Mission: What is our Purpose?

Announcements:

Beach Baptisms

Next week

1:30pm, right after Church

Corona Del Mar / Pirates Cove

Importance of Baptism

Fall Retreat

October 24th-26th (Fri-Sun)

Palm Springs

$235 - Registrations Live

Fundraiser incoming (lmk if you are interested)

God will provide

Wednesday Nights

6:30 by fire pit

Demo starts Monday

Introduction:

Recap:

Vision Series

1. Who do we want to become?

2. How do we get there?

3. What is our purpose?

4. What is important to us?

We’ve talked about our vision

The question of who we want to become

And how we get there

Today:

What is our purpose?

Question of mission

What do we seek to acomplish with our time here?

In short:

“To prepare you to faithfully follow Jesus into Adulthood”

Scripture Reading:

Ephesians 4:11–16 CSB

11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 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. 14 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. 15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. 16 From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Today we are going to be talking about our purpose here in HSM

And we exist to prepare you for following Jesus into your adult life

We are a transitional ministry

You only have four years in high school

And every year, we send out a group of graduated seniors into the world—and receive a new group of freshmen

So with the four short years we have you… we seek to prepare you as you ready to enter adulthood

And this is a process of maturity

I’ve known some of you for several years now and have seen you physically mature

But today our focus is Spiritual Maturity

Physical maturity happens naturally—you don’t need to put in effort

But spiritual maturity doesn’t just happen

I’m sure we all know people that are old and physically mature—but emotionally and spiritually immature

Spiritual maturity takes time and intention

Outline:

What is Spiritual Maturity?

How do we become Spiritually Mature?

(Truth and Love)

The Fruit of Spiritual Maturity

(The Health of the Whole Body—CCCM)

What is spiritual maturity?

Coming straight out of last weeks reading it flows into what we are talking about today:

Ephesians 4:11–13 CSB

11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 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.

The equipping, the giftings, the ministry we all have

The purpose of it is unity and maturity

What does it mean to be spiritually mature?

What would you say the difference between a mature and immature person is?

Recognizing that you are not the center of the universe

In order to understand what it means to be spiritually mature, I think is it helpful to ask what it means to be spiritually immature—so we can see the contrast

Paul gives us a description of someone that is immature:

Ephesians 4:14 CSB

14 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.

Someone who is spiritually immature is:

Not grounded

Decieved easily

So maturity entails:

Being anchored and steadfast

Knowing the truth and identifying deception

To be spiritually mature—is to be rooted in Jesus

Gerry

Brian B.

And I’m still in the process of maturing spiritually

And I’m asking you to come along side me and others here at this church to seek to mature in Christ

But as we read Paul’s words here, there is a clear end goal to this process:

Ephesians 4:13 (NLT)

New Living Translation Chapter 4

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.

Spiritual Maturity is about becoming like Jesus

He is the standard we measure up to

It’s interesting the word used here and throughout the NT for ‘mature’ — ‘teleios’ — literally translates to perfect

Jesus’s words on the sermon on the mount:

Matthew 5:48 CSB

48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

As a follower of Jesus we are all born again

And we are born again as spiritual babies

Whether you’re 6 years old or 60 years old

And as we follow Jesus—we mature—we grow up to become like Jesus

That is what spiritual maturity is — becoming like Jesus

So the next question we face is:

How do we become spiritually mature?

Now this doesn’t have a simple answer—but here Paul gives us one of the primary ways:

Ephesians 4:15 CSB

15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ.

Speaking Truth Love

Speaking

Entails a dialogue

Prayer — speaking with God

Commuinity — speaking with Others

Maturity doesn’t just happen in a isolated chamber

We must balance truth and love

Truth

We need truth to grow

Truth challenges us

We don’t mature by remaining ignorant

Love

Provides the context for truth to be recieved

We seek to foster a community of truth and love

The Fruit of Spiritual Maturity

The health of the whole body

Ephesians 4:15–16 CSB

15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. 16 From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

The fruit of spiritual maturity isn’t just an inner transformation—a more anchored life

It is found in the lives of others