more deeply in that gospel.

and that story of what God has done and how it is that that story is continuing to transform you and how it is still working in our world. This is how we grow up in maturity, pursuing unity in the body through the power of the triune God working in us. Let's pray.

So Father, we come before you and we confess our immaturity. Lord, we confess that we all recognize that we are still in so many ways spiritual babies in need of your spirit working within us. Lord, I thank you that it is by grace that we have been saved and been made members of your household. But Lord, let us remember that this salvation comes with a calling.

now that we have been saved by grace, help us to answer that calling with every bit of effort that we have. Not being crushed and giving up because of the immaturity that still exists within us, but being encouraged by the power that is at work within us, which is your spirit, let us be encouraged and inspired to pursue greater heights of maturity, greater...

endeavors of obedience, greater hills to ascend for the sake of your glory. Lord, we pray all these things over your church, which is working to pursue unity, bound together in the spirit to build up the body. We pray all these things in your name, amen.