Shared Lives Change Lives | Ephesians 4:7-16

Let's continue standing this morning as we read the word together.

That didn't fill your heart with praise, man.

I don't know what will.

We're in Ephesians chapter 4 here this morning.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

We're going to continue in our five foundations of the orchard.

If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And we're going to start in verse 7.

This is the word of the Lord.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

And he gave the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the statute of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful scream schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, for whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when every part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we come to you this morning.

Again, we are humbled and we are thankful.

We are humbled by the ways, God, that we chase after lesser things and we've sought our own glory instead of yours.

But God, we are thankful.

Thankful for your mercy.

Thankful for how you have chased us down, how you have died in our place, how your mercy is greater than our sin.

That through Jesus we are welcomed into your presence.

God, I pray that you would lift our eyes to see Jesus more clearly this morning.

God, captivate our hearts with your grace and satisfy us with your steadfast love.

God, we pray all these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Charlie Tremendous Jones once said that you'll be the same person five years from now that you are today, except for two things.

Forgive us.

Except for two things, the people that you meet and the books that you read.

That is, he understood something important that the people in your life help determine the person that you become.

I actually think that in the Bible, the Proverbs put it even better.

In Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20, Solomon writes this.

Proverbs 13:20

He says, Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Think about that.

Jones talks about the people that you encounter, the people that you meet.

Solomon talks about the people that you share your life with, the people that you're living with every day.

That he recognizes that the people that you listen to, imitate, and trust shape the character that you have.

You know, I don't think we often think about spiritual formation that way.

Typically we think about spiritual formation in terms of being exposed to the right content.

That we think that if I could just have the right podcasts and the right sermons and the right books and the right videos, that I can somehow become the right kind of person.

It's actually even becoming increasingly common to think that so long as I have the right content, so long as I have the right podcast, I really don't even need the whole church as a gathered body.

But what I want us to see this morning is that God's design for our formation is more than exposing us to the right kinds of content.

That God's design for our formation is also to expose us to the right kinds of people.

That we don't just need to learn about principles of faithfulness.

We need to be able to watch someone live out a faithful life when they receive a diagnosis that they didn't expect.

We don't just need to learn about uh three steps to great forgiveness.

We need to see people that have been hurt, people that have been wounded, people that have been offended, people that have maybe even been traumatized, and see how it is that they apply God's forgiveness in their lives.

That we don't just need to hear the truth, we need to observe the truth being implemented and applied in front of us.

That is, that we don't just need the right kinds of information.

And I want you just to stop and think of how countercultural that realization really is now that we live in the age of information.

It's countercultural, isn't it?

But we don't just need the right information, we need to see in people's lives how that information actually leads to ultimate and long-lasting transformation in our lives.

That is, we cannot become who God intends for us to become, self-actualizing all by ourselves.

No, there isn't enough content on earth to replace the God-purposed, God-given design of us to live in good and healthy community.

And that's why our second foundation here at the Orchard is that life is meant to be shared.

Life is meant to be shared.

If you were here with us last week, you heard the first foundation.

The first foundation is that God intends to be enjoyed.

And what I want you to realize is that these dovetail together, they build upon one another.

That we are meant to enjoy God together, collectively.

That the God who intends to be enjoyed intends for our delight in Him to be so great, to be so overflowing, that it begins to lead to mission and love and encouragement and service and endurance and forgiveness and worship with one another in our relationships.

And so life is meant to be shared because God is intending through this design to do something very particular.

We're gonna see that here in Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

That my thesis for this morning from Ephesians 4 is that God intends to form his people and preview his kingdom through a shared life.

I want you to notice what he says here in verse 7.

That in verse 7 he says, but grace was given to who?

To each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

That the headline of this passage, and this is what's going to have huge implications for our shared life with each other, is that Christ gives grace to every single member of his body.

And he gives grace to every single member of his body because that's the kind of king that he is.

You'll notice that here in verse 8, he's actually quoting from Psalm 68.

And he's quoting Psalm 68 to give us a particular presentation of Jesus as king.

That he's showing us that Jesus has come and he is the victorious king, he is the conquering king, now he is the, as we say, ascended king.

He is at the right hand of the Father.

And the picture that we have in Ephesians 4 is that as the conquering king, he is now distributing the spoils of victory over the face of his kingdom.

He's distributing the gifts of grace that he has accomplished through the all of his people.

That he's wanting us to recognize that there is a particular work that is happening and coming about abart.

Now, I want you to notice exactly how woven into the fabric of the gospel our shared life is.

You'll notice that Paul can't think about Christ's ascension to the throne without also thinking about his descension, his condescension.

So he left heaven, he comes, he condescends among us, and what's he doing?

He's sharing his life with us, isn't he?

He's sharing his life with us.

That's what we see in the cross is that our own God has come down to share life with us, that he might bear our burdens, that he might pay the price for our sins, that he might conquer on our behalf.

And so there's a real sense in what we're seeing here, and this is the ground, I think, of Paul's entire argument here that we share life with one another because we are following a Savior who first shared life with us.

That we share life with each other because Jesus shared our life.

And this is why life is meant to be shared.

Now, this is so much more than companionship.

It's so much bigger than just having friends at church.

It's certainly bigger than attending a weekly service together in the same room.

That God intends for us to share life because it makes us more like Jesus and because it shows the world more clearly exactly who Jesus is.

That God, in other words, is intending to form his people and preview his kingdom through our shared life with each other.

Now, in verses 11 through 16, what I think we have Paul doing is Paul is showing us the grace, the goal, and the growth of our shared life together.

First, you'll notice the grace that shared life begins with shared grace.

When I was a youth pastor, and I first began to serve at the church that I served for quite a few years as a student pastor, I was getting to know all of the kids.

And I had a seventh-grade boy by the name of Brian stop by my office one day, and I said, Brian, tell me about yourself.

And this is what he said.

He said, Well, I'm an accident.

My parents, they, power went out during the blizzard of 93, and here I am later in life.

Sometimes, sometimes the church feels a lot like that, doesn't it?

You stop and you think about how all of us ended up in this room together this morning.

You stop and think about how you ended up in this room this morning.

So much of it feels accidental, incidental, by chance, doesn't it?

Paul won't accept this.

Paul recognizes that Jesus is just a more strategic king than that.

That the strategic king has arranged every part of his body in a particular way so that it is good for his body and so that it proclaims the message that he intends to proclaim.

That the fact that we have all been gathered together this morning is actually evidence that the grace of Jesus is accomplishing exactly what Jesus intends for it to accomplish.

You'll notice that there's a movement here in our text.

That first, grace is given to each one of us.

That all of us are equipped.

When he's talking about grace most specifically here, he's talking about what we would call grace gifts or spiritual gifts, the spoils of victory.

All of them have been distributed over the course.

And then what happens?

Then he begins to give us to each other.

So grace is given to each one of us, and then the leaders who have been so equipped the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, they are then given as a gift to the body so that they can do what?

Verse 12, equip who?

The saints for the work of the ministry.

So all the members of the church are given gifts of grace.

The leaders of the church are given particular gifts of grace to do what?

To be able to cultivate and call out the gifts of grace among the body of Christ, to equip the church for the work of the ministry.

And so you can see how all of this strategically is fitting together.

That the point is that the grace Christ has given us isn't meant to stop with us or with the person who receives it.

It's meant to travel through us, to flow through us, and to contribute to what Christ is accomplishing for the good of the whole body.

You see, we are all designed to depend upon one another.

You'll notice that there is a universality and a diversity of Christ's grace here in verse 7.

That grace is, as we have said, given to each one of us.

And it's how much of it is given?

According to the measure of Christ's gift.

And his point in saying that is that every member receives a gift, but no member receives every gift.

Every member receives a grace gift, but no member receives every grace gift.

And this is not a flaw in the design of Jesus.

This is the design of Jesus.

This is the design of Jesus.

Because none of us are meant to have all of the gifts, because none of us are meant to bear the full weight of the body alone.

We were designed to be dependent upon one another because we are gifted to contribute alongside each other.

That God gives gives, I'm sorry, God gives gifts to each of us, and then he brings all of us together.

That what Christ has given to me is meant for your good.

And what Christ has given to you is actually meant for my good.

That Jesus doesn't just bless me by giving me spiritual gifts, Jesus also blesses me by giving me you with all of your spiritual gifts.

That life is meant to be shared because our gifts are meant to be shared.

And this is the means by which God intends to form his people.

George Elliott wrote a poem about the master violin builder Antonio Stradivari.

And she wrote this poem in which someone is accusing him of having a small and insignificant gift to live a small and insignificant life.

I think probably many of us can identify with that.

And so Stradivari responds in the poem, and he responds by saying that God gifts musicians to be able to play.

But his responsibility is to build instruments that's worthy of them being able to play.

That his work may not be everything, but it's his.

And this is the key line in the poem.

It says, if his hands stopped working, he would leave a blank instead of violins.

That's the picture that Paul gives here.

That's the picture that Paul gives.

None of us are the whole orchestra.

None of us is meant to carry the tune by ourselves.

None of us is meant to build the kingdom by ourselves.

None of us is meant to bear the weight of the body by ourselves.

But Christ has given some grace to all of us so that all of us can contribute together to accomplish what Christ intends to accomplish.

And if you bury what Christ has given to you, then there's a blank where Christ intended for ministry to happen.

That using your gifts says Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he gave these gifts to me.

That you honor the giver by putting into practice the gifts that he's given to you to practice with.

Church family, if we're being honest this morning, we have too many blanks where your gifts are meant to be.

We just do.

That's the facts.

And maybe it's because you don't know what your gifts are.

I have good news.

You do not have to wait on a personality profile.

You do not have to take a gift survey.

You never leave those babies inspired, do you?

What do you do?

You just find a need that you can help with and do what you can.

Find a need that you can help with and then do what you can.

Find someone in our church family, and this implies that you're close enough to know, who needs encouragement and then encourage them.

Teach our children.

Look, you don't have to be Socrates to teach children.

Okay?

Do you know what you have to do?

Be present, answer some questions, work through the lesson that you're going to be equipped to teach.

You have a home.

The Lord has provided, I would imagine, every person here with a home that is beyond what you have to have for your necessity, and He's given it to you so that you can open it up with a gift of hospitality to be able to bring people in, to give them uh good news and to breathe life into them and give them a place of respite.

Man, pray with somebody who's hurting.

Carry a burden.

They often, typically, normatively, in the life of the church, our gifts are not discovered through personality profiles, our gifts are not discovered through spiritual gift assessments.

Our gifts are discovered through serving, through finding a need that we can meet and meeting it.

And then the next door opens and the next door opens and the next door opens.

I wonder this morning who is being strengthened by Christ because of the grace that he has given you?

Who is being strengthened by Christ because of the grace that he's given you?

Let the grace that you've received become the grace that you share because life is meant to be shared with grace being shared.

So shared life begins with grace.

Shared life begins with grace.

Then I want you to see that shared life aims at a shared goal.

Shared life aims at a shared goal.

The word until, until is giving us really the goal that Paul intends, the ends toward which he is aiming the things that he's saying.

And what he wants us to see is that Jesus isn't just bringing us together to keep us busy.

Jesus is bringing us together that we would have unity of the faith, that we would have knowledge of the Son of God, that we would grow into mature manhood and womanhood, that there would be a measure of the stature, of the fullness of Christ, that he's come to us, that he would bring about some particular things in us, that he's bringing us together so that we all become mature and so that we increasingly look like him.

But sometimes church feels less like a family pursuing maturity with one another, and it feels more like an olive garden.

Do you remember the old slogan for Olive Garden?

When you're here, you're family, right?

When you're here, you're family.

Now, I enjoy unlimited breadsticks as much as the next cat.

But sharing a restaurant with people does not make you their family, does it?

When you come in, you're not sharing life.

You have to go and share your name.

You have to put your name just to see if you can get a place on the list.

Might be a 45-minute wait before you can even go in, which baffles my mind.

They cook everything with boiled water, just so you know.

Boiled water.

45-minute wait for all of yards.

You go in, you put your name down.

Why?

Because they have no idea who you are.

And you sit beside people that you never meet, you consume what someone else prepared, you leave a tip, you go home.

You don't help cook, you don't wash dishes, you don't know what's happening at the table next to you, they don't know what's happening at your table, and at the end of the meal, there's no mess, there's no commitment, and there's no expectation that you'll contribute anything.

And if we aren't careful, if we are careful, that's exactly what our church can become.

That's what our church experience can be.

It can become a family and slogan only.

That we come in and we consume something that someone else prepared, we sit near people that we don't really know, and then we just go home without any commitment, without any interaction, without any depth.

We share a room, we share a sermon, we may even share a table, but we never actually begin to share our real and actual lives.

This isn't Paul's vision for the church.

This isn't Jesus' vision for the church.

This is not beautiful enough to be Jesus' vision of his church.

The church is meant to make you feel a lot more like you're going to your grandmother's kitchen than to the olive garden.

Think about your grandmother's house.

You don't even go to the front door, do you?

Only salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses go to the front door.

Where do you go?

You go through the back door.

And when you go through the back door, immediately the smell of your grandmother's kitchen hits you in the face, and she wraps her arms around you and she kisses you on the face, and she's done the same thing all 30, 40, 50 years of your life.

And then what does she do?

She puts you to work, doesn't she?

She gives you something to cook, she gives you some dishes to clean, she gives you a table to set, she makes you go out to the laundry room and get the folding chairs for all the extra people that are gonna be there.

Because you aren't a customer.

You're a family, you aren't a consumer, you're a contributor.

But what happens?

Everybody keeps coming back to that beautifully ordinary table, don't they?

Everybody keeps coming back.

One generation sits together in the living room and they tell stories of the faithfulness of God over all of the decades of their family.

And then just one room over, there's the younger generation, and they're dreaming about what God is gonna do in their lives as they begin to live.

The younger need the wisdom of the older, the older are strengthened by the hope of the younger.

And y'all, this is the vision of the church.

We are not patrons, we're family.

We're not here to consume religious goods, we're here to contribute to one another's maturity and joy in the kingdom.

See, restaurants just want to get you fed and get you out the door.

Families want to help you grow up.

Paul uses this language until we all attain mature manhood, until we reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

You see, this is about formation, not about entertainment.

Notice that Paul's goal here isn't that we just feel close or enjoy one another's company.

I think that that's worth stating.

I think I think for many people that's how they conceive of whether they have a good experience in church or a bad experience in church.

Restaurants care about.

Your experience.

Restaurants care about your entertainment.

Families care about the kind of person that you're becoming.

They care about your values.

They care about your priorities.

They care about your health.

They care about who you are as a man, who you are as a woman, who you are as a husband, as a wife, as a dad, as a mom, as a grandmom.

They care about all of these things.

And Paul tells us exactly who we're meant to be.

Who are we meant to be?

We're meant to be the united in faith.

We're meant to be those who are growing in the knowledge of the Son of God.

We're meant to see the fullness of Christ fuller and fuller.

Our shared life that isn't anchored to truth.

You recognize this is what he's saying.

Shared life that isn't anchored to truth.

It might make us close.

It might make us friends, but it can't make us mature.

It can't make us strong.

It can't make us healthy.

The goal isn't here that we would all just enjoy hanging out to each other.

I love that.

I want us to enjoy hanging out.

I am all about us hanging out.

But the goal here is that it would be something far deeper, far richer, far more beautiful.

The goal is that we'd be formed as the people of God in the enjoyment of God together.

That is formation, not entertainment.

And it's we, not I.

We, not I.

Paul isn't describing a church where everyone privately pursues maturity while they happen to be sitting in the same room.

The phrase that he's here translating mature manhood, it's actually written in the single.

And it goes back to something that he says in chapter 2, verse 15.

He paints this picture of the Gentile and the Jew, uh, the Gentile church and the Jewish church coming together to form one mature man.

And so he's going back to allude to this reality.

That the picture here is that we're not all just growing into people, we're not all just growing into men, into women.

That's of course true.

Not just that we're all growing into mature women or mature men, but that collectively we are coming together to form one mature man, one mature body, one mature person in Christ.

That Paul's preeminent concern isn't merely whether I'm maturing, his primary concern is whether we are maturing together, collectively.

Verse 14 is giving us the negative side of the goal when he says, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine, human cunning craftiness and deceitful schemes.

He says that children can be unstable.

That's what he wants us to avoid.

That they are blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by every cultural ideology, by all of the propaganda that begins to infiltrate our minds and shape our worldview.

They're blown to and fro so that the ground beneath them always feels like it's shifting.

They're vulnerable to impressive personalities and clever arguments and deceitful schemes.

And that's why we can't evaluate church by asking, was I fed?

That's what patrons ask.

The question isn't, was I fed?

Families ask, did we help each other grow up?

Did we help each other become stronger?

Did we help each other become healthier?

So it's easy to look around church and think, they need to grow up, right?

Probably all of us have felt that in some way or another.

It's easy to look and think, they're immature, they need to grow up, they need to understand something of greater substance.

But Paul's showing us that's restaurant thinking.

Family thinking is we need to mature, and I have a role to play in this.

That restaurants use you and me language, families use we language.

We are all the same body.

And what we're seeing is that in the eyes of Jesus, our maturity is not so much being measured individually as it is being measured as a composite, collectively, as one body, as one man.

Either we are mature or we are immature.

Orchard, we have to decide what kind of church we want to be.

Do we want to be a restaurant?

Or do we want to be a family table?

The truth is, is restaurants are a dime of dozen.

I'm thankful that they're there.

I like a date night.

But I don't feel safe at a restaurant.

I feel safe when I come home.

I don't feel at peace at a restaurant.

I feel at peace when I come home.

We've got to decide who we want to be.

Restaurants are a dime of dozen, but dozen, but but those old scarred family dining room tables, the ones that have nostalgia, the ones that preach to the generations, the one of which memories have been shared and forgiveness has been expressed and the Bible has been read, those are costly.

Those require patience, those require forgiveness, those require hard conversations.

Who are we gonna be?

I would argue that one is far more beautiful than the other, one is far more worthy of our lives than the other.

That's our dream for community groups.

The dream that we have for community groups is not to add one more thing to your life.

My goodness gracious, I know that the last thing you need on God's earth is another thing for your calendar.

I know that.

We know that, we recognize that.

And if it's just a thing where we can come and you know grill some hamburgers and go home, I get that's not worth the investment.

But if it can become a family table of the orchard, a place where the generations are formed, a place where real conversations are had, a place where forgiveness is demonstrated, a place where where truth is applied, a place where wisdom is cultivated, a place where maturity takes place.

Man, that's worth a spot on the calendar.

That's worth an investment of time.

And the only way that it happens is if we begin to endeavor to stop thinking like restaurants, to start thinking like a family, and to be leaning in to share life with each other.

Life is meant to be shared because becoming like Jesus is a goal that all of us are meant to pursue together.

So shared life begins with shared grace.

Then it aims at a shared goal.

Finally, I want you to see that shared life leads to shared growth.

Shared life leads to shared growth.

Why is it that some Christians sit in church for years and still remain spiritually immature?

Like, have you ever thought about that?

It's interesting, isn't it?

You think about the way Paul frames up childhood, and he frames it up not in terms of age or years, he frames it up in terms of stability and instability.

That spiritual maturity isn't measured by how long you've been around the truth, it's measured by how stable, secure, and wise the truth has made you in your actual life.

So it's possible for a person to live a long time and to hear a lot of sermons and yet still live what Paul would consider to be a childish Christian life.

How is that possible?

Paul's answer is that growth doesn't happen through attendance at all alone.

That growth comes from Christ, and then it spreads through the entire body of Christ.

That growth comes from the head.

You'll notice that there are two prepositions here in verses 15 and 16 to describe this relationship.

First is into him, into Christ.

And then it's from.

From who?

From Christ.

That we're growing into Christ and we're growing from Christ.

You see, both the goal and the source of our growth is Jesus Himself.

That we are growing into his likeness because we receive from him everything that we need, all the grace that we need, the spirit that we need to become who he intends for us to become.

But the picture that Paul has is not Jesus standing at the finish line trying to say, Hey, are you measuring up to me?

Are you measuring up to my full stature?

Are you as good as me?

Are you as gracious as me?

Are you as forgiving as me?

I think that would actually lead to despair.

No, the picture is that Jesus is actually running the race with us, handing us cups of Gatorade to make sure that we find our way all the way to the finish line.

That Jesus is running the race with us to give us the grace that we need as we go so that we can become who He intends for us to become.

That growth comes from the head, but then growth moves through every member.

That Paul pictures the church as a healthy body made up of what he calls dependable parts.

That Christ is the source of its life, but then you'll notice how it is that all of it grows together.

How does it grow together?

When each part is working properly, what happens?

It makes the body grow.

It makes the body.

When each part is working properly, it makes the body grow.

That Christ applies the life, but now every member has a part to play in passing that life alone.

I learned how true this was years ago, right before Megan and I went on one of our very first dates, I was coming down a flight of stairs at my house, and I had this thing that I would do as I was a young, younger man back then, and I would jump from like the fourth step from the top down to the bottom.

Well, one day, the day before this date, I landed on the side of my foot.

I broke my ankle, right?

Um but you've probably picked up by now that I wasn't in my younger years always the most cautious with my physical health, okay?

And so I didn't go to the doctor and I just drug this ankle around.

I remember we were going fishing, this is a very country date, right?

And uh I tie I took the laces out of a hunting boot and pulled it over the ankle because it was the only thing that I could do to try to stabilize that ankle.

And I drug it around.

Well, I ended up dragging that ankle for about 15 more years, and I could just walk across a flat surface, like even in my living room, and that ankle would turn over and I would fall down.

And it got to where it was really beginning to inhibit a lot of the things that I enjoy doing, hiking, playing sports, doing those kinds of things.

I really couldn't do them anymore because I had no confidence in my ankle.

And so for all those years, the rest of my body had to compensate for one part that wasn't working properly.

I did eventually get it reconstructed, life-changing for me.

But I want you to think about that.

An ankle seems really small and insignificant, isn't it?

When an ankle's working well, you don't even think about it at all.

It seems small and insignificant until it's weak, until it doesn't function properly, until the rest of your body is always having to compensate and it's weakening the rest of your body.

What we discover is that that weak ankle can actually make a very strong body limp.

In fact, a weak ankle can take the whole body and crash it into the ground and cause a whole host of other issues, can't it?

This is Paul's point.

This is Paul's point.

When some members refuse their part, fewer people in the church are carrying the weight of the body of Christ that is meant to be bore by the entire body.

And what happens as a result is that the growth of the whole body becomes stunted.

So what does it mean for every member of the body to actually be working properly?

This seems like an important clarification.

Is Paul merely saying that we need to stay busy in the church?

Is he saying that you need to find a place to sign up and volunteer, like a position, just find one and sign in and fill it?

I think this is what verse 15 is getting at when it tells us that a proper, a healthy member does what?

Speaks the truth in love.

This is really fascinating.

The word truth is typically a noun, isn't it?

Here, Paul actually uses it as a verb.

So there's a sense in which what he's saying is that you are meant to be truthing in love.

That you're meant to be showing the application of the truth.

That yes, we are people of the truth, but we are living out that truth in our relationships, and we're living out that truth in the way that we contribute to the body of Christ, and we're living out that truth with the decisions that we make and the places that we go.

We're living out so we don't just speak the truth in love.

We are literally truthing in love.

That it begins to work through all of us because we recognize that both truth and love are two sides of the same coin that must be a part of every Christian life.

That truth without love becomes cruel, doesn't it?

But love without truth becomes sentimental and compromising.

But when the truth of Christ moves through the members of his body in love, what happens?

Unstable people become stable.

Immature people begin to grow up, weak people get stronger.

And that's how the growth of the church moves through every member of the church.

It's through very ordinary opportunities to build one another up in love.

Now, sometimes truthing in love means encouraging someone who's tired to keep pursuing Christ.

Sometimes it means gently confronting someone who's drifting or patterns of sin are beginning to emerge.

Sometimes it's confessing your own sin and having somebody else, another brother, another sister, remind you of the hope and the truth of the gospel.

I want to ask you a question this morning.

It's a question that's a hard question that I've been wrestling with myself throughout the week.

If every member of the orchard shared life the way that you do, what kind of church would we become?

If every member of the orchard shared life the way that you do, what kind of church would we become?

If every member of the orchard spoke the truth in love the way that you do, would we realize Paul's goal and be built up in love?

Would we become more joyful or more negative?

Would more disciples be made or fewer?

Would the burdens of ministry be shared or would they continue to be carried by the same exhausted people?

If every member of the orchard shared life the way that you do, what kind of church would we become?

See, this is how our shared life previews the kingdom.

It previews the kingdom.

When a lonely person finds a family, when a drifting believer is lovingly restored, when an older saint steadies a younger one, when people who would naturally never be together in the same room and be friends come together, enjoy, the world begins to get a glimpse of what life under the reign of King Jesus actually looks like.

Orchard, do you know why we're here?

We're not here to show them a picture of Olive Garden.

We're brought together to show all of the mid-south how good life under the reign of King Jesus actually is.

This world, it may beat the life out of you.

But Jesus keeps supplying life to his body.

Everywhere that they step, the ground may feel like it's shifting, but we want them to see that when they get here, when they come in here, they've been pulled out of the my repent and placed on the solid rock that they can rest in the person in the work of Christ.

And that happens when we come together.

So let's not just settle for sitting beside one another.

Let's not just settle for singing beside one another.

God is intending to form his people and preview his kingdom through a shared life.

So let's really, really share life with one another.

Let's pray the Lord.

Heavenly Father, this morning we pow ourselves, Lord, and we say, God, it's never our intention to not fully embrace the vision that you have for your church, but sometimes it does, it does seem that way in our actions.

So, Father, I pray on behalf of my people, on behalf of myself, that you would forgive us when that's the case.

I pray, Lord, that you would let us take hold of a bigger and more beautiful vision of the church.

That this place would not be like Olive Garden, but that it would be a picture, a pre-runner of the table that's gonna be at the wedding supper of the Lamb, where all the peoples from all the places gather together to sing a new song.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Father, I pray that you would call us forward into faith, that we would grow into the full stature of Christ.

Thank you for grace.

May grace be well stewarded through us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.