Knit Together Ephesians, 4:11-16

You may have even come to realize what this means when we have a cow in front of you with a world map on it. You may have come to recognize what that means. What that means is that Bruce and I are going to Uganda again, right? Okay. Yes, we are. In a little less than a month. So anyway, we're headed off to Uganda in the heart of Africa. And May 13th is our departure date. There'll be some different things about this trip. And let me share what some of those things are. We'll be centered in our activities around the town of Mbale, as we were last time, in the eastern part of Uganda. And immediately you may, in view of recent news, look and see this name Somalia and go, uh-oh. you know, and think of the pirates, you know, these recent events, of course, having hit the news.

I want to calm your hearts, okay? That doesn't offer a real danger to Bruce and I as we travel over there. I don't think that their boats will get very far, okay? Very unlikely that they'll work their way inland with those. So, anyway, not a problem. We'll have problems, but not those, okay? So here we are headed for Mbale again and leaving just in a matter of weeks here.

One of the things that we will do is, as we did last time, we took over 138 MP3 players with the New Testament audio on them. And that's particularly valuable to many of these people who are in the villages. Many of the people in the villages either cannot read or they can read very poorly at best. And so having these MP3 players with the audio New Testament, or the entire New Testament, is in sound form. They can listen to it.

The ones we took over before had Luganda as the language, and they could listen to it in Luganda. But as we found out, there are a great many languages in this area. In Uganda alone, there are 524 different languages. I haven't mastered any of them. So it's a good thing these are available. Swahili is another one we've had requests for. Some in Uganda speak them and also some of the pastors in Tanzania and Kenya have asked for the New Testament in Swahili.

Another request that we got since we were over there is for the New Testament in a language called Luo. So we'll be taking over MP3 players like what you see there, and they will have all three of those languages loaded on them so that they can listen in their native language.

I was talking to one pastor who lives in a town not too far from Mbale, but he lives in a little village near what's called Tosoro. And he told me, he says, I'll take all of them that you can give me. He says, most of the people in my little village church cannot read. And the only Bible that they get is what I can read to them on Sunday morning.

Now with this, they can listen to the Bible all week long. And it gives me a huge, huge leap ahead with these people because they can listen to the words of the New Testament all throughout the week. So anyway, we're planning on taking these MP3 players over. We have even more of them this time with all three languages for them to choose from. And so that's an exciting opportunity in front of us. Bruce will be covered in... No, that's not quite right. He'll be covering the bees. That's sort of what I mean.

What he's doing is he'll be kind of working on a feasibility pilot program trying to get keeping beehives as a practice initially with one of the pastors and some of the people who are associated with this network of churches. And so some of the value of that is that gives them a high-value product, the honey, to be able to use and to sell. But it also has some other advantages in that the bees pollinate the local crops and banana trees and all those and so it increases crop yields. So there's a benefit to the people in the village as well as a benefit to the pastor and others who are involved.

So, for instance, this fellow that Bruce has his arm around, Ibrahim will be the fellow that Bruce initially will be working with. And that will be a huge help to him. He's volunteered to be, you know, I'll be the guinea pig is what he's laid out there. So Bruce will be working with him. It will help people in the local churches. They have all sorts of crops. Since most of the people live on subsistence agriculture, this will be a huge step ahead for them. So, anyway, Bruce will be spearheading that effort there.

It'll also be a help for the children's home. The children's home where they have 90 kids. Here you see Edward and Harriet Mukibi. And imagine adopting 90 kids. That's what they've done. They have 90 children. And to be, you know, feeding them and also as they try to grow crops and have other activities going on. for raising food and providing for themselves in other ways, that'll be a real plus for them to have that in place.

Bruce and I will be having contact with these four gentlemen. Hassan is one who is interested in becoming a pastor. He has also taken a great interest in the MP3 players and has taken them around to people who speak some of these different languages and has asked for more languages. Jared is another one Bruce is wanting to work for and he's also one that's been working with these MP3 players and getting them out to people. He works at the children's home with the orphanage so that the children can hear the Bible in their own language. And so he helps them with the MP3 players for that.

Ibrahim is the fellow that Bruce will be working with to do the kind of pilot study with the bees. And Boaz is the fellow who heads the pastor's school, where I'll be spending most of my time. Here's the school for pastors, just kind of across town from where Bruce and I will be staying. And so I will at least spend quite a bit of time there, and Bruce may spend some time there as well.

Here's a picture of some of the students during one of the break times when I was there last time and so I'll be going there again to see some of them. I have, by the way, heard from some of them via email since I was last there. Several of the students said, you know, it's great to see you. Please come back, which is good to hear. A whole lot better than please stay away. Okay.

So anyway, what there will be is, I'll be going there, there will be 60 pastors in training, that is these students, and also 60 village pastors coming from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. So there will be a total of about 120 gathering there for the time that I'm there to teach them. So anyway, Bruce and I will be headed over there and we'd ask that you please be praying for us, okay? And we'll share other interesting things as we come across them while the plans fall into place. Okay, now we will ask that the kids be dismissed, and while they're being dismissed, I'd like you to sing with me. You can remain seated.

Jesus loves the little children while they're leaving the room, okay? Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. Okay, thank you. I'm so glad that he does.

Alright, we're stepping into a series here and we have it planned out for today and the next three weeks following. You have the schedule on the top part of your handout on the first page. And so you can get some kind of a plot as to where we're headed. We had previously announced that we're headed to 1 and 2 Corinthians, and we will get there. We just want to cover some of this material before we do that. And so we will start into our study of 1 and 2 Corinthians later on. Let me read the passage for you, and I'll just tell you in advance. We're kind of focusing towards the end of it, but it begins like this. You can follow along in your Bibles if you like.

In Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, it says, And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Continuing on in verses 14 through 16, Paul wrote, As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. And in verse 15 it starts, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together, by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Now as we go through this passage, what we're going to be doing is kind of making a beeline for these last couple of verses here. And so we're going to go through the initial part of that rather swiftly and then zero in and hone in on these last couple of verses.

In the first couple of verses that we read, 11 through 13, Paul said that Christ gave gifted believers to the body of Christ. Now, later on in our study of 1 Corinthians, we're going to be talking about spiritual gifts. We're going to be talking about the spiritual gifts that believers are given for the benefit of one another, for the building up of one another in the body of Christ. This particular passage, however, does a kind of a turn on that, and that here are people who are given as gifts to the body.

Isn't it interesting? Gifted believers to the body, not gifts to each believer. To do what? To equip us in the church for the ministry, that is for the building up of the body of Christ. And let me make a particular important point here, and that is that it is a building up of you in the body of Christ so that you do the work of ministry.

I'm glad you're sitting down, because I want you to hear this while you're sitting down. I am not in the ministry. You are. You are in the ministry. It is the job of the pastors and teachers in the various capacities that we have them here to equip you for the work of service. That's what the Lord has in mind.

Now, the building up of the body of Christ, as this passage makes clear, looks like the unity of the faith It's not just, I've got an idea of what the Bible says, and I've got an idea of this, and I kind of feel like the New Testament says this, and these people over here kind of look at it this way, but the unity of the faith, the singular faith. It also means not just, hey, we have a doctrinal statement that we go and dust it off once in a while and say, isn't that a nice doctrinal statement? But we have a doctrinal statement that is an expression of our faith in Christ in our intimate relationship with Him. That's where we're going. That's where we're growing as a church body.

At least that's what the Lord has in mind. Paul then spells out in these last few verses, 14 through 16, the results of all that. The results of the gifting this body with believers who do this equipping. The result of that equipping so that the people in this body are prepared for the work of the service.

The result of, and we'll see in verse 14, the growing away from the diversity of doctrine. The growing away from the confusion and the trickery, being gullible and subject to those things. So that's why he says in verse 14, we're no longer to be children. That's why I say growing away from.

Where are we headed? Were we all babies in Christ when we first believed? Yes. We were all infants in Christ. Was that a good thing? Yes, it was. But there's a growing away from that infantile character that God has in mind. We are to be growing away from what is spiritually immature.

In 4.14 it tells us about the nature of immaturity that a maturing church is growing away from. And he spells that out, this being He uses a shipping term that's being thrashed back and forth and spun around like a ship in the middle of a storm. Not being subject to the trickery of people. Not being subject to wolves in sheep's clothing. We're no longer that. We're growing away from that vulnerability, that gullibility. Now certainly infants are a joy and you might recognize some of these kids who have grown immensely since this picture was taken. You might not even be able to fit them all in the picture, you know, at this time.

But we do want them to be growing as they ought and not stalled. For example, if Abby still looked like that, you'd be concerned. You expect Abby to grow as cute as she is at each age. We don't want them to be stalled in their growth. We like to see them grow. You don't want them to still be infants as they get older. You don't want that.

Believers ought to be growing, now get this, both individually and also together as a church body. Got that? There are two aspects of spiritual growth and the Lord wants us as believers, each one of us, to be growing in both respects. The Lord wants you and me to grow individually as believers, and the Lord wants us to grow as a church body together. Both of those things. Both kinds of growth. Isn't that interesting? It's easy for us to lose sight of one or the other of those. The Lord intends both.

And what's being spelled out here particularly in Ephesians 4 is the church body growth. So, about those children. Just as a human infant physically and emotionally is vulnerable and gullible, so also a spiritual infant is spiritually vulnerable and gullible. In the same way that we want our kids to grow, it's the Lord's intent that we grow as a church body in various ways. grow away from that gullibility, grow away from that vulnerability in the spiritual realm. That's what God has in mind. He does not want us to be imbalanced. He wants us to have balanced growth, in a sense, growth on both sides, both as individuals and as a church body.

It's pretty pitiful, isn't it? As we step into verse 14, it says, speaking the truth in love, in the translation, it's more literally, truthing in love. Isn't that interesting? He almost made up a word there. Truth in action, all within love. That's what he spells out there. It means a living truth. all within God's unconditional love. Truth in action, living truth in us, among us, all in love. Now, one thing to make clear is that truth and love are not at odds with one another. There isn't a tension between them.

Occasionally, I'll come across Christians who say, well, I've got a pick. So, I'll just love and we'll just kiss off the truth. Or, I'm going to stand for the truth and I don't care if I have to tear people to shreds. We're going to stand on the truth.

What does he do? He says, both. That's right, both. This is not the only place, however, where we see that. We're going to take a look at that in a minute. Among us here, it's by God's design and desire that we speak to one another in truth and in love, both of those. Both of those. Truthing and love is what spiritual maturity looks like among us. Truthing and love is what spiritual maturity looks like among us. Truth and action all within God's unconditional love.

Here are some instances that illustrate, and Ephesians 4.15 is the second of them. You have it on page two of your handout here.

1 Corinthians 13.6, love rejoices in the truth. It's not love or truth, it's both. Or this passage we're looking at, speaking the truth in love, or truthing in love, more literally.

Philippians 1.9, and this I pray that your love may abound still more, in what? Still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. It's not, boy, this guy has discernment, but he chews everybody up over it. Or this guy is really, really loving, but he has no discernment. He says, I pray that you would have both.

1 John 3.18 Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Let the loving be in truth.

2 John 4.5 I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, and we love one another. Now, how does this look between us?

We're talking about spiritual maturity and how that looks. About a year ago, we had an elective that met in here on biblical counseling. And one of the things that we said about biblical counseling, because there's a tendency when we hear the word counseling, we think of something clinical. You know, it's always something you make an appointment for, and you go into an office, and by the time you're done, they might be asking you for, you know, how are you going to pay the bill, right? But what we talked about here is biblical counseling has as its goal among us as believers walking in intimate fellowship with Christ. It's not just about how do I get rid of this problem or how do I deal with this person who is a problem, but it's walking in intimate fellowship with Christ, expressing the Spirit-given giftedness that they have by God's grace. participating in the building up of the body of Christ. Those are the expressions of biblical counseling. It's a one another kind of thing, isn't it? It's a one another kind of thing that involves our walk with Christ and with each other.

Verses 15 and 16 focus on this word grow and growing. In this passage here, starting with the earlier verses, Paul has given us valuable insights about our spiritual maturity. Here's verse 13. Spiritual immaturity, what that looks like in verse 14. And now in 15 and 16 about our growth as a church body. Us. Us here this morning. As we saw in verse 13, maturity in a church is about Christ since intimacy in Him and maturity is also defined by Him. That's what growth looks like.

It's intimacy with Christ. It's living out who He is. Our growing as a church body is growing into Him. We cannot grow as a church body apart from growing into Him. That's what it looks like. That's exactly what it looks like. It's growing into Him. It's about Christ. Growing together up into Christ the Head is God's design and intent. That's exactly what He has in mind. The relationship of Christ to our church body is not something that is just static. but something that's vital, dynamic, active, and characterized by spiritual growth, individually and together. Both aspects.

Not like the picture of the man that's muscular on one side and weak and wimpy on the other. As the church, Christ's body, we're not just an organization or a business with a spiritual aspect. Ever heard somebody just talk about a church like it's just a business? It's not what God has in mind. It's not an organization, it's an organism. There's more to our being seated in the heavilies than having a Holly Hills Bible Church skyscraper. God's heart and intent is that we be a growing spiritual organism. Right here. Not an organization. I'm not encouraging that we be as disorganized as possible. That's not the point.

But the point is, God wants us to be an organism, a living being, the body of Christ with Him as the head. That's God's intent. As we look at These verses 15 and 16, look at some of the words that jump out here. You have them underlined also on page two of your handout. But speaking the truth in love, we, notice that, Paul says, we, you and me and all of us, okay, are to grow up in all aspects, not like the man who is muscular on one side and weakling on the other, into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, every one of us, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part. There is nobody who is a believer here this morning that is somehow left out of what God has in mind. Every believer here this morning, that's what the Lord has in mind. Each individual part.

Causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself, where? In love. Truthing in love, building in love. So when it comes to the spiritual growth of the spiritual organism called the body of Christ, the growth and health of each individual part matters and the whole body matters. It is God's design that every believer here this morning be individually growing in the Lord. And it is God's design and intent that we all together as a body be growing in the Lord. Both of those. Notice these things that are underlined. It's all of us. Nobody's left off the list. It's important that we look at ourselves as an active and functioning part of the body of Christ.

Here in America, it's become common for believers to have different views of the church. Some of the perspectives that people might have would be a passive participant. I go to church and I put in my time And I put the money in the slot or the basket or whatever, and you're supposed to church me. And so that's one view that many have. I come to be churched. And I pay my dues so that you can church me for an hour. And maybe two. And then I'm out of there. Some have that viewpoint. Some have the idea of, oh, I'm an entitled recipient.

They owe it to me. I'm supposed to get all this stuff and what are you guys doing for me? What's in it for me? How do I feel when I walk out? Is one of the primary questions. And did you get me juiced up enough that I got enough gumption to go until the next Sunday? I'm entitled to it. I've got my hand out. Please give it to me because that's what I'm paying for.

There's also the idea of sampling the spiritual buffet. Oh, at this church, they offer this and this and this, and so I go there. And at another church, they offer this and this and this, and so I go there sometimes for that. And at another church, I go here and here and here. But at this particular church, I particularly like this part, but I don't care for the rest of it, so I just go for that. And so it's sort of a spiritual buffet where you just kind of sample and it depends, you know, you pay your dues and go and pick from among the various offerings and put together what you like and you pass on the stuff you don't like. Because that's pate, right? Okay.

What God's Word has, however, is to have each one of us as a part of a body. Remember that word picture? A body. It's an active and functioning part of the body of Christ, in which Christ is the head. Now, I've shared in the past that I've had this thing called Lyme disease, and one of the things that that does is, even though I look like I have all my body parts, that's really only an appearance. Because some of it doesn't work very well. And so what happens, I have certain parts of my body that don't function like they ought to. What God intends is a fully functioning body of Christ. Every part of the body of Christ has the functioning part that God intends.

He is the head, we're the body, and that includes every single one of us. In verse 16, there's that set of words, being fitted and held together. Words of verse 16 talk about being held together closely. There's intimate function and close interaction.

I've talked to some Christians who like to go to a really large church. In fact, at one point in time, Nancy and I went to a pretty large church. There was 175 adults involved in leading the Sunday school. Pretty big. I would encounter people at this church that I'd say, boy, I haven't seen you for six weeks. Where have you been? And they said, that's funny. I haven't seen you for six weeks either. Where have you been?

And it was just rather anonymous. You might occasionally come in contact with people, and some people I've encountered actually like that. They like to be anonymous. They like to have a situation where they just pop in, get sort of passively churched, and then leave, and there's no commitments, no connection, no intimacy, no nothing, right? They've just been churched.

What he spells out here is this fitted and held together, there is intimacy. That's exactly what he has in mind. Not just intimacy with Christ, but intimacy with one another. That's what he's spelling out here. Close interaction. Interaction that matters.

We've had people here in our church body who have been through various kinds of medical procedures lately who can testify that it really matters if all your joints connect. It really matters if things function as they ought, right? So, like our bodies, this close connection and association of parts is the norm. That's exactly the way it ought to be. Having parts that don't connect is a problem, right? You like to have the parts connected because that's the way it's supposed to be.

That's exactly what the Lord has in mind. He doesn't want a headless body or a bodiless head or parts wandering off. He intends it would be fitted and held together. That also means that Lone Ranger Christians is not exactly what he had in mind either.

So the direction of spiritual growth and the nature of spiritual maturity among us as a church body are intimacy, with Christ means also intimacy with one another. Those go together. Spells out there the proper working of each individual part. That proper working of each part doesn't happen just because each part determines to work hard or work properly, but rather That proper working of each part is the outflow of God's working and energizing in every single believer and all of us at once.

We've got a class, you and Christ and Christ and you. There's also Christ among us, right? Christ among us. If, and I'm saying if not as a doubt, but as a logical statement, if Christ indwells each one of us here this morning, every single believer, if Christ indwells each one of us, then who's talking next to you in the pew when the service is over? Who are you talking to? And who's doing the talking coming out of here?

He always works on us to do His work. What He has in mind is His life, His working, His doing among us. There are things that take place in our church body that are high profile. Things that we see and are right out in front of us. I have the example here of hands. Very evident. You can tell what hands do. We sure hope so. That's something quite visible.

But there are also things here among us in our church body that are not so visible, at least so far as the activity. There may be lots of activity going on and it's not so visible. Just like how many of you spend a lot of time thinking about what your liver is doing? Probably not. Okay? Probably not too many of you.

We have things that go on that, you know, happen up here, and you say, okay, that's high profile. There are also things that go on, all these teachings and the various electives and the messages, they get recorded, posted, and all that activity is pretty much behind the scenes. It's really neat that it's done, but it's not terribly visible. We have a building certainly that we see, but a lot of the things that happen to the building are not things that you see real evidently.

We have folks that sign up to help clean up the building. And you know what? When they serve us in that way, it's what you don't see that's really good. It's the things they clean up. So it's what you don't see. Notice here in the picture, we're pretty soon getting into lawn mowing time. That's one of those things where, you know, you usually don't see the lawn being mowed, but you can sure tell the difference if it's not. Something else.

Does God want the Pareto principle to apply to us who are in the church? Now you may be saying, what's the Pareto principle? Well, let's talk about that. You may have also heard it as the 80-20 principle. And it's things like, you know, 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people, or 20% of the effort ends up with 80% of the results.

The way it works in a church is 80% of what gets done in the church will get done by 20% of the people. So the question is, is that what God has in mind? Does God have in mind that 80% of what gets done in the church is done by 20% of the people? Is that God's design? with the Lord from the heavenlies is thinking, ah, that's what I want. Is it such that 20% of the body of Christ is doing 80% of the work? Is that what God has in mind?

How about if you go to the doc and you say, doc, 20% of my body is just working itself to exhaustion. The other 80% is just marginally functional. What's the doc going to think? Hopefully at that point you're thinking. The doc is likely to think you've got a real problem. Very likely.

Look at what we see here in Ephesians 4, 15 and 16. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, cause the growth of the body for the building up of the self and love. So I would say no. The Pareto principle, the 20% of the people get 80% of the work done, is not God's principle. It's the world's principle. Look what it says here in verse 12.

The pastors and teachers are given for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. Where is the work of the service being done? That's you. That's the ministry. Could it be that when everyone is dismissed, that's when the service begins? Could it be? Could it be that when the service ends, that's when the service begins? Maybe somebody needs to have you pray with them. I'd suggest to you that there's probably people in this room now that would be doing really well to have a believer pray with them. Is there some real fellowship going on?

Not just, how about them Rockies? You don't want to ask about how about them Bronx yet. The Cutler storm has not died down entirely. How's the body doing in terms of uniform development? Is there a portion of the body that's got some weakness? What do we do about that? Or is that just Vern's job?

I would suggest not. Could it be when everyone is dismissed, that's when the service begins? I would suggest so. Service. Ministry. You're in the ministry, not me. I'm just one of the equipers. One of the equipers. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage here, we thank you for what you've revealed here. We thank you for the perspective that you bring and for the difference in perspective from what we might bring from the world. We ask, Lord, that you would give us practical insight into what this means as we begin our time of service here very shortly. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.