Maturity That Leads To Perfection

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Ephesians 4:11-16

Who here has seen the movie saving private Ryan while much of the movie is fictional. The premise behind captain Miller's mission is based on a true story. And that is a story of the Niland brothers in the movie. Private Ryan is played by Matt Damon and captain Miller's character is played by Tom Hanks. Captain Miller has been tasked to take several men to go and retrieve private Ryan because private Ryan has had lost his brothers in the war and he has been granted a discharge, and no longer needs to fight in the war, but they can't get a message to him. So, they send these men out to retrieve him. It is based in World War II and around Normandy, that awful place. And these men, all but two lose their life. And there's a famous scene, a very moving scene where captain Miller played by Tom Hanks turns to private Ryan and says to live a life of purpose.

One that will honour the sacrifice made for him. Now, if we fast forward to another amazing scene in this movie, an older, private Ryan is standing in that harrowing vision of tombstones that represented the lives lost at World War II. And he's there honouring the men that laid down his life, their life for his, and he weeps to say, I hope that I have lived that life that has been filled with purpose and honour, that will honour, a life that has been worthy of the guys that lost their lives for mine. Now, this movie is quite tragic because we all know that there isn't anything he can do that will repay or make up for all the of life that was given for his, for us here in the church, 2022, we also have a debt that we cannot pay. We, if you like captain Miller's character played by the apostle.

Paul turns to us and says for us to live a life that is worthy. So, chapters four through to six are lynched together by verse one of chapter four that says “as a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received”. You see, we honour the one who lay down our lives for us. That person is Jesus Christ, who lovingly willingly went to the cross to pay a debt that we could not pay, where he drunk down every dreg of the wrath of God, as we heard about the other week and that he sacrificed his life for ours. We know that he rose again to conquer death for us and ascended into heaven. And so now we have this burden inside of us that we cannot live up to or pay the debt back. That Christ has paid for us.

So, what can we do? How do we live this out? Now? Of course, we do not work in the sense to earn our salvation, but we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Well, because the it is the debt we cannot pay. And so how we honour the one who sacrificed his life for ours, is that we live a life that honours him and looks like him. And that is the “fullness of Christ”. Now we know that we're not going to get too perfection of this side of eternity, but that shouldn't stop us by wanting to do that to honour him. And so, we live our life deeper into the gospel. We look like sound like live, like our true saviour, Jesus Christ. And so, as I've said, here is a way that we can do that. And it starts by versus 11 through to 16, there are three points that I will wish to bring out.

1. Gifts that give

2. Baby on board

3. Two-way truth.

Gifts that give

So, our first point we look at verse 11 to 13, which says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

Ephesians 4:11–13 NIV

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.

Now, a poor rendering of some gramma (namely commas in the wrong place) in the original King James translation, would lead us to believe that all of these things, the teaching, the ministering, the perfecting of the Saint’s, the edifying of the body is all left up to the minister or the Pastor or elders. I think that this possibly could be why our churches in the west are set up in such a poor manner, where there is this expectation that the paid position of pastor will do all of these things. And we just sit, and we receive, we consume. This couldn't be further away from the truth or what is displayed for us in the New Testament. Now you see this will lead to two things. Number one, firstly, maybe out of laziness.

And so, we don't have to do it and we don't be bothered doing it. Or number two, we can sense that we don't have any gifts to give. And therefore, we won't even bother trying. But here Paul talks about the gifting of the ministry or the ministers, which is each and every single one of us. Yes, they are divided up into diverse areas, but every single person here today and in the church at large has at least one gift to give to the church, if not multiple. And if you have one gift that is good. If you have five gifts, that is good. God honours the few and the many the same way. And we need to be careful because if you feel like you only have the one gift, it's very easy not to use it, as you feel it is insignificant, or could be done by others.

Now the problem with that is that there is a parable that Jesus talks about, which is about a master and leaving talents to his slaves to invest for him. Here is a summary of the story in Matthew 25:14–30;

A man goes away on a trip. Before he leaves, he entrusts money to his slaves. To one he gives five talents, to the second he gives two talents, and to the third he gives a single talent. The first two slaves double their money; they give the original investment and their profit to their master when he returns. The third slave, however, buries his talent out in a field instead of trying to make a profit; he returns only this when his master comes back. The master is pleased with the first two slaves, but he is dissatisfied with the third’s actions and scolds him for his fear and lack of return. He reprimands this slave and casts him out into the darkness.

The master of this parable is clearly meant to represent Jesus. The servants are Christ-followers. Similar to the parable, Jesus has also given responsibility to his followers, and similar to the parable, he, the master, has promised to one day return. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3). But just because Jesus is physically absent from the earth, doesn’t mean his followers are given the freedom to sit back and do nothing.

Just like the master in the parable, Jesus has entrusted his servants with:

Spreading the gospel (Matthew 28:16-20);

Forgiving those who have wronged them (Matthew 6:14-15).

Loving others (John 13:34-35);

Caring for his church (John 21:17).

Being an example to the world (Matthew 14:13-16);

Feeding the hungry and thirsty (Matthew 25:25).

Caring for the poor, the prisoner, and the sick (Matthew 25:36);

Being hospitable to foreigners and outsiders (Matthew 25:35).

Ephesians 4:11–13 NIV

He gave some Apostles and some Prophets. Now I've heard this twisted in some ways, they would say that there are apostles today in a different sense. And that there are Prophets in today in a different sense. And whilst I'm sympathetic with that, and I can understand that yes, there are sort of likenesses in some of the other gifts that we have today. However, this is not what the scripture is saying. Paul narrows the parameters of the qualifications of Big ‘A’ Apostle that to be one that has seen the risen Lord and has been sent out by him.

Prophets - like the Old Testament prophets their great work was to ‘forth-tell’ the word of God. This might be in bringing to light with convicting power people’s sins (1 Cor. 14:24–25), or in bringing new strength to the church by the word of exhortation. The latter is illustrated most strikingly by Acts 15:32 where it is said that in Antioch ‘Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, exhorted the brethren with many words and strengthened them.’ The foundational ministry of prophets ceased also when the 12 passed on. Their work, receiving and declaring the word of God under direct inspiration of the Spirit, was most vital before there was a canon of New Testament Scripture.

Does that mean that we don’t have some of those gifts that spill over to today? I think for us, what we do have today that have some similarities are church planters, missionaries and the like. Paul was a church planter and Paul did missionary work. In regard to Prophets, there continued to be prophets, but not with quite the same ministry as those of the church in the first generation. Pastors (messengers) are gifted with having a prophetic voice in that they forth tell from the sealed canon of scripture, through the eyes of the cross. The very next gift that has not ceased and will continue until Jesus’ return.

Evangelists – Could be linked to the apostleship office, Paul was certainly an evangelist as well. However, they had dedicated, gifted evangelist to town-cry the message of the gospel to those around them. whilst everybody is an evangelist (great commission), there are people that are very gifted in this area (Don and Bruce as examples). This function is not always found in the Pastor, not all Pastors are gifted evangelists, but like all Christians they are to share their faith to others.

Pastors, and Teachers - through preaching convict the church of sin, exhorting scripture to teach how to live/think in the gospel, and to encourage each other in love, good works, and their gifts. They forth-tell from the scriptures. Teachers are specialised in the sense they make complex things understandable by explaining them in such a way that others learn and retain knowledge. Not all teachers make great Pastors and not all Pastors make great teachers – but these gifts need to be in all Pastors in some capacity, if not (and I have seen it) you get an imbalance being all pastoral care and lack of scripture knowledge or all knowledge and not much care. This is why it’s important to have a balance in the eldership, if the first amongst elders (Pastor) is insufficient in an area.

Pastor’s role

1. Preach the Word – 2 Timothy 4:2

2. Protect the Church – Acts 20:28

3. Pathway in Growth – Acts 6:4

4. Pray over Church – Acts 6:4

5. Pattern after Christ – Under Shepherds

These are not arbitrary gifts no; the gift and the person are connected. And so, Paul but also Jesus has gifted you the person (because it’s all about people and relationships). And so has given you pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, evangelists, and each other as a gift. Now I want to know, and don't put your hand up because I might get a broken heart, but is that how you think of your Church servant leaders? I'm not just talking about us now, but in the past with previous pastors and previous elders and deacons and leaders, or have they just been somebody to fight with, to disagree with, to be cautious of, keep at arm’s length.

It can be a lonely, somewhat ostracized life as an Elder/Pastor. Now I don’t want everyone coming up after church to stroke mine or Evan’s ego, nor the other leaders to say that we are a good gift to everyone. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that we need to see that the gift and the person are one and are supposed to be received well for your betterment.

Now, does that mean that no one else can teach and no one else can show pastoral care? Of course, they can. We've already established that. So, everybody’s encouraged to teach one another to do one-on-one Bible readings on. Where you get a little booklet that helps you with some of the questions and how to focus in and how to stay within the text. And then literally you just go out with someone, and you both read it and or you read it in a group and then you discuss it. You talk about it; you pray about it. And then if there's anything that's out of left field, you bring questions back to the elders, deacons, or me. And then that way we can be feeding one another and caring for one another. It's the sheep looking after the sheep, which is what pastoral care is all about and what the church is all about.

My goal as your minister and as your pastor, someone who cares for you is to come alongside and coach you in your gifts. That's my role, that's my gifting. I'll be challenging and encouraging you sharpen the gifts that you already have that may be lying dormant. You may not even know that you have them, or they so naturally come to you. You don't see them as a gift, and you don't use them in a way that is glorifying to God and lifting up the rest of the church. This is how we all mature, by being unified through our diverse gifts, given to us by our heavenly Father. This then leads us to perfection in the fullness of Christ, be perfect for he is perfect. We want to live excellent lives for the Lord as to walk a walk worthy of the calling.

So, this idea of unity that equals maturity which then equals perfection. And of course, we're never going to quite get there, but because we love God and we love Jesus and want to live a life that's, continuing to grow deeper and deeper in the gospel and learn from his scriptures and learn from Christ himself on how he lived. We know that he who began a great work in us is faithful to complete it.

Baby on Board

Ephesians 4:14 NIV

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.

The word translated tossed to and fro is the verb from the noun klydōn, used in Luke 8:24 of the raging of the waters of Galilee, and in James 1:6 for the ‘surge of the sea’ (rv); in the latter case it is the waves themselves that are driven by the wind, but here the picture is probably that of a boat tossed in the storm and carried about. This second verb is translated more vividly by neb ‘whirled about’; the Greek verb peripherō often has the idea of such violent swinging about as makes a person dizzy.

Now this cracks me up because there's an image that I have in my mind. I'm very visual at times, is that of these little babies on a boat trying to navigate a storm, It's funny. And also, very scary because babies shouldn't be on a boat, right? What isn’t funny and is of concern, is if your baby or child doesn’t develop into an adult. You would try and find any help from doctors, psychologists, and any other specialist to find a solution or what the problem is. Or it isn’t funny when someone accuses you of acting like a baby or a child when you are fully grown. I have chucked a man tanty before, and Mel accused me of acting like a child, even though it was true it still hurt. So why do we allow or more importantly why do we stunt our growth in church? We all know that one or two people in church who are immature, if you can’t think of anyone it might be you that everyone else is thinking about.

Jokes aside, this passage is talking about our immature faith, those who do not grow those who wish not to grow. And then they get tossed to and fro with everything that comes their way. You see my goal here again, is to equip you to grow, how to think, how to operate, how to critically read the scriptures, looking at all things through the lens of a full understanding of the gospel, to be able to ascertain what you are watching, reading, and thinking to see whether it's good or bad or somewhere in the middle. Rather than just tell you what to think, or give you a list of good, bad people. Because a lack of knowledge, or immaturity could lead to fear and anguish and to lash out at the wrong people (each other).

So, one of our first lessons in not being tossed to and fro is of course to see if it is Jesus plus something or watering down Jesus and his teachings, making him inadequate. The other, basing it off of what we just discussed about fear. Are they using fear tactics, or secret knowledge tactics to appeal to your loyalty and wallet. It is a sales gimmick; it is marketing 101. Creating a scarcity (fear of missing out) to create a problem that they have a solution too. They create the illusion that they are the leader and go to authority on XYZ and before you know it, you are buying their books, buying tickets to their conferences, or pouring money into their ‘ministry’. I just had someone recently email me a such a so-called guru on a secondary matter (that of course was blown up to def con 5 main issue), and their blog/YouTube channel was filled with links to suck you of your funds, through fear tactics.

How do we combat this? Don’t be lazy, put in some hard work in reading your bible and actually meditating on scriptures, dissect the word and work hard on not putting your bias or bent lenses on but, don’t change the scriptures let them change you. Buy a good commentary or listen to a good commentary. But most of all pray and sit allowing the word to transform your mind. And catching up with others within the church to read scriptures and to disciple one another. Don’t give me or yourself a rubbish excuse that you don’t have time. How long did you spend on social media or watching countless hours of TV or YouTube, or listening to your favourite speaker or music this week? You have time and you need that time to mature and strengthen your Christian conscious and ensure you do not get tossed around getting dizzy with the latest dribble that will knock you off course. I know this will hurt, but Stop being a Baby! Stop being a Baby on a Boat!.

We must grow up. We must become mature. We must be as human beings, not allowing the one that lies and the trickster to dehumanize us. Jesus. The Messiah has shown what genuine humanity looks like with that. Standing in mind, we are not to rest until it’s attained. We are to ensure that it doesn't happen to each other, but also that it doesn't happen to ourselves. And we see through here that, Paul is calling us not to be infants, not to be tossed back and forth. He's not leaving it up to the pastors. He's not leaving it up to the deacons. He's not leaving it up to the other leaders he's letting everybody know that it's your own responsibility to not be an infant, to not be tossed back and forth by every window of doctrine that comes through like a baby on board, a boat, you need to navigate those waters. The only way you can do that is by being fully grown and that you consistently grow. That doesn't mean that you won't grow at a different pace than somebody else, but that you continue to grow.

Two-way Truth

Ephesians 4:15–16 NIV

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. 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 so, we come to our last portion of scripture. We won't spend too long in here because we have talked about this a lot already, but it's worth mentioning because Paul brings it up here again. He says, ‘instead speaking the truth in love’. Leaders/Pastors are ambassadors of the truth and are to be found ‘speaking the truth’ and ‘dealing truly’ (rv mg.—the Gk. word alētheuō included both). Moreover, both are to be done in love. The preachers of the truth for their part cannot and must not resort to such methods as do the liars and deceivers. So how do we overcome this idea of being a baby on the boat? Well, we do this by speaking truth in love. We'll grow to become in every respect, the mature body of him, who is the head that is Christ and from him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament that grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.

Now there are two ways to do truth. There is the harsh way and there is the loving way. Both might be true, but one is not acceptable. Christ alone as the head and as the body derives the whole capacity for growth and activity. He's the one who is perfect in everything that he does has every right to speak to us in a manner of harshness if he wanted to, but he chooses to do it out of love. How do we, how we speak to each other, how we operate our gifts with each other, we need to be dealing truly in all of that with honesty and integrity and to be modelling it ourselves.

We need to cut through the rubbish because a lot of winsome talk and a lot of fluff, and that, that will fluff you up is what, how the liars and cheats do. That's the, that's what method they use to pull you into their rubbish. So yes, we need to be straight. We need to be direct, but we need to do it in love, like a loving surgeon who doesn't just come and slash you to ribbons to cut out any cancer (sin) But he carefully just pinpoints where it is and lasers it out very carefully and removes it with minimal damage. And so, with that, that's how we are to do these things.

We are supposed to be a spiritual benefit to one another, a gift, and we are to do it in a way of humility in a way that is winsome in the sense of wins them back from, from tragedy and from potential fallout. But nonetheless is straight down the line.

Let me paint you a picture of this. I think sometimes a picture can paint a thousand words. And so, with that, I was watching a, a clip a reformed drug addict, somebody who is now out of that scene, he attributes his success to a no-nonsense friend who he knew loved him. The druggie couldn’t understand the depth or seriousness of his addiction or why his friend was making a big fuss about it. The friend would sometimes shout at him and say, empty your pockets, empty them Now! I demand you empty them now, or you can get out of my house. And so, the guy empty’s his pockets and the friend grab the drugs and needles and shoves him away, goes and dumps it away and then comes back and then hugs him and cries with him and says to him how much he loves him and that this stuff is going to kill him. And he can't watch it happen because he loves him too much.

Now, whilst this is, this is a worldly approach. I think it helps us to understand, that speaking plainly at times, especially to those flirting with death (sin) and not seeming to see the consequences there is that sense of like real, if someone's in real danger, we need to get them away and we're not worried about hurting their feelings in love, so to speak in that sense. Don't do it. I love you too much for it. STORY OF MATT CHANDLER IF TIME

The problem with children is that they are blown around by every wind of teaching (verse 14). But as me as your Pastor, and Evan your Elder, we love you, and are a gift given to you by God, as you are a gift to each other, our role and our heart is to raise children into adults or, better, to raise children into one adult because unity is the mark of maturity. And rather than being knocked around by false teaching [and] blown around by false doctrines, we want to speak the truth in love to you, hoping you will also speak truth and love to each other (verse 15), and we want you and ourselves to grow into our head, who is Christ. As the whole body grows from Him (verse 16) and is fitted and knit together with Him and builds itself in love by the proper working of each part.

Conclusion

And so, we see, in this wonderful image of the church, that every part has a role to play, and the body suffers when even the least of its parts fails to do what it needs to do. The body is to grow from immature children into one mature adult in Christ.

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