Ephesians 4:11-24 | We Seek Growth

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Good morning Crossroads! Man is it good to be back!

There’s no place like home and truly there is no place like your home church! I missed you and I missed this. I couldn’t be more excited to be back and to bring the word to you all this morning!

Before I do, let me start by saying thank you!

As most of you are aware, I recently was given 3 months away from all my responsibilities here at Crossroads to rest and refocus. If you haven’t read my letter reflecting on my Sabbatical leave and are interested in doing so, I’ll point you to the website and the News & Events tab where it’s posted! That expresses my heart in more detail than I have time to now, but before I get into preaching, I did want to express my thankfulness to you all.

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While I can’t say Sabbatical was some mystical experience I will say it was a profound gift that I cherished, was super humbled by and grateful for. It was a tremendous blessing to me and maybe even more so to my family.

As I was preparing for the series that we are entering in to this morning, that word family, kept coming to me. And I think part of the reason is because you all just gave me one of the most generous gifts I’ve ever received: uninterrupted and extended time to simply be present with my family!

Now, I like to think that I’m a fairly present dad, but this time away made me realize that while I may be there in body, often times work and the responsibilities that come with it have a tendency of keeping me less than present in my mind.

But the Sabbatical served as a sort of hard reset for this. It enabled me to be fully present with my family, a trend that I hope to continue moving forward.

And while work and the responsibilities that we have outside of the home often feel more pressing and more important, Sabbatical was a great reminder to me that there is no work more pressing or more important than for my wife and I to raise and disciple our children, to raise them to become mature followers of Jesus Christ!

And in that process of raising our kids, there is one over arching goal and target that stands far and above the rest, Rachel and I’s job to help our kids know who they are! To inform and reinforce their identity in Jesus.

And I was presented with an opportunity to do just that as I picked up my kids from school one day while I was on Sabbatical. I don’t typically get this privilege as I’m usually at work when the kids are getting out of school. I learned that that car ride home from school is not always but more often then not it’s the best place to debrief the kids’ day and it offers more than a few discipleship opportunities.

One of these days, as the kids got into the car they were more animated than most days and so I asked them what’s up?

Well as they waited for me to get them, they were standing in a crowd of other children talking about I don’t know what, but through the conversation, my oldest son expressed some confusion about the topic of conversation and in his words one of the kids called him something really mean and nasty.

It doesn’t deserve repeating but what this sailor of a 4th grader said amounted to a statement from that of a foul mouthed bully.

I asked my oldest what he did in response.

He told me, I told him that was really rude and mean and then we left and went and stood some place else!

Now as a Dad, when you hear of your kids getting bullied and called horrible things, your first instinct is to unleash your inner Liam Neeson, right, I will find you punk!

And then the better part of judgement comes back to you and you realize that going to jail for murdering a 4th grader is not exactly what your family needs from you and that and as much as it stinks, this is life in our world and I can’t take them out of it but instead I’m called to help them be a light in the darkness of it and to teach them how to navigate a world where people are sinful and do and say hurtful things.

So I told Clark. Clark I’m so proud of you for letting that kid know that was mean and rude and for standing up for who you know you are. You know you’re not what he called you right! You know how smart I know you are and how loved you are and how proud of you I am!

Now, there are 2 things I want you to hang on to as we head into our passage for this morning and these 2 things are the picture of a family where the goal is to raise mature and godly people who look more like Jesus and also the crazy importance of being reminded of our identity in Jesus.

This is where we’re going this morning. I’m going to try and make the point that we are an equipped and empowered people. We are a people who seek to become more like Jesus in how we think, speak and act. Jesus has equipped and empowered us for this kind of spiritual growth and maturity. This is why the Church exists, it’s why Crossroads exists and it’s the work we’re all called to participate in.

Hang on to the picture of a family raising kids and the importance of being reminded of our identity in Jesus and I’ll to my best to connect those 2 things to who we are as the people of Crossroads who are equipped and empowered to become more like Jesus in how we think, speak and act!

Now, show of hands, who in here has ever been called something derogatory by a family member, classmate or co-worker? Who’s ever been made to question who they are because of it?

Yep, we all have!

We’ve all been insulted and called mean and nasty things throughout our lives. Sometimes the insults are direct and blunt, other times they are more passive in nature. And sometimes, especially if you’re a Christian in our current culture, no words need to be spoken at all, but you can feel the looks, the judgement, the stares and just the overall tension in the room or maybe just in your heart as you feel the tug to think, speak and act more like the world and less like Jesus.

Right, even when we’re not being insulted or given the judgmental side eye, all of us feel that tension at times to be someone and something other than what Jesus calls us to be in His word.

As I’ve said, we all know what this feels like. Whether it’s direct statements and assaults on our character or insinuations, we often are being told by class-mates, culture, co-workers and even our families who we are or who they think we should be.

And Church, I’m not sure there is anything more important in this life then for our children and for us to remember who we are in Jesus!

There’s a lot of messaging all the time from culture and our peer groups all claiming things about who we are and who we should be.

And I think most of our problems in life and society can be traced back at some level to the crisis of identity that we face daily.

And as much as Clark needed his dad to remind him of his identity after a bully spoke some garbage over him, each and every one of us need these reminders frequently as well.

We are forgetful when it comes to our identity as children of the King and this Church is why it’s some important that we don’t neglect meeting together if for nothing else than to remember and to have others remind us of who we are as God’s children in His family!

And so for the next six weeks we’re going to remind one another of whose and who we are as Christians and more specifically who we are as the people of Crossroads Church.

If you flip over your bulletin you’ll see the 6 identity statements we’ll be covering. They come straight from your Bibles and are they the most important values that the leadership at Crossroads believes characterizes who we are and what we hope we embody.

You’ve probably heard the saying if you never take aim at the target, you’ll miss every time! That’s what this list represents. It’s our target as the family of God. These are the core values and identities we’re aiming at growing in.

Along with that, as I’ve already mentioned because we don’t live here within this building with only Christians 24/7, but rather we live in a culture that is saturated with darkness and are in a war with a dark and deceitful enemy, because we are swimming in a river where the current is constantly pulling us away from Jesus and what He wants us to know and believe, we need to take heed to remember and to remind each other of who we are!! Because all of us are being discipled and programmed by culture, with lies so good they sound like the truth; to keep ourselves anchored, to keep ourselves from being tossed to and fro by every wind of new teaching, we must take care to remember and to remind ourselves of what Jesus says about who we are!

And so just what does Jesus say about who we are? Well first and foremost Jesus says that we are an equipped and empowered people!

Remember when I asked you to hold on to that word family! Well, here’s why, God has given us the gift of a family, and He calls it His bride the Church! And to this Church family, He gives godly spiritual parents and grandparents! Men and women equipped with gifts in articulating and applying the gospel, the good news of Jesus to our lives and the responsibility of these godly and gifted spiritual parents and elders is to raise godly and mature children!

Look with me at Ephesians 4 vv. 11-13. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Church family at Ephesus.

Ephesians 4:11–13 (NLT)

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Paul says that Christ has given gifted people to His family the Church to equip them and to empower them to grow and become mature, so that they speak, think and act like Jesus!

Church this is our goal. There are lots of people we could aspire to look like, lots of ideals floating around as things we should aspire to be but here’s the truth if Jesus isn't the standard we’re aiming for, we will be off base some how or some way! There is no moral standard as complete or as good as Jesus Christ!

I think this goes with out saying but Donald Trump is not our complete or good standard for maturity and Church neither is Kamala Harris. Ghandi, your grandma or grandpa. Levi Stuckey, goodness knows I ain’t the standard!!! Wes, he’s closer, but he still ain’t it!

Church, there are all kinds of standards thrown out in our society ascribing wisdom to wokeness or some philososphy of goodness but if it ain’t Jesus it ain’t good enough!

Even words like compassion and mercy or justice and truth alone aren’t good enough!

Some in our society would have you prioritize mercy and compassion but in doing so they fail to put enough emphasis on personal responsibility, truth and justice!

Others are on the slip side of that coin. They’re hard nosed and prioritize justice, truth and personal responsibility but because Jesus is not they’re standard of maturity they aren’t merciful or compassionate! They fail to have grace and empathy! And the world would like you to think that you have to choose between between these things… justice or mercy, truth or freedom, but you can’t choose both. That’s a lie!

Jesus is a beautiful example of the middle ground! He was truth-filled and just while also being kind, merciful and compassionate! It’s possible to be men and women of deep convictions and also be kind! Jesus shows us this is true!

Now I’ll give you this is not easy! It’s not neat and tidy! This middle ground, walking with Jesus in justice and mercy, growing in Jesus in truth and grace, this takes wisdom and supernatural power!

Right, take the current election as an example, is it just to have an open boarder where men and women can come over unchecked and overload social systems or receive benefits for free that others are called upon to shoulder the load? Is that just?

But on the flip, aren’t we as a nation blessed with resources called to be compassionate to orphans and widows and to care for those who can’t care for themselves. Don’t the blessed have a moral obligation to try and bless others? How would Jesus have us think about our nation and it’s boarders and the call to care for the alien and immigrant among us? How would he have us think, speak and act?

Campaign slogans and our 2 party system is not prepared to navigate the intricacies of this dilemma, but Jesus in His wisdom and His family the Church are!

Or what about this, how do we empathize with a confused young person who feels like they are a man trapped in a woman’s body while also standing on truth, that God doesn’t make mistakes. He creates men and woman and the best path forward in life is to embrace the identity God assigned to us in the womb through our biology? How to we love those who are confused while also holding on to the convictions of Christ’s Truth and His perfect and good designs?

These are sticky situations and there are countless others in this life just like it. And here’s the reality alone and apart from Jesus and His Church family, we cannot and will not navigate them well, but praise be to God! He’s not left us as orphans has He! He’s not left us alone!

Through Christ’s death and resurrection He has created a family and adopted those of us who have faith as sons and daughters into it where we are now empowered to think, speak and act differently from our world and more like Jesus!

We can now throw off the old man, our old nature that is easily confused and deceived and we can learn to walk in, we can grow in our maturity and put on the new nature Christ died to give us!

This is what the text says friends.

Ephesians 4:14–24 (NLT)

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. 17 With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 18 Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. 19 They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes! Or to put it another way seek to become more like Jesus in how you think, speak and act!

This is who Christ created us to be as a family Crossroads!

We as a church are a family who Christ has equipped to grow up! To become mature believers who think, speak and act more and more like Jesus! He’s gifted us with great leaders, with spiritual parents and grandparents to help us grow, so cooperate with them!

Get into a group! Come regularly on Sundays. Make some fridge friends! Live life with us. Study the Word! Attend an equip class! Be receptive to discipleship and to discipline if it’s necessary! We are a family! And all good parents who love their children discipline their kids.

Also as in a family, for it to be healthy, every part needs to do it’s part! If you don’t know what your special part is yet, we’ll do our best to help you figure that out but know this, you do have a part to play here!

And before I move on, let me just praise God for the health and maturity He has grown in us as a Church. The fact that you could gift me with 3 months away and that our numbers have grown and our ministries did not skip a beat is a testimony to God’s grace, care and the maturity of so many believers that stepped in and stepped up to continue to press on with the mission of Christ for Crossroads! God has made a healthy body here and I want to praise Him for it but also I don’t want us to get too cocky! We need to take care to keep our sights set on the target! Praise God all the parts are doing their part but lets not take our foot off the gas! Onward and upward!

We are a family who seeks to become more like Jesus in how we think, speak and act! This is who we are. It’s who Christ through His death and resurrection empowers us to be!

And as we think about growing in maturity and this image of a family as the Church I want to leave you with some grace, because I think this is what Jesus would do!

Whenever we talk about becoming more like Jesus or looking to Jesus as our standard. When ever we talk about growing up in our thinking, in our speaking and in our behaviors there’s usually a decent amount of conviction and sometimes condemnation that we feel.

And so to close here’s what I want to do. Firstly, I want to dispel any condemnation because Jesus did not come to condemn but rather He came to save! And secondly I want to encourage you to receive any conviction you might feel as a holy challenge by a loving Father who equips those He calls!

Because we are a family who Christ as equipped and empowered to become like Him in how we think, speak and act, here’s what I want to leave you with and what I believe God would have you hear: act your age friend! Act your age. Nothing more and nothing less. And while I’m going to share a graphic I’ve shared before don’t read it yet. I’ll post it and make it available, but I want you to listen as you see the different ages represented on the graphic.

Recently my 3 year old has started to complain, Daddy I want to be bigga like you.

Maeve is a 3 year old and you know what she does what 3 year old’s do. She throws fits occasionally when she doesn’t get her way. She can’t read and struggles to share. She can’t dress herself or go potty by herself. She can’t say her r’s and she uses hers rather she, as in “her’s is my favorite mommy, Daddy!” which I hope never changes because it’s just so darn cute! And as much as she wants to be bigger, she’s not! She’s 3 and Church and what kind of Father would I be if I disciplined her for those things?

Because she’s 3 I expect her to act, think, and speak like a 3 year old, and while I am patient with hers, I also expect hers to grow up beyond where hers is currently and I’m well aware that this is precisely how God has created and designed all of us to work!

When we don’t or won’t grow, physically, mentally and or spiritually we all know there is a problem! Why because we were created to grow and more specifically we were created and recreated through the gospel to grow into the full standard of Jesus Christ!

So if you’re in infancy in your faith, know that the leadership of Crossroads and God has got grace for you. Seek to become more like Jesus in how your think, speak and act knowing that this is what you’ve been created, equipped and empowered to do within God’s family but be patient with the process. Act your age!

And if you a 40 year old in the faith, well then act your age too!

Seek to become more like Jesus in how you think, speak and act knowing that this is what you’ve been created, equipped and empowered to do within God’s family but be patient with the process.

This is who we are Church! As Crossroads, we are a people, we are a family equipped and empowered to become more like Jesus in how we think, speak and act!

Let’s seek to grow up together into the full measure of Christ who is our full and complete standard!

Pray.