Knowing and Growing – What God is doing in the body of Christ

So we are about to begin in this what God is doing in the body of Christ and while I ordinarily break things kind of down by quarters, we have a little different situation this time around because Sunday morning will be on Christmas Eve and so we won't have an elective that day, and that means that the following Sunday will be New Year's Eve, and so we won't have an elective that Sunday.

So anyway, we'll be two weeks short of the usual. Why can't we do it on New Year's Eve? Basically, we've just got way too many people, too many things going on. Yeah, and actually one of the things we've found is on New Year's weekend don't have the family fellowship meal either because we've tried that one some years ago and got like almost nobody. So anyway, yeah, so we will be done in the middle of December, so rather than with the elective. So that's what we'll be doing. Now just to review, did the first three months of this elective, Knowing and Growing.

We looked at passages that talked about knowing the Lord, whether that was individually knowing the Lord, and that's the case of most of them, or whether it was us together knowing the Lord, and there's a place for both. Those were, for the most part, however, individually knowing the Lord, and our perspective here will be together knowing the Lord and what that looks like and how that gets lived out. We're going to see something today in the Acts passage that I think fits into that. Then, for these last six months, we looked at what the Bible says about ongoing spiritual processes in the life of the believer. Then those were being conformed conformed transformed growing and maturing being sanctified and being disciples Okay, and with those most of the emphasis was on individual Processes there's a process going on with individuals so now what we get into is what is God doing in the life of the church body and So we'll be exploring that and so we'll be looking at Ephesians 4, 11-16, again, as we did much earlier in the year, only to be looking at this time in terms of, you know, it's the front door to looking at what God is doing among us in the church body.

So, bottom of page We're going to see some possibly surprising things in the passage. One is two of the five spiritual gifts are temporary. The other three endure until the rapture. So that's one. We'll talk later in more detail about spiritual gifts, and we'll spend a whole time on it.

This passage contains a triple definition of knowing the Lord, and it's a church body knowing the Lord. as opposed to each individual. Next, God intends something to happen in a church that just about cannot happen in a classical seminary or Bible college environment. What's different about a Bible college environment versus a church? Bible college or seminary? Fellowship. One thing is that fellowship kind of gets tilted and stilted. And in what way does that happen? And that families get fellowship.

Right, so you don't have a whole range of people often. Often in a seminary it's typically you'll get a certain age range for the most part, okay, or Bible college, a certain age range as opposed to a variety of ages, right? And what else? probably get into nitpicking on doctrine and details and facts and stuff on this one says this and this one says that. Yeah, in other words you can get into a whole bunch of side detours, if you will, on things and very often into isms. You know, we've got this ism and that ism. And often Bible colleges and seminaries have not only a skew towards an ism, but a particular skew.

If you go to, for example, a Lutheran Bible college or seminary, you'll get their particular skew. And by the way, are Lutherans all the same in their theology? No, because you've got conservative ones. Missouri Synod here in the United States is more conservative. And then you have more liberal ones, the ELCA. is more liberal, so you've got a range within those. So you have isms and also skews of spectrum within those things. And then what else do you have?

What do you call the guy who's teaching the class? Hopefully a scholar. A scholar, yeah. But typically you'll call them a professor, right? And so there'll be a professor, and so what's the professor doing? Is the professor working as if he's working in the church body, or is something else going on? Certainly a professor can work with some interaction, but very often it's, here's all the data, and it's flowing one way, and you're getting his outline for what needs to be covered. You get grades in a seminary, and you either pass or fail. You get grades in a church. Yeah, there's no grading. And if you really do badly, you might flunk out of Bible college or seminary.

The professor is presenting information as he sees it or understands it. And I don't know if there's a whole lot of back and forth discussion So here at Holly Hills we have a very detailed doctrinal statement, frankly more detailed than a lot of Bible colleges and seminaries have, right?

And so there is a significant body of unity in terms of what we hold to. And that isn't always the case. So you might have, you know, that would be something there. Differences of perspective from one professor to another are often things that come across in a Bible College or Seminary environment. Anything else? So the true meaning of the word prof, prof, or professor. Right. Yeah, in other words, we'll often times use it as a title or at least a designation. That's what that guy or gal is, right? So you got that. But let's ask another question.

Is the professor necessarily spiritually gifted as a shepherd or as a teacher? Spiritually speaking. See, not necessarily, and I think that's something that, whereas in a church, you at least ought to have people as elders who are actually gifted as shepherds, right? The Apostle Paul, we'll see in Acts 20, speaks to the elders of Ephesus, and he says, the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.

So is this person who is a professor, are they gifted from the Lord, or do they just have degrees? So there's a difference there. In other words, a person may be... Pardon? Kind of written books. Yes, you have written books, you have this is a curriculum we're going to cover, and here's your references, and write three papers by the midterm, and those kinds of things. So you'll get your, read this, write that, listen to this, and they'll cover the material. But your professor may not be spiritually gifted for what they're doing. They just may simply have degrees as qualifications.

How many of Jesus' apostles had degrees? Yeah, and he wasn't really an apostle, so here's Dr. Luke, but not one of the apostles. And then probably if anyone were to have anything looked upon as degrees, it would be Paul, but just about none of the others from anything that we know, right? It doesn't mean that they were ignorant men, but it does mean that they weren't people of letters, and that was one of the things that that stunned the people with the Sanhedrin. These guys, wait a minute, you don't have all kinds of qualifications. Wow.

So as you come down here, the classic Bible college and seminary environment just is not the same. Many of them will try to do things to make adjustments and accommodations to help balance out the Bible college or seminary environment and sometimes that helps and sometimes it really doesn't. Anyway, so that's something to consider.

Next, spiritual immaturity is defined in three different kinds of vulnerability. And then finally, knowledge and knowing the Lord are tied closely to its working out and application in the body of Christ. So let's take a look at page 2, and we'll begin in the passage. So here's the whole passage, Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 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, 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 and love."

Okay, so taking it one verse at a time, so starting back at Ephesians 4.11, and he, Christ, gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers. What do we usually think about when we think about spiritual gifts? Who gives the spiritual gifts? We usually think of the Holy Spirit.

And is that correct? It is correct. So it's not a misunderstanding. It's based on looking at 1 Corinthians 12 principally as the place where we see the gifts are given. However, here it's an interesting thing. Christ is the giver. not of the gifts, but gives these gifted people to the church. So Christ is the giver of gifted, Holy Spirit gifted people to the church. And so he has those five there, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So, then what we have here, so Apostles and Prophets is referenced as a pair of gifts or roles in the church three times in the book of Ephesians.

So Ephesians 2.20, Ephesians 3.5, and Ephesians 4.11. And the first one there, having been built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So, just reading that line, what does that tell you? Or what do you start to glean from those words?

Ephesians 2.20. Yeah?

The gift of evil, apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. Christ Jesus is the cornerstone. The cornerstone. So here you have Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets are foundational. So let's ask this question. What if you were to take Christ and the Apostles and Prophets out of the picture? You have no stability. You're building crumbles. Yeah, you have no foundation. You have a seminary. Yeah, I have a seminary. Essentially, what have you got? You've got no foundation.

This is not going to do well. Years ago, when I used to work in an engineering office, and we did design structures, including foundations and things of that sort, one of the pieces of advice that we would give people, we would say, if you are limited in your budget, don't skimp on the foundation. Skimp on the carpeting, you can always replace that easily. Skimp on the paint. Even the roofing. Get cheap roofing, you have to replace it sooner, You can fairly easily deal with that.

If you skimp on the foundation, you're in deep trouble. So it's just not a place to skimp. And so this is recognizing Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets as the foundation, that that's not something we need to pass over or skimp on. but instead to recognize this was a well-constructed foundation that is what God intended. Yes?

And in thinking of the time back when this was written, they didn't have concrete foundations and that sort of thing. No, not concrete, no. It was much more important to make sure that you had the appropriate rocks and soil and everything else to hold the structure. One of the things that really amazed us when we went over to Israel and we walked along the tunnels, that was actually by the way something that Ingrid kind of encouraged us to do, I'm really glad we did, is we walked along the tunnels on the western wall side.

And one of the first things they take you down to here is a 44 foot long stone, weighs 570 tons. This stone is massive, but after 2,000 years, this stone does not have a crack in it. It is right next to a bunch of other stones, with no gaps and anything in between. You can't slip paper in between the stones. Everything is friction fit, and there's no mortar. But nothing has moved. We're talking a very, very solid foundation. So a well-built foundation makes for a long-lasting structure.

Then in Ephesians 3.5, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, and has now been revealed, to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. So, one of the things you could say is, new revelation, new information comes through these guys, right? It's not just a regurgitation, we've heard this before, but it is new information, newly revealed things, newly revealed understandings and insights. One of the major errors among many people in Christendom, and even those I would say who are Christians, saved indeed, but one of the many difficulties that we run across is that they don't understand that the Apostles and Prophets and Christ established a new foundation for a new structure.

So many are trying to build on the same foundation as Israel. And I would suggest that a good passage to look at, to look at the distinction, is Hebrews 3, 1 through 6. Reason, there it says that Moses was the builder of his house. Christ is the builder of the house whose house we are. Not Moses house. So that's a very important distinction. People try to build the same house on Moses foundation. And that's a problem. That's a problem. That just says we're just continuing on and just changing names a little bit. No, it's got an entirely different house and an entirely different foundation.

The next one, Ephesians 4.11, and he Christ gave some as apostles and prophets. So this is the one we looked at here at the beginning. So Christ is the giver of these gifted people to the church. So we'll be looking more deeply at spiritual gifts. We can't even hope to fathom the depths of that quite yet, but we'll be getting there. So what did the apostles and prophets do that was unique foundationally? So what did they do?

Well, Paul revealed mysteries. is in the Greek Old Testament, and you'll find it in various places, especially the book of Daniel. So from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the definition of that word has remained the same. What was not revealed in the past, but has been revealed now. That's the definition. So, where often in our modern culture we may think of a mystery as something that remains mysterious, The biblical definition does not match that, but says instead it's something that was mysterious but now is no longer. So that's a very different understanding and important for people to get. So anyway, so it's a new revelation, it's a new understanding. Why else do we have the Apostles and Prophets? Although we certainly have them for this, revealing things that weren't revealed before. Why else?

Okay, so we have so let's let's work our way through that we've got Matthew was he an apostle Matthew was one of the original 12 right and he continued on into the church age The record that we have outside of scripture. He died in North Africa Okay, but he authored the book of Matthew written to a Jewish perspective and mindset How about Mark? Was Mark an apostle? No. So how does he get qualified as an author of scripture? He's not an apostle. He's a disciple of an apostle.

Ah, okay. So who were the two apostles that he had contact with? Paul was one of them. And another? Peter. Yes. So both Paul and Peter were apostolic sponsors, if you will. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, who was Luke's apostolic sponsor, if you will? Paul, exactly.

And then we go to the book of Acts, the same thing, right? So here is his apostolic sponsor. Then John, was John an apostle? So we can go through the New Testament with that question in mind. So we have either an apostle or someone sponsored by one or more apostles for the entire New Testament. Now, let's take a look at page 3 here. Christ gifted the church after apostles and prophets who were foundational. What's the next one? Apostles and prophets? Okay, but there's one more before that.

Evangelists, okay? Now, when we think of evangelists, what are some pictures or even names that come to mind? Yeah, we'll oftentimes think of an en masse evangelist. And the truth is that that may be one expression of evangelism, but let's say here's Philip, the Ethiopian eunuch who is working in mass with the Samaritans, right? That's Philip, but he goes with the Ethiopian eunuch and he works with one person. So an evangelist may be assigned variously, it may be to a large group in an area, And it may also be someone who works with an individual. Here's an interesting story I'll tell quickly because I don't have much time.

When I was much younger, we had a fellow visit our church and actually come to our home, and his name was Luis Palau. At the time he was around 20. And Luis Palau became an evangelist and primarily into Latin America. It so happened, however, that my youngest brother's wife had an uncle who lived up in Oregon, and he was not doing well health-wise. And so she was going, planned going up there to go and actually talk to him about the Lord, give him the gospel because he was not saved. She was greatly disappointed in that he died before she could get up there.

But greatly overjoyed to find out that a neighbor named Luis Palau, had gone over and talked to him and shared the gospel, and he had become a believer. So here's Luis Palau who would be among 10,000 in stadiums and amphitheaters and whatnot, especially in Latin America, but then turn around and evangelize my sister-in-law's uncle. that he would know the Lord before he went home.

Yes, and the thing is, we have the gift of evangelism. Is that the only way the Lord works? No. The Lord can in fact work with other people who are not so gifted. I would put myself in that category. I don't believe I have the gift of evangelism, but over the years, I can look back on specific instances where the Lord has used me as an instrument to share the gospel and people have become saved. And it's not because I have the gift, it's simply because every believer who can share the gospel has an opportunity. Not because of giftedness, but simply because the Lord opens the door and provides the opportunity. Yeah. So, it almost seems to me like the life you live could be considered evangelizing. Yes. Yeah, and even people seeing the situations.

Nancy would tell her her testimony. She had a neighbor who was praying, Lord, give me somebody I can share you with. And it was Nancy. And Nancy was brought along to Mount Hermon Christian Conference grounds as a kind of babysitter. Watch the kids. But she just saw a lady coming out of the restroom who was smiling at her and that's what turned her. So who knows what kind of gift the lady had, but she had at least the gift of smiling. And that got Nancy's attention. So yeah, we never know.

I can remember another time in church, At Peninsular Bible Church where I grew up, we used to have an evening service where there was kind of an open mic time. And one lady in the back raised her hand. She stood up and she said, I want what you people have. So was it evangelism? No. She just saw, you know, this is a body of people and they've got something real different about them.

But in all these cases, it's the Holy Spirit who's doing the work. Yes, it is a work of the Holy Spirit. The crown, the light in the eyes, or whatever, it's the Holy Spirit. Well, and like I say, even with the instance of Nancy, it was the Holy Spirit working in her heart. that made that mean something different. Without that, it's just, you know, that's a nice lady, she smiled. But instead of recognizing, I have a spiritual need and that lady has what I need.

Okay, so we have finally Christ gifted the church with pastors, that is shepherds or overseers or elders. Those are synonyms and they're also, by the way, used as verbs, so inaction. And there are a few points to clarify regarding pastors and teachers. A pastor, which is just a Latin term for shepherd, is an overseer, is an elder, may or may not also have the gift of evangelism. So, for example, here at Holly Hills, as far as I'm aware, none of the elders currently have the gift of evangelism, although the Lord has used us from time to time in people's lives. I think Hal very likely did have the gift of evangelism and just had the ability to communicate with people. So a shepherd who also was gifted with evangelism.

A pastor is also a teacher, but a teacher may not be a pastor. I've seen situations where someone has been a teacher, has gone to seminary, and then become a pastor, and they're really not gifted as a pastor, but rather as a teacher. So they will teach, but all the other aspects of being a shepherd they may well struggle with. A believer who teaches in the secular realm may not also have the gift of teaching. You may have a teacher's credential. You may have degrees in teaching. That doesn't make you, spiritually speaking, a teacher.

Converse, people in the New Testament church, where there is no such thing as a degree per se, still would be gifted as teachers. As we go through the book of Acts, we'll see that. There are people who can teach that are not necessarily in a secular sense recognized as a teacher. Then we have, there are cultural definitions of a pastor and what he does and how he works that do not fit the biblical role of the pastor.

The church where Brad Mastin is at in Fort Collins, the pastor before Brad, the reason that Brad went there and was able to fill the opening is because the pastor who was there before burned himself out. Actually, I need to correct that. He burned his wife out. Coming to Holly Hills, the statistic back then was about 80% of pastors will admit that they're over the line in their time commitments with respect to their family.

Ministry pulls too hard on them. So one of the things I warned Brad, I said, when you go up there, don't let the same thing happen to you as happened to the other guy. other people define what your ministry is and not scripture, then you get burned out. I've been here 16 years and never felt close to burned out. Not even sort of. And why?

One is I look at my job needs to be biblically defined, but the other is the Lord better be doing this or it's not going to cut it. Okay, so then we also have here The ministry of elders, who are overseers, who are pastors, spelled out in a variety of scriptures, and we'll be looking more at that later. Someone may have the gift of teaching that does not include much of the aspects of the role of pastor. We will be looking at that in more detail, but what, for example, might a pastor do that a teacher wouldn't necessarily do? A lot of times, counsel is very frequently something that a pastor may be doing as a shepherding gift.

Let's think of it as a shepherd. Do shepherds just keep the sheep in the same pasture all the time? No. That's a situation where you don't really have a shepherd. You've got fences. Why doesn't a shepherd keep the sheep in the same pasture all the time?

One is you run out of grass. What else might be another reason? And you're correct, but what else might be another reason? Do places go through seasons? Right, and so one place, you'll have, hey this grass is great during this time of year, but this other time of year, not only do you run out of grass, but the grass isn't growing and so as you eat it down, there's nothing to replace it. So I may need to move to a different elevation, a different location. in order to get continued feed for my animals.

How about water supply? During the winter time, this is fine. They've got the creek up here and everything is doing great. But it gets towards the summer time and this creek dries up. The sheep have no water, so I can't have them here. And then plus, along with that, probably the grass dries up too. So I've got to move them on to a different pasture later. So for water, not just for food, but for water supply. How about predators? The predators are out there, and the predators come in different forms.

At another church, prior to coming here, I had to chase off a guy who was pursuing the woman. They felt like they were meat on the hook. This guy was coming after them, and I had to say, look, you're welcome to come here and fellowship with us, but you will not be pursuing these women so that they feel like they're being hunted.

That was the last time I saw him, or anybody else saw him. He was gone. So there might be that, there may be also someone who comes and they've got some false teaching. And we've had that here. And I've had to chase them off. You're walking with fellowship with us, so it's not just to get out of here, but you're walking with fellowship with us, but you will not da-da-da-da. And so typically if the person is really of ill intent, they're gone. But sometimes that's necessary, and that isn't necessarily the point of a person who is a teacher, but not a shepherd.

Okay, so here we have, here's what these people who are a gift to the church are to do, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service. to the building up of the body of Christ. So now this equipping, by the way, this is a word that means military equipping. Military equipping. But then, equipping of the saints, now are the pastors and teachers for the work of service? Is there a comma in there? Is for the work of service just the second on the list? But rather what you see here is for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.

One way I somewhat tongue-in-cheek put that is, I'm not in the ministry, you are, right? So it's equipping the church body to carry out the work of service, not as the pastor at Fort Collins before Brad, who was doing all the work of service to the point where the wife said, I've had enough of this. And he's gone. So we have that, and then to the building up of the body of Christ. What is spiritual building up? What is spiritual building up? Is that a military word too? Well, let's see. I don't know that it has that significance.

In other words, he's equipping the saints for the work of service. You've got one picture as a kind of a military equipping to carry something out. Then almost a shifting set of metaphors here. So building up of the body of Christ. So when you think of the body of Christ, you all of a sudden shift from the military analogy, Yeah, Stan? So would that be edification? Yeah, so this is, we use the term edify, right? And so we're building up the body of Christ. Now, why do we say we're the body of Christ?

I mean, I've got one body, and as far as I can tell, each of you have another one, right? So what does this mean? Does this mean that we really ought to get into some, you know, gym exercises here, and maybe do some aerobics, or weightlifting, or what's this looking at? It's a church body, right?

And so, if I look at it, so I'm equipping the saints for the work of the service, and then this building up of the body of Christ, is the work of the service just so everybody can work real hard and run themselves into the ground working? That's for information, for learning the Word, and being able to Right, and so we turn that around, that equipping for the work of service, we turn that around to mutually up-building one another, spiritually speaking.

Yes? I think it might also refer to chapter 6. Alright, chapter 6, and you mean? Ephesians. Right, so that follows not long after this, right? So a part of it is people oftentimes when they look at the armor of God, they look at the individual soldier. That's very often done. I even see it in here's Bible studies and they'll show some individual soldier and they'll go through all that.

What's often not recognized is culturally The Roman soldiers didn't know how to work individually, but they had things that were built into their working as a team. They used various forms of what's called the tortoise formation. And the centurion would command different tortoise formations, and it would be putting the shields out front, putting the shields over the top, And so that would be one, and they say, okay, tortoise formation with the pilum, the spear, sticking out with the butt end dug into the ground, so that if you have horses charging you, that we take those guys out and we don't get the group of soldiers hit by the guy coming at you with the horse. And then they got another tortoise formation if you're up against a wall, and you got guys shooting arrows down at you, and you're up against the wall, and so you got the top, of the shields are very slanted, so the arrows deflect off of all the soldiers. So working together, furthermore, the upper part of their armor, you had to have somebody else put it on. So there were things about a church body activity that went beyond just the individual soldier. I think about Paul using the word no-loss or mind all the time, and the helmet being one of the parts of the armor, and it seems like you kind of start with that, and you've got that helmet on there to keep out the deceitful and Right.

And is that just an individual's responsibility? No. It's essentially a church body responsibility. Right? So this is again where a lot of the pictures that you'll see and they'll have even, you know, here's some lesson on the spiritual armor and they'll show individual soldiers. And the reality is that while individual soldiers had some place, an awful lot of what they did in the way of their equipping and their training was as groups. And this group works with that one, right? And things were mutually dependent. Yes? So if you don't have the individuals headed for the same goal, you've got somebody who's going off the wrong way and you won't have that information. Right. So this is a team.

So you have to have an individual that incorporates In Galatians 5, you walk in the Spirit, right? And that's an individual walking. That's in verse 16. Now in verse 25, it talks about walking again. And very often lost on most folks is that's a different word for walking in verse 25. That's a word that means to march together in unison, which is different from the individual walking. So Paul says each of you individually walk by the Spirit, and then towards the end you walk in unison, you march in unison by the Spirit. So both the individual and the together walking matters.

So back in here, so here's Ephesians 4.13, Plus added emphasis and added notes.

So, until we all attain to the unity of the faith. So let's stop there. What's that talking about? Until we all attain to the unity of the faith. What does that mean? Yes. Again, it goes back to what Paul said. One spirit. One talks about all the unity or the oneness. And again, if you look at the identification truth, you're identifying with Christ, right? Yeah, so there's unity in that, isn't there? There's positional unity.

The faith is a term used from Acts chapter 6 on into the book of Revelation. And it is used in some cases where it's very clear, boy, this is the one set of teachings of the apostles. So here's the book of Jude. I urge that you contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints by the apostles and prophets. The faith. And so there's that singular set of teachings of the apostles.

And by the way, what does it mean until we all attain? Why doesn't it say we're already there and arrived and we've got it all done? That's where you're headed. So if a church is not down to every jot and tittle unified, if a church is not down to every jot and tittle unified, is it time to just call it quits and split up? No. What it means is that's where we're headed, folks. We're headed for that.

So then you have, of the full, that is the precise and correct knowledge of the Son of God. So let's say, is our goal to be the precise and correct knowledge about the New Testament? Yeah, if we say the face, that's talking about the teachings of the apostles, but where is it aimed? It's aimed not just doctrinally, but personally. A knowledge of the Son of God. So, by the way, is that the same as a knowledge about the Son of God? No. And this is one of the distinctions we make. You can get a doctorate degree from seminary and still miss the target on this.

And people do. I used to have a pamphlet years ago. My friend got it from my dad. It says, I was a pastor for 50 years and then I was saved. Pretty astounding, huh? Pretty astounding. So then we have the full, precise and correct knowledge of the Son of God. So it is personal and specific to Him. It is knowing Him. Not just about Him, Him. Knowing Him personally. And then finally, to a mature man, that is the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness that belongs to Christ. Again, it's personal to Him. It's personal to Him.

So when we talk about maturity, maturity is not just simply individual, Maturity is also as a church body. By the way, so let's say that we just aim for individual maturity. Why don't we just do that? Individual maturity, spiritual maturity, and we call that good, why don't we just aim for that? Is that good enough? Call it good? Give it an A? You have to move along the line, toward it at least. Okay, so towards maturity, that's part one.

Is that the only measure of maturity that God cares about? He also cares about the maturity of the church body. So both of those, that's I think the key thing. What often happens is we can get sidetracked into, oh, this guy is really mature, but how's the rest of the body doing? How's the rest of the church body doing? Instead of having, boy, this is our mature guy, or this is our maturity group. Instead, to have the church body moving along towards maturity, all of us together.

So both of those matter. Individual and personal maturity, growth and maturity, but also as a church body. Yeah? But if you don't have, I mean, that's good, because if you don't have the personal maturity, like Ananias and Sapphira, then you don't have the church maturity as well.

So you kind of have to start with the individuals to get them working toward maturity so that they can and thereby bring the church to maturity. Yeah, so you have to do both, don't you? So here's the Apostle Paul, he writes this to the church at Ephesus and then to the church at Colossae. What does he say in Colossians 128? Teach and admonish every person. Every person, every person, three times. Translation is every man, but it's not specific to men. It's every person. and as a group in the church, it's still always a work in progress. Yes, it always is. Because none of us, not the shepherds, not the shepherds, not the Apostle Paul, none of us arrive until we get to heaven's gates. And God decides when that happens. None of us have arrived until we've gotten through heaven's gates.

And then He says, OK, welcome home. And then that's arrival. But not until then. Here's the Apostle Paul, having been a believer for decades, having been personally trained by Jesus Christ face to face, and he says, I press on. Because he has not yet arrived. Hasn't gotten there. I've been a Christian for over 60 years now. Have I arrived? No. I've not gotten there.

So then we have Ephesians 4.14, and my guess is we will not have anywhere near enough time, but we'll introduce it.

As a result, we are no longer to be immature, that is the opposite of mature, children tossed here and there back and forth by waves and carried around and around and about by every wind of doctrine, that picture is a ship aimlessly wandering and seasick occupants, by the trickery, that is, kubeia, loaded dice playing of men, by craftiness, ready to do anything, and deceitful scheming, tending to a system of intentional errors and distractions. What would often happen, and what the reference is, is actually loaded dice is what this word means. But what would happen is he'd get, here's some sailor, and he gets off the ship, you know, and he gets paid You know, and then a couple of guys get alongside him and one guy distracts him while the other guy takes his money. You know, gets him distracted over here while the other guy's, you know, putting the attention on here's his money. Or, hey, you know, we just need to, we've got this great deal for you, we just need you to make a deposit. I'm glad that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, like 143 million people getting their accounts broken into at Equifax, right?

So, yeah, you see at the top of page five, these kubeya is cheater dice. And interestingly enough, so what they have is the six dice to the right are not cheater dice. Opposite sides always add up to seven. So anyway, so what you have is cheater dice and non-cheater dice. And the cheater dice is they'll have opposite sides with the same number instead of having the right number. So they have those kind of cheater dice. Another kind of cheater dice is where you have it loaded or weighted so that it tends to fall in certain directions. But that's this word translated trickery. It's cheater dice. Interestingly enough, the pair that is found up in the top there is from Jerusalem. And then the end, and we'll just have time to read it, not much more.

Ephesians 4.15, but in contrast to verse 14, speaking the truth in agape love, literally truthing in love, We are to grow up in all aspects into Him, again, very personal, not just grow up, but grow up into Him, who is the head, even Christ, 416, 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 itself in love. Alright, so we will have to call it quits. We've run out of time.

And we'll continue on with what God's doing in the life of the church body next time. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for this amazing and wonderful front door as it seems to what you're doing in the church body. And as we've been looking primarily at things that are individual up to this point, turning a corner now to look at what are you doing among us? What are you doing within us all? And what does that look like? Thank you that you've revealed those very precious and dear truths because you love us and you care for us and you want each of us individually and all of us as a church body to be growing into you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.