Grow: Connect (Ephesians 4:1-16) | Myles Holmes | May 11, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to be together this morning.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them to Ephesians 4.

If you don't have a copy of God's Word, our ushers are coming down the aisle right now, and you can flag one of them down.

They would love to get a copy into your hands, and we would love for you to keep that as our gift to you.

It took me three years of Biblical Greek in Bible college and seminary, two years of Hebrew to learn something really humbling, and that was that I really did not understand English grammar at all.

I used to take pride in being from a culture that doesn't say y'all.

You don't hear that much.

At least you didn't until you started to come to this church and you were led in worship by Joel.

Joel says it a lot.

He's the only person I know, really, though.

But Greek showed me that that, now sorry, I'm gonna take you to school here, but that second person plural, y'all, is actually something that's incredibly helpful.

English doesn't have it.

It doesn't have the second person plural.

So when I say you, you have to use context to understand if I'm talking to you specifically.

You know, I might be staring at you in the eyes and you think, okay, well, this person's, you know, really talking only to me here.

Or context might tell you, you know, that in a platform like this, in a morning like this, I probably wouldn't single single out one single person.

However, occasionally I do, so you know, sit on the edge of your seat.

I'm talking to y'all, right?

Now, that second person plural is incredibly important.

I think we miss something profound when we don't have it.

When we come to the scriptures, especially as we come to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1, because there Paul writes, after having spent three chapters in Ephesians with sort of this breathtaking theology, he turns and very practically says this I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

Ephesians 4:1

Now you can guess where I'm going with this, but I want you to understand that the you in that is not a singular you, it is a plural you.

If Paul were from the south and he had the vocabulary accessible to him, that would be a y'all.

Now, in this little detail is a massive truth for you and I as we seek to walk with Christ, as we seek to accomplish what Paul is calling the church to do.

Live in a manner worthy of our calling.

As we seek to accomplish what this series is all about, growing and being a maturing disciple.

There is a massive truth in this small single detail, and that is this that walking with Christ is not something that you can do definitionally alone.

In other words, this is what I want you to take away this morning.

That Jesus' design for your growth is a group project.

It is a group project.

If you want to walk in Christ, if you want to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, you need people around you to do it.

And so what's gonna happen this morning is our uh thoughts about growth really are gonna be challenged.

The way that we think about spiritual growth will be challenged because we can be honest that when when you know I said that, that your growth is a group project, some of us groaned because we hated group projects.

Was that you?

I mean, I loved group projects.

I was kind of one of the students who I was like so happy to be paired with the really smart person, you know, because for once I could get a good grade.

And that is the reason why many of you hated group projects, is because of people like me.

Most of us thought in the midst of a group project, I'd I'd rather just do this myself.

Unfortunately, that mindset is really a great description of how our culture operates.

We have this sort of mentality that says, I'd I'd rather do this my own way.

And in fact, we praise people who are sort of these self-made men or women.

We praise people who sort of did it themselves without the help of other people.

Jesus will have it no other way.

The road to maturity and the mission to make disciples is not a solo journey, it is a shared one.

And unless you stay plugged in, connected to the source of power that God has given us, that is the church, you cannot experience the kind of growth he intended for you.

You just can't do it.

Paul fleshes this out in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 to 16.

Ephesians 4:1–16

Let's see this together.

And as we read God's word, would you stand with me as we honor?

This is the live the living word of God, his voice to us this morning.

Let's read it together.

I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

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.

And 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 ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and 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 stature 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 schemes.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

You can grab your seat.

Jesus designed our growth to be a group project.

So, community, then, it is not optional to the walk with Christ.

It is essential.

And in this passage, Paul is showing us why.

I want you to see then the first thing, the first reason why our growth is a group project, is because growth requires staying close to his people.

The kind of growth that God wants you to experience requires that you stay close to his people.

Paul wants us to understand here that to be a Christian is to have a relational posture.

Your life is postured in a way that you are constantly in relationship.

Notice here in verse one and two that he calls us to walk with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, and being eager to maintain unity.

Do you recognize that none of these things are possible apart from other people?

Is it possible to bear with another person if there is no person there?

You're like, yeah, it's really easy, actually.

When my house is silent, there's no I got no sin in my house.

You know, it's simple.

It's not possible to be humble apart from other people.

It's not humble possible to be gentle apart from people that you are being gentle with.

It's not possible to be patient unless there are other people who are testing your patience.

To be a Christian is to be deeply engaged in community.

To be a Christian apart from swimming in the waters of community is impossible.

I tried to think about what that's like, and you know, this is where my mind went to.

You know, Brandon was serving us, he's playing the electric guitar this morning.

So is Joel, but you know, I want to talk about Brandon right now.

Could you imagine if Joel showed up, or sorry, Brandon showed up to the practice and he pulled out his guitar, but it had no strings.

As great of a guitar player as he is, he cannot play the guitar apart from strings.

Strings make a guitar essential.

Some of you are here this morning, you're like, I was thinking about that we would hear something a bit more profound than this, and this is where we are.

It's essential.

Now, as we search the scripture, I want you to understand that the absolute necessity of community shocks us because you and I swim in waters of a culture that is deeply individualistic.

Do you understand that?

One of the great values of our culture is individualism.

That's why many of us have neighbors that we've never even spoken to, people who live within a you know a few meters of us that we do not even know their name because our culture values individualism.

Now, that's not necessarily a positive thing or a negative thing, but it means that when we come to passages in the scripture that are so deeply about community, they sort of can hit us with this sense of like, I don't understand how that could even be possible.

Take for example, 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 12 to 13.

1 Thessalonians 3:12–13

I was in my own personal reading this week, came across this and was reminded of this reality.

Paul says this, may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you.

And we say, Yes, amen.

We want to love other people, right?

But notice what Paul says that accomplishes.

Notice this here.

He says, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God.

So listen, when you stand before the Lord and you are blameless in holiness before God, you will look back, and the reason for that blamelessness will be that you were a person who loved other people.

And you hear that, and instinctively, as a you know, person who lives in a culture that is individualistic, you think, what did they have to do with me and God?

And yet, this is how the scriptures speak to us, they remind us that community is essential to the walk.

A vertical holiness with the Lord is inseparable from a horizontal love for his people and for all.

And so listen, you're on a pilgrimage to heaven, and Jesus is confronting you this morning, telling you, you cannot do it alone.

You need other people.

So then, can I ask you, loved one, this morning?

Do you have a relational posture in the church?

When God looks at you interacting with his people in his house, how does he view you?

Does he see someone walking with humility, with gentleness, with love, or does he see someone who's who's keeping others at a safe distance, who is in the house, but certainly not engaged?

When God looks at you, interacting with others in his house, does he see an eagerness to preserve unity or quiet withdrawal when things get hard?

Now, let me maybe try to press this a little deeper by showing you three postures that actually make community impossible.

We're called to take a relational posture.

Here are three postures that make community impossible, and for your benefit, they all start with B's, okay?

You can thank me later for that.

It's useless, but it's fun.

So here we go.

First, you might take a posture of busyness.

You're always in motion.

You have likely taken on too many things: work, family, hobbies, errands.

And when your posture is busyness, what happens then is that community in the church becomes optional.

It becomes something that you squeeze into the margins of your life.

You'll go to a small group if you're not too tired.

You will serve on a Sunday morning so long as it doesn't interfere with other things in your life.

You'll gather with people when your week isn't too full with life.

Church gets whatever time is left over.

Now it's impossible to do community with a posture of busyness, but I want you to see, secondly, that it's impossible to do community with a posture of bitterness.

You've been hurt by people in the church.

Now you keep a distance.

You're skeptical of relationship, you're guarded, you're not interested in vulnerability, and you're unwilling to risk connection again because you might be hurt.

And so you dwell in darkness, and bitterness cuts you off from the very source that Jesus tells you the power is in the church.

Third, you might take a posture of bravado.

Have you heard that word?

I haven't heard it in a long time, but it had a B, so I had to put it in here.

You put on a front.

Your worth is tied to being self-reliant, strong, in control.

You believe that others need you, but you don't really need others.

Loved one, let me suggest that this is an idol that has strongly gripped many of our hearts.

That being self-sufficient men and women who have a measure of success in the world that we live in, we have grown a spirit of pride that says, I can do it, that looks at other people and says they need help, but I don't.

I can do this on my own.

Vulnerability for a prideful person feels like weakness.

And so you keep people at an arm's length.

But your pride keeps you looking strong while growing spiritually thin.

Now, here's the problem with these postures.

The problem is that Paul here, and therefore God here, is calling you not just to be a guest in God's house, God is calling you to be a builder.

You see this in verse 12.

You see that in verse 12 of chapter 4.

We're gonna get here in a minute, but he says this that the saints are called to the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

That's Christ's goal for you.

Not that you would just be a guest in the church, not that you would just grow in the church, but that your growth would be tied to you building up the church, to doing the work of ministry.

You understand the illustration, to getting the mortar, to building the walls, you are building up the church.

Called to be a contributing member to the group project that is our sanctification, that is our growth, that is our maturity as a church.

But if your posture is busyness, if your posture is bitterness, if your posture is bravado, you cannot build.

You are just a guest.

There's a difference between guests and builders, isn't there?

You ever been confused?

You know, you ever had someone invite you over?

You thought you were a guest, but they were inviting you over as a builder, and so you get over, you're ready for some hospitality, and they're like, hey, can you help me move this couch?

And you realize you're helping this person move.

Let there be no confusion.

In the church, you are called to be a builder.

Guests don't stay when it gets hard.

Guests are not supposed to get their hands dirty, but builders stay, they carry, they take ownership.

And Jesus here is categorizing us.

He's saying this, you cannot grow as a guest.

You will only grow as a builder.

Called you to build.

But Paul here, what Paul is doing is he's taking us deeper.

You see, Jesus has not just called us to be builders in a church, he has also given us the tools to do it.

And he doesn't give the tools just to one person.

Instead, what he does is he gives different gifts to people all around you so that you can grow through them.

Now, this is the second thing I want you to see about growth.

Growth requires that we receive from other people.

Your posture there is relational, and in your posture, you are ready to receive something from other people.

Look at verse 7 here of chapter 4.

Paul says this that, but but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

In other words, Christ has distributed spiritual gifts to every believer with no exceptions.

If your faith is in Jesus Christ, what this verse is telling you is that the ascended Christ has given you a gift, and spiritually you hold it in your hands.

And the question is, what do you do with that gift?

Maybe more importantly, what is even that gift?

What is it?

Now, Paul unpacks this in verses 8 to 12.

He quotes from Psalm 68 when he says, from Psalm 68, when he ascended, in Psalm 68, that's talking about the king on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

Paul is looking at Psalm 68 and drawing a direct connection from the king of the nation there to Jesus Christ.

And a good king in those days, when they were victorious against the enemy nation, they would go in, they would conquer the enemy, they would gather up the bounty, and a good king would then distribute that to all his people.

This is what Jesus has done.

Jesus, in ascending, we just sang about it this morning.

He defeated our greatest enemy, sin and death.

And in ascending to heaven, the King Jesus, Paul says, has given you a gift.

And we love gifts, don't we?

We wait with eager anticipation.

What is under the paper?

What is in the card?

Paul here tells us, well, Christ has ascended and is physically away from us.

He has sent us gifts.

And so our question then is what are those gifts?

Now notice that they are not things, they are people.

Notice what he says in verse 11.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers.

Christ in ascending has given to the church leaders, but but I want you to notice that they are given for a purpose.

They are not the end of the gift.

The leaders given to the church here in verse 11 are the beginning of the gift.

Because they in verse 12, look what they're called to do.

These leaders are called to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

They're called to equip the saints.

That's you.

That's any person who has been called out from darkness into life by Jesus Christ.

These leaders are called to equip them for what?

You see it there?

For the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

So here is the truth you need to take away from this.

While Christ is it is physically absent in his ascension, the gift that he has given to you in his victory is a group of people.

If you want the grace of Jesus Christ that he is distributing in his victory, you will find it nowhere else but in other people who are doing the work of ministry.

You need it.

Your growth is a group project.

Jesus has distributed gifts of grace that you need that you will not receive apart from other people doing ministry in your life, building you up.

Listen, I know this experientially.

You could come up to me after and test me.

You could ask if you could point out any good thing in my life, I can point you to the person who sharpened that in me.

That's what Mark read about in Psalm 133.

How good is it when brothers dwell in unity?

Why?

Because that is where change happens.

Listen, Paul is instructing us categorically here.

He's giving us a science of growth.

He wants you to understand that the soil of growth Christian growth happens in community.

There is no other way.

So let me ask you then.

Have you come to expect that you will thrive in Christ apart from his church?

Do you assume that you'll be spiritually fine as long as you're reading the Bible, as long as you're listening to good podcasts, as long as you're trying hard in your own?

Do you believe that it's possible to have victory over an area of your life where you've refused to invite accountability and input?

Because according to this passage, that expectation is not just unrealistic, it is unbiblical.

Spiritual growth is a group project.

It doesn't work alone.

Last summer I built in my backyard a fireplace, a way too massive fireplace, but it was a fireplace.

And we've had many fires in that since.

And I've learned something about fires.

I knew it before, but you know, I've learned it more.

The more wood you put on, it's simple, isn't it?

The bigger the fire gets.

But you can take off one log and pull it away from the fire, and what does that log do?

It dies.

So it is in your Christian life.

You cannot have a vibrant life for the Lord.

You cannot have a heart that is set on fire for the Lord.

You cannot have fuel for growth apart from leaning against other people.

And I have had the privilege in my life of sitting across from so many people who find themselves broken, who find themselves needing change in life, who find themselves hurting, and yet who also find themselves in isolation.

And I am never surprised when someone is struggling and there's no one around them, they've isolated themselves from people who can help them carry the weight.

I would be shocked, and it has not happened yet, to hear someone who is thriving spiritually apart from community, apart from being deeply involved in the lives of other people.

It cannot happen.

And so listen, loved ones, one of the ways that God can work most richly in your life is by putting something in your life that you can't handle alone.

And some of you are experiencing that right now.

Like there's this sin that you have, and it just like it's just so deeply rooted in your heart, and you're trying your best to get rid of it, but it's just not working.

And the reason is because you're just not inviting anyone else into that dark corner of your heart.

And others of you have isolated yourself from community, you are not serving, you are not inviting input, you are not seeking accountability, and yet you are carrying great burdens, great weights.

And God has placed these weights in your life so that you would seek what is absolutely necessary, the gifts that He has given in people.

Listen, you know, the reverse of this is that one of the ways that Satan can have the strongest foothold in your life is by causing you to live in isolation.

It's true.

Here's what we know so far.

We have a relational posture, so we recognize we can't do it so far, so alone.

We have a we find ourselves in a group of people that we're ready to receive from.

Well, what does Paul get to next then?

Here he's getting to the nitty-gritty of what we are actually to do.

And I want you to understand, third, that growth requires that we hear and speak the truth.

Yes, we're supposed to live in community.

Yes, we're called to a posture that allows us to receive from others.

But what are we actually supposed to do?

In other words, at this point in the sermon, we're in the spiritual gym.

We're in front of all the weights.

We got everything we need to spiritually grow.

But the question is, how do we train?

How do we actually do the work of growing?

First, notice that it is that the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers are called to an important work.

Their work is to equip the saints.

Theirs is the task of a coach in the spiritual gym we find ourselves in.

If you go to the gym and you want to get physically fit, one of the worst things you could do is just let the coach lift the weights on your behalf.

Don't we wish it worked like that?

You know, you eat the healthy food, you lift the weights, and I'll receive the benefit.

It's absurd, isn't it?

And yeah, that's what we find in the church so often.

Listen, if I'm just a spectator here, I can I can receive all the benefit.

Yet it's it's impossible.

See, these the leaders are to equip, they're there to show you how to train, how to move, how to grow stronger.

But they don't do all the work.

They just create the place, the environment that makes the work possible.

And if we have this understanding of the church that the leaders are to do all the work, I am incredibly frightened.

Because if you have a view of me that says I can disciple more than 12 people, you are looking at me as though I'm, you know, doing, can do something more significant than Jesus.

How many did Jesus have?

I mean, he had 12.

12 people that that our Lord, you know, the sovereign creator of the universe, while holding up the planets and all the universe, had 12 people.

And so if we have this sort of ecclesiology that tells us that the church can function under the ministry of one or a few individuals, I just want you to understand we have an unbiblical view.

Paul here says that their work is to equip, it is an important work, but they are to equip for a work that the saints are to do.

Look at in verses 12 to 15.

Paul gives us two works and two results.

The first work is that the saints are to be doing is the work of ministry, the building up of the body of Christ.

Now, this word ministry comes from the Greek word for service.

It includes every spirit-empowered way and work that we build others up with.

And what Paul wants us to see is this: that the work we do in serving one another actually builds up the church.

God actually uses it.

Loved one, do you know this?

This is so simple, but don't we need simple reminders sometimes?

That the way you serve the church, God actually uses that for eternal purposes.

We just forget it.

We just show up to kids' ministry and we do kids' ministry because we were scheduled that week.

We just show up to greeting and we shake hands because that's just kind of, you know, Joel kind of placed me in this ministry, and so here I am, you know, I don't, I won't smile and I'll just shake your hand as you go in.

Do you know that the chair that you set up this morning on setup crew, it is, it is being used by God.

God has chosen, we sometimes wonder why when we look in the mirror and see who we really are.

We we sometimes wonder why, but he has chosen to use broken instruments to for for a profound purpose, declaring his glory.

All of this matters.

In God's hand, God is taking ordinary people, doing ordinary things, and producing extraordinary results.

Now listen, if we truly believe this, that our you know, ordinary actions, you know, the prayers that we pray with people, the encouraging texts we send to people, the words of truth that we speak in love, if we really believe this, how how would this affect the way that we participate in small group?

You know, if Paul, if what Paul is saying is true, that our efforts actually have eternal influence, then it really should shape the way we participate in small groups together as a church.

Are you committed to your small group like someone who believes that their presence actually shapes the lives of other people in the room?

You show up believing that when you speak or an insight that you have received from the Lord or a prayer that you offer for other people can actually shape lives.

I fear to say that if we are honest, we would say no.

That many of us need to look in the mirror right now and with a spirit of repentance, need to admit that we have quietly slipped into this belief that small group and fellowship with other people is actually something that's meant to serve us rather than to be an arena in which we serve and therefore grow.

And so we can be honest in saying this that some of us have become far too casual with something that Christ takes seriously.

Some of us are far too willing to forsake meeting with the bride of Christ.

Listen, if you make a plan with my wife and then you keep canceling on her five minutes before, I'm gonna have words for you, okay?

I'm not speaking to anyone individually, but I love my bride.

And some of you are treating the church this way.

Like you say, yeah, listen, I love Christ, but you're just forsaking the bride.

Last minute cancellations, half-hearted attendance, showing up late or not at all.

These are not scheduling issues, these are at their they are heart issues.

And when we treat small group like it is optional, we rob others of the gift that Christ has given to us for them.

Do you understand how serious this is?

This is how growth works.

The people in your small group, hear this, please, hear this.

They need you.

They need you.

And it is so significant that we need to understand the weight of this.

You can't not coming.

I understand there are things that happen in life, but you not coming has a dip makes a difference.

We do the work of ministry, we build up the body.

Notice the result Paul gives us in verse 13.

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood.

Did you catch that?

Paul says this that we build up the body until we all become fully like Jesus Christ.

Did you notice that that he didn't just say until they become like Jesus Christ?

And he didn't just say until you become like Jesus Christ.

He said until we all become like Jesus Christ.

That is massive.

When you pour yourself out to build up the body of Christ, it doesn't just benefit other people, it benefits you.

Both these things are required.

Your service, it adds to the weight of the growth of the whole church.

We grow together with the people that are in our small group, with the people that are in this room, or we don't grow at all.

Why?

Because growth is a group project.

Now look at verse 15.

Paul is building on this here.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ.

I love the grammar here because Paul doesn't say who the speak who is the one speaking and who is the one receiving.

You know, is it me speaking?

Is it them speaking?

And I love it because the answer is it's both.

Loved one, you need to be a speaker of the truth, and you need to also be a hearer of the truth.

Now, let me suggest that in a world that is very consumeristic, we often are excellent hearers of the truth, but our hearts sort of stagnate in water, mosquito-infested, dirty, slimy water, because we have the input of hearing God's truth, but we don't have the output of speaking God's truth.

You need both.

How many times has the the deepest lesson of your life come when you've had to teach someone else about what you were learning?

Right?

You know, people come up to me and I praise God, you know, that at least they say this, even if they even if they don't believe it, but they say, Oh, Pastor, I was so blessed by that sermon.

And I always tell them, like, you only get 10% of the blessing.

You know, they say preaching, I shouldn't share this, but I've already started, so now I have to.

Because this is really morbid, but they say preaching is like having a baby and then deciding what limbs you need to cut off.

Because you guys are looking at me like, what the heck is this guy talking about?

Because you love, you know, everything you've studied and learned from the Lord, but you only have so many minutes to share these things that the Lord has taught you.

And so it is when we speak the truth in love.

God does a work in us that is so profound.

Our speaking and our being spoken to is the way the truth gets planted deep into our soul.

Loved one, God has designed the church to be what?

A pillar of truth.

He has designed fellowship to have to be a unique way for you to see the truth.

So that there are things in your own life that you just cannot see.

Have you ever thought about this?

Isn't it weird that with like crystal clarity, you can look into other people's lives and be like, okay, that's the problem?

Isn't that kind of odd?

Like when it comes to other people's lives, you're like the greatest counselor in the world, but then you look at your own heart and you're like, what is wrong with me?

It's because God has designed you to grow in the presence of other people.

You need other people to hold up the mirror of truth for you.

It can only be held by a friend, and we need the truth.

Don't we?

You know, we we sometimes need the truth that we see in a mirror.

I needed it last night, you know.

I had a hat on all day, I was in my jammy jams, and I went to the I don't call it that by the way.

That didn't just come out accidentally, but I went to the uh I went to the mirror and I looked in it, I was horrified by what I saw.

My hair, you know, was everywhere.

There were stains, you know, I was working, it was stains all over my shirt.

I was horrified.

I needed that moment of truth, so you know that I wouldn't look like a crazy homeless person this morning when I came to preach to you.

We need truth, and here Paul is saying that the truth is spoken in love.

That's how it's planted deep in our hearts.

Here is what we're seeing, loved one.

Community is profoundly powerful.

We know that to be true, anyways, though, don't we?

I mean, if you look around this world, you know that community is powerful, right?

You can look at a sports team, you can look at a gym with group classes, you can look at a recovery group, and you will see there that people, when they rally together around one another, when they push each other, they bond together.

But I want you to see here that Christian community is different.

Christian community doesn't just strengthen your willpower, it shapes your soul.

It doesn't just help you achieve your goals, it forms you into the eternal likeness of Jesus Christ, the perfect human being.

The community of the Church of Jesus Christ is not just built on shared interests.

It's not just us aligning ourselves to the same desire for change, as though this is sort of like a group therapy session.

It is us aligning ourselves on a shared Savior.

It is the very foundation of the church that the ones who are doing the work of ministry are the saints, the ones who are called out from darkness and have been given the righteousness of Jesus Christ and now walk in the light.

Maybe you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, and I want you to understand there are a thousand ways that you can change your life.

You can plug into thousands and thousands of different groups that honestly will truly improve your life.

They can help you get fit, they can help you be motivated, they can help you be supported, they can really help you change, but the church is different.

The church is the place that God designed to shape your soul and to grow you into something eternal.

Do you see that, loved one?

This is what Paul says.

We speak the truth.

We grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.

There are many ways to change your life.

There is only one way to grow up into the likeness of Jesus Christ, the perfect human being.

It's in the church.

It's in the church speaking the truth.

This gospel that we gather around.

That Jesus lived the life that we couldn't live, that he died the death we deserve to die, and that he rose again to offer us a place in this family that he is building.

And if you trust in him, your life will not just be changed.

You will be adopted and transformed to be his own son with this promise that he is bringing you to eternity.

There is no community like it.

Community is powerful, but the church is radically different.

Fourth thing I want you to see here is this that growth requires you.

Growth requires you.

If I could have put your name on this slide, I would have done that.

It requires you.

When Paul describes who does this work in verse 12, who is it?

You see it there?

You see those words on the page?

It is the saints, Paul says.

The work of ministry is the work of the saints.

In Ephesians 1, Paul addressed his entire letter to the Ephesians 1, 1, to the saints who are in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus.

Well, what is a saint?

You know, many of us think about saints.

We think about people who have, you know, this amazing spiritual resume, they've got their image in stained glass, and we think that's, you know, that's sainthood.

That's not what sainthood is.

The word saint means someone who is called out and set apart for God.

They're devoted to God.

Now, inherent in the word is two truths.

The first is that saints are people who have been called out from sin, from shame, from spiritual death.

They have been called out from that, and they have been given new righteousness in Christ, and therefore they have a new life in Jesus Christ.

And so, loved one, understand this.

That the in the very word saint is this understanding that you are a broken individual, that you have been called out from sin and shame and self-righteousness.

And so your feeling of like when you think about serving the church and being used for eternal purposes, this feeling of weakness, this feeling of unpreparedness, this feeling of an inadequacy, it doesn't disqualify you from the work.

That actually qualifies you from the work.

The necessity for the type of people that God wants to use is humility.

They must be a recipient of grace.

If you have no need for grace in your life, God does not want you.

It was the weak, the broken, the sick that Jesus was with.

The foundation was their need.

And so listen, you need to understand this.

The church cannot grow simply by a few strong individuals trying to carry it on their back.

It will not happen.

It must grow through the faithfulness of many who recognize that apart from Christ, they live in sin and shame, but with Jesus, they can be used for something eternal.

In other words, what we're saying here is that the foot of the cross, the ground is level.

We are all equal.

We are all radically inadequate for the work that Christ has called us to.

I feel it every Sunday morning.

Who am I to preach such weighty things?

Like, what is this message to accomplish anything?

And yet you give it to the Lord, and who is our Lord?

He is the one who takes a few loaves of bread and a few fish and he multiplies it to feed the masses.

Listen, you don't have enough.

Gather at the foot of the cross.

We are broken people helping broken people.

We are beggars, showing beggars where to get food.

That is the church.

Look then at what Paul says in verse 16.

He says, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Paul's illustration is powerful.

The growth Jesus wants us to have is a group project.

We are each a part of the body, and the growth of the whole depends on the health of the parts.

You ever had pain in like a specific part of your body?

Some people are like, that is me every day, right now, like my shoulder, my back, my knee.

It's everywhere.

It's every part is painful.

I mean, when you have just even one pulled muscle, you know, one stretched ligament, the whole body suffers.

There are injuries where you feel like you cannot do anything just because you know you've like broken one single tiny little toe.

Simple things become painful, and the body cannot function at full strength.

That's what it's like when even one person in the church is not serving with the gifts that God has given to them.

The whole cannot function.

Because I know who God is, I don't have to really even know you to say this: that if you are not taking what the Lord has given to you and using it, it is for the detriment of the whole.

What you have is essential to the church.

If you're withholding your presence, your gift, your commitment, your time, your voice, the whole body is being hindered.

We need everybody.

Many of you know this is an incredibly exciting time for me as a Leafs fan.

I will note it's not a very exciting time for Sense fans or Habs fans, but we don't need to say that kind of stuff, and so we'll just, you know, dwell over here.

We're in the second round, but but we know that something is essential to get to the Stanley Cup.

You need everybody.

The team that goes deep isn't just built on one superstar, it's built on commitment across all four lines.

One weak player, one missed assignment, one key goalie that gets injured, one rat who doesn't get suspended, getting a little off track here.

One person who misses their role, and the whole team pays for it.

And the same is true in the church.

And so we ask this question God is doing something eternally great in his church.

Are you in the game?

Are you sitting in the stands expecting that the Lord will work there?

Christ has called you.

And he has placed you in the body for a reason.

He has designed your growth to be a group project.

The church needs you.

And loved one, you you need it too.

Your presence, your words, your time, your faithfulness, it all matters.

It all matters to your growth, it all matters to the growth that is of the person that is sitting beside you, in front of you, behind you.

It all matters.

What a profoundly freeing message we have in the gospel.

That you don't have to be the strongest, you don't have to feel prepared, you don't have to have it all together.

If you just show up with the things that Christ has given you, you can be like a toddler who did not have the money to buy the gifts, but carries it into the house, and God will use it.

Because the body builds itself up in love when each part is working properly.

Loved one, what's your part?

Where is God calling you this morning to just show up?

What have you been holding back from Jesus?

Something that has not only been hindering the church, but has been hindering you.

It's a group project.

And there is a destination until we all, Paul says, attain to the fullness of Christ.

Let's pray together.

Father, we bow in your presence.

And we thank you, Lord, for the church.

God, we thank you for all the ways that we see this church experiencing the miracle of what the church is meant to be.

A place where we come in our inadequacy, in our insufficiency, in our weakness, and what we offer up in humility is used for eternal purposes that are way beyond our own strength.

And God, as we think about that truth, it should excite in us and ignite in us a fire for your people, a desire to be used by you, a desire to turn to you, Lord, and say, Here I am.

God, use me, send me, use me for your purposes.

I know I don't have what it takes, but I'm called to an impossible work that you have promised you will do through me.

God, I pray that would be our desire, even as we respond to you now in song, to declare, Lord, use me.

God, we pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?