Whats in the Policy & Procedures Manual & Why? Ephesians 4:11-16

Good morning. I'm very excited to be able to speak to you this morning about the new policy and procedures manual. Yeah, believe it or not, I really am. That was put together initially, kind of some parts and pieces, and then last July we kind of pulled it together with some additional elements in it. And so let's go over the things that it contains.

The first thing that's in there is the doctrinal statement. And this is just the most excellent doctrinal statement. One of the things I've done is look at different churches' doctrinal statements over the years. Some churches these days don't even have one. What's interesting is the doctrinal statement that a lot of churches use, that it's a doctrinal statement that's from the National Association of Evangelicals. It doesn't even say that salvation is by faith, and ours does.

The next one we have is Elders, Deacons, and the Church Board. This is a document that's been around since this month in 2002 and modified only slightly since then. We have a statement, and this one is new from last year, Statement of Biblical Authority and Statement on Marriage and Sexuality. We'll talk about that in a little bit here. Spiritual Employment Criteria, and we'll take a look, that's just a one-pager, but it's got some good content. Questions for Elder Candidates, we'll be talking about that one too.

News media contact appointment. This is one of those practical things because we have a news media that you can go all of a sudden from being whoever heard of you to being famous for 15 minutes, which we don't want. At any rate, and then we also have a marriage policy that's in place.

Church facility use policy, reservation request and agreement form. How's that for bureaucratic? Guidelines for Use of the Facility and Church Discipline Policy, which we'll end up actually talking about next Sunday. Conflict Resolution Among Believers. Child Protection Policy and Statement on the Sanctity of Human Life. And then finally, a Membership Policy. So we have all those ingredients. So policies and procedures certainly sounds on the face of it to be bureaucratic and that certainly does seem to fit.

When we take a closer look we find that most of the content is about Bible doctrine and practice. So actually that's why I can say I'm excited to be able to present that to you and talk to you about it today because it's really good biblical stuff in the most part. The documents are intended to state what is biblical in doctrine and in life and to practice, and also to protect this church body from doctrinal and moral and ethical error in view of what the world and the flesh and the devil are doing these days. And so that's what it's there for. It turns out that there are getting to be more and more pieces of legislation. There are getting to be more and more court cases in which Concerns are brought up, things that have gotten our attention.

Here was fortunately something just less than a month ago. A federal judge ruled that local government agencies are not to go telling churches what they can and can't do with their bathrooms. How about that? So the federal judge says, no, you're not going to do that to churches.

But that's the kind of thing that we have this policies and procedures manual in place for. Alliance Defending Freedom, which I have on the heading for this slide, is one of the places where we've taken some input. They are there to fight court cases in favor of churches. and also to give guidance to churches, including these documents that we put together. We've also gotten some guidance on this from Charlie Clough, some of you may have heard of Charlie Clough, and also Wayne House, another couple of people who have given us guidance on putting these documents together. It's because of the world that we have to do this, and so let's see what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. And he describes here in three verses the world.

And he says, and you are dead in your trespasses and sins. That death is a death of separation from God. That's what that means, right? And dead in them. This is the tragic identification truth of the unbeliever. They're not only dead spiritually, but they are spiritually in the sins that they commit. Isn't that amazing? And Jesus told the Jewish leaders, unless you believe, you will die in your sins. And that's not good, right? That's very bad, as a matter of fact. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked.

Now, it's interesting, this word formerly is used consistently by the apostles to describe believers before they believed. And no exception here. Twice he has it. You formerly walked. Walked is a Jewish term, step-by-step ordering of one's life according to a spiritual principle. In this case, it's a spiritual principle that's not good. Noah walked with God. That is good. Enoch walked with God. That's good. This formerly walked is not good. Because why?

According to the course of this world, this world system, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." That's Satan. By the way, people get really uptight and start blaming things on Satan and this and that sort of thing. There's enough in the sin nature that you don't have to go blaming everything on Satan. Nonetheless, it is consistent with, that's what he means by according to, consistent with Satan's influence in the world.

It's now working in the sons of disobedience. When you see in the Bible son of or child of, that means like in character or close in relationship to, right? Like in character or close in relationship to. Like in character or close in relationship to disobedience, okay?

And among them, we too, so he included himself, right? All formerly, here's that word formerly again, lived. And this word lived, okay, walking was individual, what each individual did, right? According to a spiritual principle, this live means lived interactively. This is the way the world operates, right?

Lives interactively in the lusts of our flesh. Indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind And we were by nature children, here's children of or sons of, okay? Children of wrath, like in character and close in relationship to wrath, okay? Even as the rest. That's where we were, right?

That influence from the world is still out there, and that's one of the reasons for putting this policy manual together, is increasingly the world would like to dictate what happens among us as believers, and even enforce it legally. And so we've had to put this policy manual in place. Now, the first thing in the policy manual is a doctrinal statement.

And I got to tell you, I was just looking at the doctrinal statement, which I don't do all the time, but I was looking at it again this last week, and I tell you, it is a fantastic doctrinal statement. I get gospel goosebumps. I mean, it's really great, you know. This is a fantastic doctrinal statement. I just have never seen its comparison. It is a very rich collection of truths. It's been the subject of messages over the years. Hal began back in 2005 to teach on it, and subsequently Mike and Roger have taught on it. We could go through it again. This statement is so good. It's just excellent.

Now, so if you want to get it, I think we keep copies, but if we run out, you know, there's paper copies we typically keep back in the coffee room in that little rack that's there, kind of in the lower right section. Or you can go online and take a look at it about Holly Hills, and then the first item to pick there is the doctrinal statement. So you can take a look at it yourself. It prints out about three pages long, okay?

And it is fantastic. It is great. So the first thing we talk about in there is the Bible. We say that the Bible is the Word of God, that it's inspired, and that this is God's revelation to mankind. It is one of five revelations to mankind. So we talk about the Bible in there.

We talk about God Himself, that God is three persons, three personal beings, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of one essence. We talk about God's character in there, and it's fantastic, and we give all the Bible references along with that. We talk about the Father, and who the Father is, that He is to be credited with us having every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He's the one that gets the credit for that. We talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, who He is and what He did.

We also talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and there are actually multiple ministries of the Holy Spirit. And so all three persons of the Godhead, of the Trinity as it's sometimes said, are given good, succinct description there. Talk about the character of man, and of course it's looking at fallen man.

And what's in there is true, and is tragically true, but it is true. But the great thing is, it's got a fantastic section on salvation. It comes in two paragraphs, and it is wonderful. We'll talk about it in a minute. It has the eternal security of believers in there, which is an extremely important doctrine for us to hold.

If we don't have assurance that we're eternally saved, then we're always, instead of focusing on the Lord, we're focusing on ourselves trying to stay saved. There is no spiritual growth that comes from constantly trying to stay saved. It doesn't work. We talk about Satan. We don't want to give Satan too much credit. I think there's probably two errors that both Christians and others can get involved in. One is to attribute too much to Satan. I think Satan's the source of all evil.

He isn't. He probably doesn't know your address. Now, the other error, however, is to ignore him and just say, no, he's not around. And better to do what scripture does and simply say, he roams about like a roaring lion. If you encounter him, resist him. That's it. You don't take him on. You don't go take an aggressive attack. You just resist him. That's it.

We talk about the eternal state, and that's not the state of Colorado. That's not the eternal state. What we mean by that is the new heavens and new earth. But this is great. Folks, we're going to spend eternity there. We're going to spend eternity there. This is wonderful stuff.

We talk about the church and what the church is, and that's a very important distinction to make in the doctrinal statement and to get people to get clear. There are people that are very confused about this, and we don't want to do that. We want to be very clear, and the doctrinal statement is excellent at pointing that out. We say dispensational interpretation, and what we mean by that is we interpret Scripture literally. We're talking in the elective right beforehand here. about what happens if you don't have literal interpretation, or you have some kind of an ism that you add to the interpretation of scripture. And then finally, the life and walk of believers.

This is just outstanding stuff. The content of it is just most excellent. So let's take a look at just a couple of those directly. I've taken off the references, which would be included in there, and only just a couple items. One, here's salvation. We believe that because God so loved the world that the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to die for our sins. He took the penalty for our sins upon Himself on the cross according to the Scriptures. Our redemption from sin has been accomplished solely by His shed blood and death.

No repentance, no feeling, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to any supposedly spiritual rules can add in the least degree to the value of the finished work of Jesus Christ. It doesn't need it. It doesn't need any help. to get accomplished. The finished work of Christ is completely sufficient.

It continues on here, the next part, we believe that when any unsaved person exercises faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, he passes positionally, by the way that's something that is distinctive at Holly Hills, passes in his position from spiritual death into spiritual life and is immediately justified from all things and is immediately accepted before the Father as Christ his Son is accepted. His personal history in Adam terminated and eternally united and established positionally in Christ is one with Him forever.

This is great stuff. This is great stuff. And I put dot dot dot because it goes on. There's more. But this is wonderful stuff. I mean, this is right on target. There's so many Christians who are confused about these things. They'll say, oh, you got to invite Jesus in your heart. You know how much good that'll do? Nothing. Why would He want to come into your heart, right? Or mine?

Some people say, you've got to make a commitment to Christ. People get committed to mental institutions too, but that doesn't do any good. So, you know, it's not making a commitment to Christ. It's not, you know, I'm going to super believe and make Him Lord. It's none of those. Christ's salvation is completely and totally adequate. Completely and totally adequate.

Now this one of the Life and Walk of Believers, I saw that and I said, oh man, this is good stuff. We believe that every believer possesses the life of Christ and grows in the grace and knowledge of Christ through the Holy Spirit who fills the believer with the things of Christ. This occurs as the believer beholds Christ and the Word of God as he walks by faith, moment by moment, abiding in Christ. Yes! This is really good stuff. This is really, really, really good stuff. I mean, this is fantastic. And you know what? This is the best kept secret. of all of Christendom.

You've got people out there saying, oh, you need to be under these ten laws. Ah, you've got to add tithing to it. Yeah, but that Sabbath one's kind of messed up, so take that away. And people are arguing over all these different rules. When my mom was growing up, she grew up in a church that was more legalistic. And they were terribly, terribly afraid that she'd lost her salvation because she'd gone to a movie. So, people come up with all sorts of things as to how you're saved, how you stay saved, all that kind of stuff.

Okay. So, the believer is to walk and rest in the eternally established identity that he possesses by virtue of his faith in the crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated person of Christ, that's his position. and his identification with them in these things. Christ's life is then lived in the believer, which is evident to those who do not know Christ and to those who share Christ's life.

Have you ever been somewhere and you kind of look at somebody and within minutes, sometimes seconds, you'll say, I wonder if that person's a Christian. You ever have that happen? Yeah, me too. And it'll be in another country, in another state, but you just, I wonder if that person's a Christian. Come to find out, yeah, they are. Okay, so this is just great and wonderful stuff, and I've only read just a portion of it, but the whole thing is just fantastic. Like I said, it gives me gospel goosebumps. Okay.

We also have the next document, then, is Elders, Deacons, and the Church Board. Hal and I put this together in November of 2002. ago yeah yeah okay so we put this in and it's only been modified very slightly since that time it has primarily the character qualifications of an elder and the ministry of an elder and guidelines for elders that is elders are to to carry out their eldership this way and not carry it out this other way okay so those are the three areas that it largely deals with It's one of the topics that I taught over in Poland 13 months ago. I've taught it three times over in Uganda. The first time I taught it, there was a certain group of guys, and when I went over there recently, this was 2009 when I first taught it, went over there recently, one of the guys that I taught it in 2009 stopped me in the street. He said, you taught us about elders. And he gave me the quick outline. Really amazing stuff. Just recently, he went and taught it to 20 other pastors.

Isn't that great? So this is really good stuff. So similar insights are included, although more briefly, regarding deacons. as well as how those leaders relate to the requirements of the state of Colorado and the U.S. government. We have filings that we have to do and that kind of thing. So that's all of what's included in this. It is really good stuff. And it is so good. I talk to different Christians in different parts of the world, even, and they say, we just don't get that teaching on elders anywhere. So you've got to come teach us that. Now, we also have other documents.

There's the spiritual employment criteria and questions for elder candidates. Spiritual employment criteria are to say that Holly Hills Bible Church will hire only those who are biblically qualified who are not held to the world's employment standards. People out there in the world, they'll file to work somewhere, and if they're not hired, they file lawsuits over different things. We're saying that there are biblical and spiritual requirements for being an elder or being hired on.

And just to state it briefly, one, you must be a member, and we'll talk about that in a minute. What it basically says is, I agree. That's what it means. You must answer the 75 doctrinal questions All right, so here's the 75 doctrinal questions. Okay, and so those must be answered And Mike and Roger I think took 6 to 12 months To answer all the questions. Okay.

Now my story was a little different. I'll tell you my story in in January 2001 Mike sent me an email. He and I had had occasional contact for a few years. Mike sent me an email and said, hey, we're looking for a pastor and, you know, send us a resume.

Well, I didn't have one. So anyway, life was busy and about a month later, I sent in a resume. And then about another month later, I got six questions. Oh, okay. And apparently, the story, as I understand it, is from all the resumes they got, they picked six guys to send six questions. So I was one of them. And so then another month went by. And on my birthday, April 22, I got a call from Hal. And Hal said, well, it looks like you're the guy.

I go, what? And it's because of the six guys that they had sent the six questions to, only two of them had the answers that they liked for those six questions. But I am so glad for these 75 questions. Let me tell you how the rest of the conversation went. Hal had called the other guy first. When Hal told the guy, we've got 69 more questions to ask of you. The guy melted the phone. How called me up? That's when he said, well, it looks like you're the guy. I was the only one left.

And when he said there are 69 more questions, I said, great. So it took him a while to send me the questions. At first I kind of panicked, but then I looked and I said, I've already answered all those questions in my seminary homework. It's cut and paste for two days, right?

Okay. So anyway, that's the way the story went. Now, I still had a serious problem because Hal had set up for me to come here in Canada. I hadn't told Nancy about any of this. So anyway, we had some things to work out off of that. But I'm glad for the 75 questions. It's basically been unchanged for the last, you know, four decades.

You know, what I told Hal, as I said, here's six more questions you need to ask, you know. But anyway, it's a good set of questions to work from. After the candidate provides written answers, the elders sit down with them and discuss them all, right? And that can take a while, going through all those, right? We want not just little quick answers, we want thorough answers to every single one.

So, here's an example. What is your concept of the inspiration of the scriptures? Explain your views on the authority of the scriptures. Number three, do you believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible? Explain. What are your views on creation?

And I remember that was one of the six questions that was asked of me. The literal 24-hour days are figurative. What is the age of the universe? So those are examples of the 75 questions, and that's in the policy manual, and you're welcome to take a look at that. We'll talk about that in a minute here.

Now, so at Holly Hills Bible Church, a man has to really want to be an elder. This is key. And of course, the other guy that Hal talked to first, he must not have wanted to be an elder all that bad. But the person, it's interesting, It's a trustworthy statement, Paul wrote to Timothy, 1 Timothy 3, 1.

If any man aspires to the office of overseer, and there's basically three terms, elder, overseer, shepherd, sometimes called pastor, it's a fine work that he desires to do. You know that word desires means to pant after. Pant after. So an elder is not someone who's been kind of arm twisted into it. but he has a God-given desire to take it on.

Paul goes on with Timothy then to give all, you know, the rest of the character qualifications in most part, as he does with Titus chapter 1, 5 through 9, and 1 Peter 5, 1 through 4. But a man has to really want to be an elder, and especially you've got to answer thoroughly 75 questions.

Here is the statement on biblical authority. This is a doctrinal statement that does not exhaust the extent of our faith. The doctrinal statement that Holly Hills has is absolutely outstanding. Absolutely outstanding, but it is not the whole Bible, is it? As good as it is, it's not the whole Bible. The Bible talks about other things that the doctrinal statement does not even touch upon. The Bible itself is the inspired and fallible Word of God, that speech with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind is the sole and final source of all that we believe. For purposes of church doctrine, practice, policy, and discipline, our elders are the church's final interpretive authority on the Bible's meaning and application, and not, for example, some judge. It's explicitly the elders who have the responsibility.

So we have that statement as a part of it. Next, we have a statement on marriage and sexuality. We believe that the term marriage has only one meaning and that is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and one woman in a single exclusive union as delineated in scripture. The church building shall only be used and the elders shall only conduct marriage ceremonies consistent with this definition. The elders reserve the right to deny use of the building and to conduct marriage ceremonies in any instance they deem to be unbiblical.

Now, tomorrow Nancy and I will celebrate 43 years of marriage. And it's 43 years of marriage that has been biblically founded and defined. We do not want the world to define what marriage is. We don't want that to be the case here. Nancy is still my favorite wife.

We have a news media contact appointment. The document is simply to say that in the event of something that would draw news media interest, which we pray would never occur, we don't want 15 minutes of fame, there is a set sequence of spokesmen. And this is important so that you don't have the news media going and polling the congregation. It's one of the reasons we don't put the, you know, are you here on our church website?

Because that's the place they would go, right? We have the elders are the ones who are identified there. And so first and priority myself, then Mike, if I'm for some reason unavailable or shouldn't be the spokesman, and then Mike and then Roger. So that's the sequence that we have designated there to keep the media focus, you know, okay, there's one person you need to talk to. Okay, that's it. And so that's the sequence.

That's to protect the church body and keep the media from making mayhem out of things. Even at that, the news media can distort things. If you've ever been at something where it gets reported on, you'll often find, well, that isn't the way it went. I had one incident when we were living in Carson City where the fellow who was calling from the newspaper said, do you think it's fair, this particular proposal? And I said, I won't comment on that. And do you think it's fair? I won't comment on that. Do you think it's fair? I won't comment on that. You know what he put in the article? Vern Peterman said it was fair. Right? Okay.

So, you've got to be careful about that. Now, we have a marriage policy, a church facility use policy, and reservation request and agreement form, and guidelines for use of the facility. And the reason for all of those even though they sound bureaucratic, they're there to protect us so that we don't have somebody coming and saying, hey, we want to have a wedding at your place, and we want to marry this person to that person. And we would look at it and say, uh-uh.

Right? And so we only want those who are in agreement With all of our doctrines and all of our moral statements and the definition of marriage, we only want those who are in agreement to be using the facilities and asking the elders to get involved in, you know, ceremonies and that sort of thing. Right along with that, one of the things that we say about weddings is we're no longer doing the, you know, by the authority vested in me and by the state of Colorado, et cetera, no longer doing that.

We're not having anything to do with the legal process. We simply have a spiritual ceremony. We don't sign marriage certificates. Don't get involved in that. And that's one of the inputs from Charlie Clough that I mentioned early on, and that is to only do spiritual ceremonies. Don't connect yourself with the marriage license situation because then you've open the door to having the government dictate other things.

The world may head off in various and changing, even corrupt directions, and probably it'll get worse. Probably over time it'll get worse. People only get married to their dog or their couch or whatever. Probably it's going to get worse over time. That's just the direction things are sliding.

We don't want to be subject to legal or social pressures at all. We want to protect biblical use of the facility and the biblical function of the church body here. Now, there's also what we call a church discipline policy and one on conflict resolution among believers.

We're going to be spending next Sunday talking about this church discipline chart, but I've titled it The Goal of Love is Restoration. This is key. The goal of love is restoration. And I'm going to tell you about some particular circumstances in churches in the past that are good examples of how this is carried out and give you some that weren't so good. Not to put anybody on the spot or have any confidences broken, but simply to lay it out. Here's how it needs to be done properly and biblically. So the goal of love is restoration. The other is believers can find themselves with other believers in some kind of a conflict, and in that case we want to offer as elders to be involved in this resolution of the dispute.

And so 1 Corinthians 6.1, actually the whole chapter presents, you know, further principles and insights.

But 1 Corinthians 6.1, does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteousness, unrighteous rather, and not before the saints? And so the Apostle Paul talks about that actually for several verses and continues to lay that out. And so we have that as one of the policy items, simply because it is a biblical issue.

Here's an instance where it happened. Answers in Genesis and the creation organization had a conflict, and there was a lawsuit to deal with it. And boy, I happen to keep close tabs on what the atheists are saying. It's kind of a hobby of mine. And one of the things they they went and, you know, really made a lot out of this, you know, see what these creationists are doing, stupid guys, you know, terribly inconsistent.

And so that was a very, very bad thing to have happened. It needed to have been resolved before believers. Now we have also a child protection policy. It so happens out there, I say, between the world, the flesh, and the devil, some churches have had horrible things happen in their children's ministry. And others have had horrible false accusations made against them. And that's been a church and sometimes a family situation.

I've seen both of those circumstances. because we don't want that to happen in either case here, and also because of insurance requirements. If you don't do that, your insurance is going to be up there. In order to protect against those hazards and to keep our insurance costs down, Holly Hills Bible Church has a children's ministry set of policies, child protection policies, And that includes criminal background checks. It seems funny to have to do criminal background checks on people you've known for a decade.

But we have to go through that now for all who are involved in the children's ministry, as well as prescribing certain practices in carrying out the ministry. And so that is in place, and it's just simply because, you know, we live in a world, ideally you wouldn't do any of this, but we live in a world where there are those, you know, threats, even the threat of false accusation, and to be able to say, no, look, we've checked this person out, and we've, you know, done everything we're supposed to here to prevent this problem, so, you know, you can make your accusation go away. We also have a statement on the sanctity of human life. The world has increasingly moved in the direction of denying the sanctity of human life, that God is the one who gives and God is the one who takes away.

Since the year that Nancy and I were married, abortion of unborn babies has been legal in the United States. By the way, the word fetus is just a Latin word for baby. So you aren't just getting rid of a fetus, you're getting rid of a baby. And so that on one end is one of the things that's going on. We want to stand on solid ground that God is the one who gives life, that life begins at conception. That's actually what the Bible says, as we'll see shortly.

And at the other end of it, as of November 8th, Colorado voted in favor of allowing medically facilitated suicide. That was voted in about 2 to 1. Very popular. And so we went from being a state where it was completely prohibited, now by a 2 to 1 vote, brought in as legal. And then Colorado is increasingly becoming a place where what is legal and what is moral are two different things.

And this is one of them. We affirm that it's God's place to give life and God's place to take it away in His time. So that's what this is about. Psalm 139, 13 through 16 is a very good passage for seeing the godly perspective on life. And here David writes, For you form my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb, I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, and I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me.

Then as yet there was not one of them. So finally we have membership. Membership began, we've never had it before, but with the current state of the world out there, we began it in July of 2015. Now truthfully, spiritually, we're already members of one another, so we're not impacting that in any way. As a matter of fact, the membership form even says so, right? So it's important to recognize what membership is and is not. Membership is simply signing agreement. That's what it is. Agreement with all these doctrines and practices. So that's what it is. It doesn't get you into the gym. You're not a part of the Elks Club now that I've signed up or anything like that. It doesn't do anything like that. We don't give you a card to carry. So it doesn't do that.

All it says is, I agree with these doctrines and practices. That's all. There's about 40 pages in here. Actually, very little of it is bureaucratic. As much as we can limit it to that, that's great. Most of it is absolutely fantastic stuff. starting with the doctrinal statement. But it is simply a matter of saying, I agree.

So Nancy's going to be available by the exit door. If you have not already signed it, she will have flash drives with this whole file, with all the policies and procedures manual. She will have CDs. You can ask to send a link to all of those, a Dropbox link.

There is a copy kept in the coffee room. Please keep it there. And also down in the children's area, if you want to take a look at a paper copy. If you really need a paper copy to take home, let us know. We'll see that you get one. So one way or another, but we'd like to have, how do I say it? We would invite you, if you have not signed agreement, to do so. And if you still think you need to check it all out, that's fine. No problem. one way or another, get it electronically or in physical paper into your hands. But why are we doing this?

Because as a church body, we're headed here. The scripture that Courtney read for us is Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, which is just a fantastic statement by the Apostle Paul's writing of here is what God intended for us in the church body. And it says, and he gave, and in the context that's Christ gave, some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. So these spiritual gifts, we think of spiritual gifts as a gift given to us. These are Christ's gift to the church body. Christ's gift to the church body.

Now, the apostles and the prophets They've done their job. We don't continue to have them. Ephesians has the apostles and prophets together three times. Ephesians 2.20, Ephesians 3.5, and here in 4.11. But the apostles finished their job. John was the last of them, so far as we know. Wrote Revelation probably about a year before he died. And prophets were others who spoke alongside them and during the time of the Apostles until the New Testament was complete. And then evangelists, we still have them today, pastors, which would be shepherds, which would be elders, overseers, and teachers.

For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. So who's doing the work of the service? It's not my job. The saints. Equipping the saints for the work of the service. In one sense, I'm not in ministry, you are.

To the building up of the body of Christ. So this is body building, so we all get real tight and muscular. Not exactly. To the building up of the body of Christ, spiritually speaking. verse 13 now this is really great stuff this is rich until we all attain so this is this is saying where we're going okay this is where we're going this is the reason we have the policy and procedures manual in place we don't want anything to interfere with where we're going and where we're going is this until we all who a few of us most of us until we all attain to the unity of the faith So do we just kind of agree on a few things and then the rest we don't worry about? The unity of the faith.

The faith is a term we're going to find in Acts. It starts in chapter six. The term keeps showing up throughout the New Testament letters all the way to the book of Revelation. The faith is a set of teachings of the apostles, and it's consistent in its singular Like we said in the class here before, if there are six different understandings of what the Bible says, how many are wrong? At least five, right? At least five. Only one meaning was intended, de-unity of the faith, but the faith is not just a dry, dusty set of doctrines. Guess where it's headed?

In the knowledge of the Son of God. the knowledge of the Son of God. It is not just doctrinal, it's personal. 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. It's all about Him, isn't it? It's all about Him.

As a result, we're no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men and by craftiness and deceitful scheming. He uses three different analogies in this first one. We're no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

And by the way, this is after Paul had been through several shipwrecks. Right? So he knew what he was writing about. And notice this. We're no longer children that were to be growing away from spiritual immaturity. Right? Because A child, I mean, I loved having kids and Nancy could tolerate it. I just keep having little kids. I just love little kids. But, but, as cute as they are and just absolutely fantastic and as much as I love little kids, kids are vulnerable and they're gullible.

And so he's saying that's what we're moving away from. We're moving away from spiritual and moral vulnerability, and we're moving away from gullibility. So that's the direction we're headed. And so he has this kind of nautical terminology that he's using here, shipping terms, and being, notice here, tossed here and there and carried about by every wind of doctrine. He also talks about by the trickery of men. That is an interesting word that's translated trickery.

It actually is kubos. It means dice. But it means loaded dice or trick dice. And what's interesting, you see that die on the left? That's a trick die. It is a six on one side and on the opposite side another six. It's from the New Testament era. So this is the trick die that he's talking about.

The trickery of men. who will take scripture and load it up. Take scripture and load it up. And they know that they're loading it. How about that? They know that they're teaching falsehood even. By the craftiness and deceitful scheming. Ephesus was a port city and so there were guys in Ephesus who would wait for people to come in that was, hey, this is the first time, and they'd swindle them. They'd have two guys working together, three guys working together, and they'd swindle somebody, and pretty soon whatever valuables that person had is gone. Hey, look at that! Well, he's reaching in the back pocket into the purse, right? That kind of thing.

But, not that. not the childhood that we're moving away from. Verse 15, but speaking the truth in love, which literally is, but truthing in love, we are to grow up in all aspects. Notice the word all in this passage. Grow up here and there. I'm going to grow up over here, but over there I'm going to stay immature. Is that what he has in mind? Not so much.

But truthing in love, we're to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. Something that's really important to bring out here, multiple times in Scripture, you'll find that truth and love, unlike a lot of people think, are put together. Love rejoices in the truth, 1 Corinthians 13, right? The world and many Christians will often think, well, if I've got a choice between truth and love, I'll pick love. Nuh-uh. If it's not true, it's not loving. Right? If it's not true, it's not loving.

So, grow up in all aspects. Here it gets personal again. Into Him 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 what? In love. Remember 1 Corinthians 13? Faith, hope and love, these three abide. Guess what's going to last forever? Love. Love lasts forever. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage, as we look at these documents. Certainly a little bit of bureaucracy in it, but just a lot of really great truth starting off with our doctrinal statement. And Lord, we thank you that you have made clear what is the truth. You've made clear and we just thank you for it. And we look to your Holy Spirit to guide and lead us. And we look to your Son to take us before the Father. And we do that now. Thank you, Father, for all that you've done. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.