The Goal Line

Ephesians 4:13-16

Church Stuff – A Gigantic Investment

Why are you here this morning? Why church? Why church in general? Why church at all?

Some of you are thinking “good question, I’m out.”

Or we have our list of reasons… and they can be a whole mix of stuff. I want to worship God, I want to learn about God, I should, I was raised this way, I feel guilty if I don’t, I want to see my friends and my family. I like the music. I like the sermons. I like the coffee.

But all of this church stuff is a HUGE investment. And if you have been here for the last two weeks we have only talked about more investment. Making every effort to be humble and gentle and patient and bearing with one another in love. That is hard work!

Add to that that Jesus gives each of us a gift and you are to be using your gift in the church. Equipping others in the church, but also doing works of service or works of ministry.

That is more work!

I have had the privilege over the last several weeks to sit down and talk with people about church membership here at Next Step. It is a huge investment. It is a commitment.

Why? Why all the time, all the hard work, all the time.

If we see church as religious entertainment, it isn’t worth it. You can get bigger bang for your buck elsewhere. Other churches. Other forms of entertainment!

What is so special about church?

The Goal of All This Church Stuff

Paul, in Ephesians 4:1-16 is setting out a vision for Christians and the Christian church. Christ’s church. He turns from the worship and prayer and theology of the first three chapters and for the next three chapters has a focus on Christian ethics. That is, how we should live.

Stop number one on that train is how we should live in Christian community. It all builds towards Ephesians 13-16 where he sets out the goal, the end zone, the vision for victory. This is what our gifts work toward, our acts of ministry and service, our ministers work toward…

Ephesians 4:13-16

13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Our Goal

Our goal is unity. One-ness. As we said in the very first week of our study in Ephesians, this is the one-word thesis of Ephesians. One. One-ness. Unity. And it builds on this unity. It is unity in the community in three aspects: faith, knowledge and maturity.

Unity in faith

A community united by faith. Our faith in Christ. In particular, the unity of our faith in what he has done, our salvation faith which has already drawn us together. But more than that, it is our faith in Him, in the Son of God. Our trust in Him.

This is clarified by the next aspect of unity:

Knowledge of the Son of God

We have faith in him and we know Him… we have faith in Him because we know Him. We know what he taught, we study it. We know what He did, we confess it. We know what He is doing: we follow Him.

We have to know stuff, we study, we listen to sermons, we read His word, we fill our minds with the knowledge of the Son of God… and that also builds our faith… and that also unites us. We, together, discover truth about God and his will.

And finally: we are united in maturity.

Mature (perfect) – the whole measure of the fullness of Christ

This has the idea of age. It could be us together growing tall, or us together growing old. Growing towards maturity. To me it is the application of the other two: faith and knowledge rightly applied as wisdom, having learned together through the maturing process the mistakes of immaturity.

Contrast – Infants on the Waves

Illustration – Dylan at the beach, swept away by a wave.

And Paul uses just this analogy to describe what immaturity looks like.

Ephesians 4:14

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

This is where we all started at some point. Not sure, unclear, subject to manipulation and error. I used the example of Dylan at the beach, but this is true of Dylan in spiritual matters now. His number one source of information about God is Arabelle. They share a room at night and I hear these theological discussions.

Dylan: “Is God bigger than anything?”

Arabelle: “Yes, but He is also smaller than anything.”

Dylan: “So a dinosaur could step on God?”

Arabelle: “Yes, because God is everywhere.”

And Dylan is onboard. He is trying to put the pieces together and swayed by every idea. He has faith, he believes, but it is an untampered faith. Directionless. It isn’t shaped by knowledge because he doesn’t have much knowledge. It isn’t tested and refined and deepened by maturity because he doesn’t have that yet.

And Dylan is 5… but we know people who never leave this place. Maybe we are people who have never left this place.

We live in:

Instability, rootlessness, lack of direction, susceptibility to manipulation and error. Rough water or waves.

And we get beat up because there is no stable ground.

And here is the secret: you don’t grow into unity of faith, knowledge and maturity on your own.

The insecurity, rootlessness, getting tossed around is contrasted not with you getting stronger as an individual but with us growing together as a community. The body of Christ.

The Voltron Body of Christ

Ephesians 4:15-16

15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

And Paul uses this powerful metaphor. He used it in Colossians and Romans and to the Corinthians. This is a powerful metaphor. It has legs (pun intended).

We as individual people join together to form the body of Christ and He is the head. It is like Voltron (Or power rangers, but power rangers are lame). We unite to form His body, and this is such a powerful visual.

We get to that place of unity together, unity in faith, knowledge and maturity. We get there in the way described by the rest of the passage: walking in humility, gentleness, patience and loving forebearance. Receiving and opening our gifts from Christ and using them in the Church. To equip one another and do acts of ministry.

But here, in verse 15, one verse sums up how we join together as His body.

Speaking the truth in love

This is not truthfulness in general, but particularly contrasted against the false teaching mentioned in the previous passage. It is the “word of truth” we are to be confessing, the gospel of our salvation. And we apply that word of truth to and towards one another in love.

This is something different than cloaking arrogant judgment in spiritual language. I think

It is in contrast to the manipulative cunning of the false teacher in the previous passage. It especially informs the way our evangelists, pastors and teachers operate. We don’t manipulate, we don’t trick… we simply speak truth in love. We love, and in that contrast, we confess the word of truth.

Understand: this is not a tension. We are not walking the border between truth and love. Love is the absolute sphere, the context and truth is spoken within that. The truth of the gospel will NEVER STEP outside the sphere of love.

That doesn’t mean it will always be heard. Or well received. Or feel good. Or give warm fuzzies. It means the speaker has that gut check that says “Am I 1000% in the sphere of love? Is this gospel truth?” Then Ok.

Speaking the truth in love we…

Grow in every way

Grow in every way. In all the ways we just went over in the rest of our passage. All the way back to the way we walk around, the four graces, we grow in those as one body. In our gifts that Christ gives us, we grow in those as one body. Our pastors and teachers and evangelists, apostles and prophets: we grow and they, we help us grow as gifts to the One Body.

The Body – Christ as the Head, Joint (ligament) held together, building itself up in love

This word “joint” is often translated as “ligament”. It is so visceral, so literal. The parts of the body that hold one to one another, that pull the limbs in, that hold the whole thing together.

We saw this same image in Colossians 2:19

19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Powerful image. Ligaments and sinews. I am holding on to and you’re holding on to me and therefore the arm doesn’t fall of the Body. And by pulling on one another our arm moves and can do stuff. Our hand out there can touch the world.

And the focus here on the Body metaphor is on the internal growth and unity of the Body. But it is this internal growth that enables our external mission of love.

What if we take this “Body of Christ” thing a little more literally than we have previously. How is Jesus continuing his ministry of teaching, his acts of love, his message of repentance and salvation, the Kingdom of God among you. He ministers through His body, he speaks through His body. He reaches out and acts through His body. He wants to perform miracles through His body. He wants to save people through His body.

Is he capable of bypassing us and meeting someone in a dream, or appearing in person? Yes, absolutely. But apparently, mostly, that is not what He chooses to do!

Christ (Messiah) continues His mission through us, His body. That’s how we grow and why we must continue to grow. Not so much in numbers, but in unity. Not quantity but quality.

You – Part of the Body

So, now to your investment. Tons of time. Tons of attention. To members we talk about sacrifice, submission and trust. Using your gifts, striving to love the hard to love, putting up with one another, bearing with one another, serving. Hard work.

What is so special about church? What makes all that hard work worth it?

Christian growth does not happen in isolation. We head together to the same destination.

This only happens in and through the church. No one believer on their own attains to “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” That is the way we usually think of “Christ-likeness”. But the vision of Christ-likeness we see over and over is Christ as the Head and the Church as His body. That is Christ-likeness. His will, his love, his decision, guiding our cooperative action together.

I don’t believe that because I am a pastor, I am a pastor because I believe that!

And it takes all of us. Unity in diversity.

The only chance we have at attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ is because we are different. But if, in that difference, in that diversity, we can speak the truth in love, we grow in every respect.

Growing in every way to the fullness of Christ

We aren’t there yet, but we are on our way.

Perfect unity is probably only fulfilled in Christ’s return… but if we aren’t headed for perfection, where are we headed?

Let us grow. Let us grow in love. Let us grow in our love for one another.

There is more to come in Ephesians about how to live consistent with our new life in Christ. But this is home base, this is our starting point, this is our training ground.

Get committed. Get involved. Be the Body.

I need you and you need me in order to attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. By working towards one another, speaking the truth in love, holding on to one another, we form this amazing thing. The local incarnation of the Body of Christ.

Get committed. Get involved. Be the Body.

I see those who are already all the way in. Keep doing what you are doing, we are growing together in unity.

But to all who “enjoy church.” Who like to “come when they can.” Who are testing the waters.

If God is calling you as part of this local body, then you need us and we need you to step into and grow into all He has for us.

Get committed. Get involved. Be the body.

And, instead of insecurity. Instead of confusion. Instead of immaturity. Instead of getting confused and tossed around and knocked around by every wave…

15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.