Untitled Sermon

Ephesians 4:13–16 NKJV

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Perfect = mature

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

14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

What’s wrong with being children? Didn’t Jesus say something about us being like children?

Yes He did in Matt 18:3

Matthew 18:3 NKJV

3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

We must be like children in humility, we must be like children in innocence, in faith and in reliance and dependance on God, but not in knowledge and wisdom.

What happens when we are immature in our knowledge of the Son of God and doctrine?

Ephesians 4:14 NKJV

14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

The image is that of a small boat in a storm at sea. It is tossed to and fro and has no means of guiding itself by use of a rudder. It is totally at the mercy of these powerful forces tossing it where ever it will.

So is a immature Christian in this world.

every wind of doctrine

trickery of men

cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting

So what can we do? What must we do to be protected from these deceivers, and false teachers

The answer goes back to verse 3

Ephesians 4:3 NKJV

3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

This is a unity which we have in that we are one body, and there is one Spirit, one calling, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father.

But it must also be maintained as we endeavour to keep it and as we fine now we must also attain it as we grow up in truth and love. And, as we have been studying, Christ has supplied us with gifts so that we can grow up into this unity. This is done as each one ministers to one another to build up the body.

This is why meeting together in person is so important. We got to see the impact on the church through the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. Unfortunately despite the attempts of churches all over the world to maintain connection so that this could happen mostly the best we could do was to continue with some level of teaching but the ministering of each one to one another all but stopped completely and the church suffered greatly.

This is why in Heb 10:24-25 it tells us...

Hebrews 10:24–25 NKJV

24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

But coming back to our text how long do we need to do this?

Ephesians 4:13 NKJV

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

Unity of Faith and Knowledge

For us to be mature and not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine we must have unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God.

I had to stop and ponder that for sometime this week. Does this mean that we must agree on all doctrines? And if so, how do we do that?

We talked about the unity that we have already in Christ but here I believe that Paul is telling us of the unity that we have yet to attain but we strive for it. So, yes I believe that Paul is saying that we must attain to the unity of our doctrine and not only unity of knowledge but unity of the acceptance and reception of that knowledge by faith. Remembering that this is the end goal. this is what the mature church looks like.

Ephesians 4:13 NKJV

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

We have a lot of work to do. And how to we pursue this end result?

Even in churches where we have a lot of unity in our knowledge of the Son of God and unity in our faith and trust of that knowledge we still have a lot of differing views on things.

One of the areas that Protestants are criticised by Catholics is in the diversity of doctrines that we have across different denominations and even within individual churches. They feel that they have achieved unity in doctrines by having a church structure which dictates dogma from the Pope down through the church hierarchy so that the church members must just accept the doctrine. But that is not the image that Paul gives us here of every member ministering to one another in order that we grow up into unity of faith and knowledge.

But how can this work? If we all have different views and opinions how do we unify?

Ephesians 4:15 NKJV

15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—

Truth in Love

We find in the church there are some who love the truth and doctrine and have a keen eye for heresy and are quick to correct it. But they sometime do so without love. They speak harshly and condescendingly and the result can be divisive instead of unifying. Then there are others who are peace keepers who have great compassion for others and concern for the feelings of others who would rather we just not discuss doctrines in which we might have disagreement. Neither approach will be effective to bring us into unity of faith and knowledge.

So we must speak truth but do so in love. But the word for speak truth in more than just speak it means to be true and profess truth. Tell truth and profess truth but also live truth and do so with agape love or unconditional love for one another. What beautiful balance that is.

If we do this we will grow up into Him who is the head Christ.

Ephesians 4:16 NKJV

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

God has brought us together to form a complete body knit together, the tendons and cartilage and joints connecting us together with one another so that as each one of us does our part, that is we exercise the ministering gifts which Christ has given us, it cause us to grow and mature. God has given us everything that we need to be able to build up ourself, the body, in love.

Yes we have a long way to go and we must not be impatient with each other. We may feel that some are not maturing as quickly as we think we are, we may think that others have not understood the knowledge of Christ as well as we have, but with patients and speaking and living the truth in love we will see the church grow into the mature and perfect man to the measure and stature of the fulness of Christ.