Growing in Christ (Ephesians 4:7-16)

Ephesians 4, starting in verse 7.

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

For it says, when he ascended on a high, he took captives captive.

He gave gifts to people.

But what did he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth?

The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all things, to fill all things.

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves, blown about by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

But speaking of the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head, Christ.

From Him, the whole body fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for working or building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning.

I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your faithfulness in all things.

I thank you, Jesus, that you are the head of the body, the head of the church.

And I ask, Lord, that we would continue to grow into you.

That as we study your word, you would fill us with your spirit, that you would fill me with your spirit to rightly teach, that you would fill the hearers with your spirit to discern and divide and to grow, that we would grow closer to you as a result.

Please just be working mightily through this time.

I thank you so much for this church body.

I thank you for these men and women.

What an amazing gift they are.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

Paul is continuing to work through his letter to the Ephesians.

And as we have talked about, as we've gone through this, Ephesus is an interesting place because it is a very wealthy place, it is a very big city place.

It is idol city, capital of all idol worship in that area.

And so Paul is continuing to encourage believers.

He's speaking to followers of Jesus, and he is both encouraging them and exhorting them and stirring them up to grow.

At the same time, both that encouragement and that exhortation to grow.

And so we have spent the first three chapters going through all these amazing things of the riches of the blessings we have in Jesus.

How when we have become a part of his family through confession and belief in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross for us, and we have received that gift, then being a part of God's family, we are the most blessed, rich, loaded people in the whole world.

And so then he turns his hinge in chapter 4 and starts to focus a little more on what does that mean?

How do we, what do we do as a result?

How do we grow as a result now that we are part of that?

Because as we said a few weeks ago, God did not save us and then just put us in holy tupperware until he comes back to pick up the leftovers.

He desires for us to grow, to continue to grow in him by his power through his spirit.

Spoiler alert.

So with that in mind, we see in the first part of chapter four, there is a lot of talking about living worthy in the calling you've received, as part of one body.

This unity in the spirit, one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

So there's this being unified and united in that body.

We saw elsewhere in Ephesians that Christ is the head of that metaphorical body.

And he's saying, This is all one body.

So act like it.

And this is part of what we see here as he rolls into verse 7.

Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

For it says, when he ascended on high, he took captives captive, and he gave gifts to the people.

But what does he ascended mean, except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?

The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things.

Okay, perfectly clear, right?

Nothing weird going on there, we can just move forward.

This is a really good opportunity to look at these passages and go, what?

What is Paul trying to tell us?

What is Paul trying to tell the Ephesian believers at that time?

So I would like to think that when Paul sends these letters, there is, uh and they're reading these letters aloud, there's a big part of the group that's like, what does that even mean?

What are you talking about?

And they have to work through that.

And when he's talking, here's the important things in this passage, because we could go a bunch of different directions and spend our entire time today talking about a few different rabbit trails and never get to the me of what we're talking about.

So there's lots of different ways to go.

But ultimately, three things to pull out of these first verses, seven through ten.

Just three things.

Number one, Christ is a giver of gifts.

We see that in seven.

Grace was given to us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And so we will see also in verse 11 that he gave.

So Jesus is a giver of gifts.

Right?

Okay.

Who did he give those gifts to?

The church.

To the body, to us, to the Ephesians, to the church.

So he is a giver of gifts.

He gave those to us.

And then if we can boil down here this paraphrase of Psalm 68, 18, where it's talking about he ascended on high, he took captives captive, he gave gifts to people.

What does that mean?

Except he descended to the lower parts of the earth, and some people think that means to the lower parts, which means the earth.

And some people think it's like, Noah was this speaking to the preaching of the spirits in prison that we see in 2 Peter, and what does all of that mean?

What this means, I would like to think, in verse 10, the one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all in the heavens to fill all things.

So, point number three, Jesus on earth is the same Jesus in heaven.

Which we go, yeah, duh.

That's how that works.

We know that because uh we have the Sunday school answer, Jesus, and we go through those things.

But to the Ephesians, those are important things to specify in a place that is so full of different beliefs and idolatry that it's like, no, there's not two Jesuses.

There is not the ethereal Jesus and the bodily Jesus.

And that sounds like it duh, except like people fought over that for a few hundred years after Jesus' ascension.

So, with that in mind, there is one Jesus, is what Paul is saying here.

So, we can summarize seven through ten in three points.

Christ is a giver of gifts, he gives those gifts to the church.

It's the same Jesus who was on earth, who is in heaven.

There's only one of them.

Clear?

Cool.

And that is a good example of how we can parse through this text and not get caught up in different other things.

Those are good things, those are things to discover, but they're not if we start losing the point of what he's actually trying to tell us.

Because I don't think that Paul is actually in this moment trying to make a distinction between whether Jesus was preaching on earth or preaching to spirits in the underworld or all those different things.

I don't think that's on Paul's mind.

I think he rambles.

I can relate to that.

And uh that is the thing here, ultimately, to remember is what's he trying to say?

Jesus gives gifts, he gives them to us, and it's the same Jesus.

Cool?

Awesome.

So then we hit, and you guys are like, oh my gosh, we're already through that many verses, we're gonna get done early.

He rambles! Okay, so verse 10.

Verse 11.

He himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

We'll pause there.

He himself being Jesus.

So Jesus gave these gifts into what we see as basically these office gifts, these roles within the church, the body of Christ.

Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

We have these four.

And you go, no, five.

And I say, no, four.

We'll talk about that in a second.

So, apostles and prophets.

We saw in the book of Ephesians a few times already.

Paul spoke of them as foundational to that church.

We see that in Ephesians 2.20, when we see that in Ephesians 3.5.

And then Peter likes to chime in as well in 3.2 to reiterate that.

So the apostles and the prophets were largely foundational for the authoritative dissemination and solidification of the Word of God that we know to be the Scriptures.

So here's an important thing to remember.

Are these gifts for today?

Yeah.

Are they the same that we read here?

No.

And that's the thing, is that there are apostolic gifts that continue today.

But there are no more apostles.

How do I know that?

Because here's one of the marks that we see of when they're looking for apostles to replace Judas.

I wouldn't talk about Judas.

In Acts 1, 21 through 22, Peter's saying, Therefore, from among the men who have accompanied us during the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us.

From among these, it is necessary one become a witness with us of his resurrection.

So for the apostles, we see in Acts, we see these are people who are witnesses of Jesus, who were taught by Jesus and witnesses of his resurrection.

And there's a very specific authoritative aspect to where you and I don't write letters that become part of the Bible.

If you think you do, we should talk afterwards.

That's just not what we do.

However, that does not mean that apostolic giftings and prophetic giftings have stopped.

In our interpretation, in our interpretation of Scripture and Abide, we see these gifts as continuing, just in different ways.

Apostles, we see them, these are sent-out ones.

So these are people who go out.

They can go out, we sometimes you see those as church planners or as missionaries.

A lot of times you see people who go in, set things in order, and go somewhere else.

Apostles don't tend to be stayers, if that helps you.

And then prophets, not just foretallowing, foretelling, foretellowing, foretelling, but foretell uh forth telling, speaking the word of the Lord in that way.

Not in an authoritative sense, but we can see those with gifts that we see in 1 Corinthians, like words of pleasure than words of knowledge, things with that that always require testing rather than just accepting wholesale.

So with that in mind, we see these gifts continue forward.

One of your homework assignments is just to look through the book of Acts at how apostles and prophets are mentioned.

And we go, like, okay, is that the gifting that we're seeing?

Is that the role that we're seeing?

So, with that in mind, foundational.

Think of the roof, the walls, the foundation.

Foundation here we see as the apostles and prophets, and that's how we get our scriptures.

Evangelists.

Here's a funny one.

We happen to grow up in an era of history where, like, either some of us were first generation or second generation, if you're a part of the whole Calvary chapel tribe, you got to see renewal happen in a very unusual way through the Jesus movement, things like that.

And so, if you're a part of that, evangelists are very prominent and good, and they should be.

Evangelists are mentioned a total of three times in the Bible.

Uh there is Philip the evangelist.

It's on his business card.

There is this passage right here, and then there is Paul exhorting Timothy to do the work of an evangelist.

So, having that said, uh, what is an evangelist?

Someone who declares the good news, someone who proclaims the gospel.

There are people who are gifted in evangelism, looking at you, Justin, and then there are people who do the work of that as well.

So, with that in mind, we are all commissioned to share the gospel.

There are some people who are gifted to do that.

I would submit to you that in a normal context, if you take all the variables and outliers out, if Greg Lorry preaches the gospel and I preach the gospel, you're going to get very different results on a regular basis.

And that's just how it'd be.

And that's okay.

So with that in mind, apostles, they preach the gospel, they proclaim the word of God.

And then you have pastor teachers.

Here's what David Gusick says about this.

The ancient Greek clearly describes one office with two descriptive titles.

So the way that the language works out, it's apostles, it's prophets, it's evangelists, and it's pastor teachers.

Which makes sense because teaching is a necessary uh qualification for eldering.

Eldering is synonymous with pastoring.

So here's something to chew on with this, because we we could we could take this whole thing and pull it apart.

I'm gonna put up a slide here that doesn't look like our normal slides.

So, here, I'm gonna read the quote in a moment, but this is a QR code.

Those of you who are like, yeah duh, this is for you.

If you want a copy of our elder handbook to be emailed to you, just pull out your phone.

You can do it right now, and I won't feel awkward with that.

You can scan the code and it will ask you your name and your email address, and it will, and with that in mind, it just goes to me.

There's nothing fancy.

And then we also have that sign up in the back as well.

So if you're going like, how do elders work, how do pastors work, how does all that happen at a bide, that will be your best method of seeing the whole document of what that looks like.

There's also a sign up in the back.

Um, the elders here, we love being quizzed.

So, by all means, please read it and ask us questions about it.

So, with that in mind, this is also really important to say, this is how we do things that abide.

I have no authority or need to determine what the church down the street does and how they're how they set things up.

That's I'm not there, I'm here.

So, with that in mind, this is just how we in our church family do things.

So, but with that in mind, as that is happening, a quote to read scripturally, the terms elder, overseer, and pastor describe one role.

There is no scriptural distinction between elders and overseers and between elders and pastors.

In the Bible, the term elder, presbyteras, pastor, poimen, and bishop, episcopas are used interchangeably to refer to the same person or group of people.

So we're focusing in on this a little bit for the idea of pastor teachers as like, who are these people in your church?

It's your elders.

Pastors, elders, elders, pastors.

Synonymous at a bide with that.

Now, here's an important thing to say, because you're like, pastor teachers, I feel like I'm gifted in teaching, but I'm not an elder.

I don't feel called to that.

So here's how here's the uh your SAT question setup here.

Not all teachers are pastors.

However, all pastors are necessarily gifted in teaching in order to be qualified.

So that's how that works, and we'll see why in a second.

So, having that said, if you're gifted in teaching, that's awesome, and that's probably true, and that's that's not weird.

However, if you are called to be a pastor, slash elder, slash overseer, um ability to teach is one of the qualifications.

So, there we go.

And why is that?

Why is that a thing?

Well, let's keep reading.

Because he gave these things.

Verse 12 equipping the saints to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

So, I have a slide I'm gonna have up here pretty much for the rest of the time where we're gonna add to it magically because Hannah does magic things.

And this concept of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, to equip, to render fit, to bring to maturity the saints, saved ones, holy ones, to build up the body of Christ, to edify, to construct upward into soundness the body of Christ.

So God didn't give, Jesus didn't give these gifts for the purpose of going, so I'm just going to separate people, and here's some special people over here, and here's some special people over here, and they're all different, and you can say why you're special, and you can say why you're special, and you don't get invited to your birthday party, and you don't get invited to brunch, and there we go.

It's for a purpose.

It's for a reason, and that reason for shepherds is to equip the saints to build up the body of Christ.

A good way that I like to see this is the idea of a coach.

The purpose of a coach is to unify and invest in for growth.

Now, you can say, well, I've got some pretty bad coaches out there.

Yeah, okay, I get it, that's true.

Uh let me differentiate two different things.

And this is, we're painting with broad strokes here.

This is, you know, some of the best rec league coaches are like amazing, so I'm not denigrating that.

When I see rec league sports, a lot of the goal of that is to make sure everyone gets playing time, they're encouraged, and no one dies.

For the most part.

You can see the people that you can start to invest in in a little bit in that way, but as a whole, it's just to make sure that uh people are moving in the same direction and not shooting on their own basket, if it was basketball or soccer, and also that they are safe and having fun.

And that's good.

You get into more competitive spheres, and a coach's job is to get everybody working together for a common goal and also to get the best out of you because they invest in you, not only because they want to win, but mainly because they want to invest in you and develop you in that way.

So I'm gonna come back to that in a second, but hold on to that idea of a coach, in the idea of both unifying and equipping.

Continuing forward, verse 13.

Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

So that's the second part, the goal here.

And then in verse 14, then we will no longer be little children.

So the goal here is that the shepherds are equipping the saints for the work of ministry, that they're building up the body of Christ for what purpose?

Unity.

We saw that a whole lot in the beginning of this chapter.

Unity.

But that's not the end of the sentence.

Unity in what?

Unity in the faith.

Unity in the knowledge of God's Son.

You can get you can get people united on really dumb things.

That is what social media is for.

Okay, so you can bring about a consensus without it being building in a healthy direction or in a good direction.

So think about a construction foreman in that way.

It's not that he gets there and he gets a team together of builders and he goes, okay, we're building a house, here's the picture, go.

You have to do quality checks.

You have to make sure they're actually using their measuring tools and making sure it's square, making sure everyone's imagine if half of the team is using English and half of the team is using metric.

That would be funny.

That's it requires QA, quality assurance.

It requires checking square.

So Unity that's not focused on.

Cultivated by truth is not health.

And that's why you need, uh that's why God builds up people to help kind of provide that direction in that way.

Otherwise, what looks like unity results in ruin.

If you build a house that is not unified in its common definitions, it's going to collapse the second that anything happens.

Like you open a door and then so with that in mind, looking at number two, growing into maturity, that's the goal.

To see things cultivated and grow into maturity.

Our goal is to see health.

Stir it up.

With a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

Who gets to be the measuring stick?

Jesus! Everyone's opportunity right there.

Jesus gets to be the measuring stick of what that looks like.

You see that, like, you know, we put our kids up against the wall with the ruler and all those different things, and you'd be like, hey, you're growing, but you're not quite as tall as Jesus.

We don't actually say that, that would be really messed up.

Not gonna! Now that's a new thing.

Um, so but here's the cool thing.

This side of eternity, will we ever reach Christ's fullness?

No.

No.

And again, if we think we will, that's a little scary.

However, that doesn't mean we don't grow.

That doesn't mean we don't grow in that direction.

Because it bears fruit, it brings about maturity.

So, a stature measured by Christ's fullness, then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown about by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

So, again, a goal here in that idea of unity in faith and knowledge of God's Son, growth into maturity as measured by Jesus, and no longer being little children, tossed, and by the waves, blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

So the goal here is to mature.

I would argue that the goal here is to, and I'll talk about this in a second, to mature in the means of via the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, being able to identify for yourself what is human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

Here's what I mean by that.

This is gonna sound like whiny, and I don't mean it that way at all.

You guys are the best church in the world.

It's if you get 60 people in a room, you're gonna get 65 opinions of how preaching should happen.

Two of those will come from me, but getting on how I started and how I ended, honestly, because I'm like, damn it, I should have told that.

So, with that in mind, there's lots of different ideas of what that looks like, and a lot of that comes in past history, past experience, expectation, defaults.

And so we as elders we take seriously.

What how do we faithfully equip the flock that we are called to shepherd to unity, to maturity in growth?

So here's a couple of points just uh that hopefully helps frame out again what we do at abide.

I have no idea what happens at a church across town.

I haven't been there, because well, hi, I'm here.

So, but with that in mind, this is just how we can do things at abide.

Number one, we want to equip everyone to understand scripture and its application for themselves.

That's part of the maturity that surrounds what we see here.

In other words, we shepherd our flock.

That's the goal.

Uh, number two, it is impossible in the internet age to keep up with every wind of doctrine and false teacher and then pass it along to the church.

Because that would be our full-time job, and would actually prevent us from doing what we feel the Lord's calling us to in growing to maturity.

So we're not shepherding the outside world.

Rather, number three, it is better that each person has an understanding of Scripture and then walks by the Spirit, as opposed to us holding their hand, so to speak.

And this is how we equip and edify.

So, what we want to do as shepherds, as coaches, is to point to the word of God, to point to the Holy Spirit, to equip so that you guys can discern and read and interpret the Word of God in a healthy way, can walk by the Spirit, so that you are not blown about by every wind of doctrine.

We do this for ourselves too.

We have the goal is for us to be able to do the same.

Having that said, important point number four, we are available to chat.

If you're not sure about something.

Something that comes up that seems a little funny to you, whether a teaching, a teacher, a book, a podcast, we're totally open to talking about that.

The goal of this is not to say, hey, don't bug me.

The goal of this is to say our heart's desire is for all of us as the body of Christ to be able to grow and mature and unify in a way that we can identify what is healthy using the Word of God and the Holy Spirit as our tools.

That makes sense?

Yes.

Awesome.

And that will result in us not being blown around by the waves and every wind of teaching.

Okay.

Continuing forward, so then we see here, then we will no longer be little children.

Sorry, verse 15.

Speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head of Christ.

So, I have up here the task of the church that includes the shepherds.

That's not one group and two groups, that's all of us together.

Speaking the truth in love.

That involves holding each other to encourage and stir up and equip in pointing back to the Word of God, in pointing back to the Spirit through that way, so that that happens and we grow together.

It is not solely the shepherd's job to facilitate growth.

We all do that and participate in that.

Isn't that cool?

I heard it said, and it's something that's interesting, but that uh so this is another piece of homework that the qualifications for elders that we see in 1 Timothy and Titus, we also see in the epistles for the whole church, worded in different ways.

So just know that it's not like special guys and the rest.

We're a part of this together.

So, speaking the truth in love.

You cannot have one without the other and have healthy growth.

I've said this before, I've used this metaphor for sheep, but the two extremes are number one, if you have truth with no love, you have sheep that are lean and mean.

Basically, that they are looking for every possible threat that's out there and are willing to punch it in the face and then ask afterwards.

Because there's a they're they weren't shepherded in love.

And then on the other side, you have what I would call overfed and underled.

Where you have them, they are so encouraged, so affirmed, and so comfortable that they don't move.

And they don't grow vertically only.

So, with that in mind, truth and love must come together.

And that's what we see in a healthy body, but that's also what we see a good coach do.

A good coach can affirm what you're doing well, but if he doesn't call out what you're doing poorly, he doesn't care.

The opposite of love is not hate.

The opposite of love is indifference.

Think about that.

And so, with that in mind, if if your coaches never give you constructive feedback, that should be concerning a little bit.

Now, if they only give you feedback and it ain't so constructive, that should be really concerning as well.

So, with that in mind, it's it's a balance.

It's a balance to be had in that.

Uh the most formative, not like you guys care, but the most formative part, I think, of um sports for me as a kid was playing a little bit more competitive baseball where I grew up.

Um, I tended to have one of the higher batting averages in the league.

I could always get on base, uh, that's because I was swung and everything, but that's not the point.

But with that in mind, you you know how preteen kids can be, and they can be bantering back and forth.

And I was bantering, like someone like made a comment, and I was basically like, well, okay, that's a that's great, but I actually get on base and you don't.

And the coach overheard it and was like, Yes, but you have a blind spot.

I'm like, what do you mean I have a blind spot?

I'm like, I have the I have the highest batting average on our team, one of the highest in the league.

And he's like, get up there.

I have a kid, right?

He's a full-grown adult.

And basically, start starts hurling the ball at me and pinpointing this spot, was basically like right here in your swing, the way you do it, you cannot reach this pitch.

And I'm sitting there as a kid just being like, I'm sorry.

And that helped me grow.

Because then what do you think I worked on at that point in time?

Because as a kid, I'm like, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna find out that's fun, I'm gonna be able to do that next time.

There was never a next time.

But having that said, then do you know what happened?

I have a distinct memory of actually getting a pitch roughly around that spot and actually not getting smoked by it.

And the see, you did it.

Look what you can do, look at the work you did, good job, was such an immense blessing.

So, having that said, truth and love, they need to come together and work together.

If we only have encouragement and edification, we're probably just facilitating.

But if we, I mean if we only, yeah, exactly, but if we only have criticism, then it's just you just don't want to show up, if that makes sense.

It's discouraging, it doesn't promote growth.

So we are all continually pointing towards growth in that way.

And your pastors and elders are growing too.

So please be patient.

So, with that in mind, where are we growing?

Into him who is the head, Christ.

Because we could grow really well in one direction, we could grow really well in this direction, but if we're not growing into the head, we're not growing in health.

Not to bring a bad topic or trigger anybody with this, but do you know what a group of cells that is unified in growing the wrong way is called?

Thank you.

Yes, exactly.

So that is why it's necessary to be united in whatever the shepherds say.

No! No.

Into Christ Jesus, through his word via his spirit.

The amount of pause that that happened freaks me out.

Okay.

So what happens next?

Verse 16.

We have the two most important words in this passage, in my opinion.

From him.

From him.

From whom?

From Jesus.

This happens from Jesus.

The head gets to pick how it works.

Yeah.

However, the head decides and thinks is going to grow, the body follows in that way.

But he also supplies the ability to do so.

God forbid, if you lose a finger, you're not gonna die.

If you lose your head, a hundred percent of the time, you go and die.

So, with that in mind, from him, the whole body, the whole body fitted, knit together by every supporting ligament.

Does what?

Promotes the growth of the body.

For what purpose?

Building itself up in love.

By what?

The proper working of each individual part.

Here's the cool thing.

We talked about the role of these gifts, these role gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor teachers.

And we talked about what do they do?

They equip, they build up, encourage growth.

What is the body doing here through Jesus?

Knitting together, promoting growth, building itself up.

We all get to do that.

Isn't that cool?

We are all a part of that amazing work.

How do we do that?

How do we do that?

From Him, through Jesus.

Jesus! They're doing it back there.

We can do it here too.

So this is the key in all of this.

A healthy person grows.

The goal is to grow.

Not because we are afraid we will lose.

Basically, we're not sitting there going, if I don't grow, the head's gonna run off and I'm going to lose him.

No.

Jesus is a far better shepherd than any of us could possibly ever be.

He does not lose his sheep.

But because we love him, we grow.

I love that quote from last week.

I encourage you to check it out.

We grow because we love him.

So as a result, he's calling the Ephesian church, but calling us to grow as a byproduct of our relationship with Jesus, as a byproduct of our being filled by the Holy Spirit.

He does appoint coaches to help with that.

And a good coach will both encourage and challenge you.

And that's exactly what Paul is doing in this book.

In appropriate measure.

In space, appropriate measure.

Not too far on the left side, too far on the truth side, but continuing to strive to speak the truth in love with one another with that.

For the purpose of unifying and also for the purpose of edifying.

But Christ is the means and the goal.

He's both what we are striving toward, and he is the way that we do that.

If we strive toward Christ apart from him and apart from the Holy Spirit, number one, that's bad.

Number two, it won't work.

Number three, it's probably legalism.

It is only through the stirring up of the Holy Spirit and the encouragement of Christ in the exhortation, because he ultimately is the best coach we could have.

I don't like parts of Hebrews 12.

Because Hebrews 12 talks about how God loves the he chastens the one he loves.

Basically, he's like, look, what parent doesn't punish their child or discipline them for the purpose of their well-being and growth?

And he's like, God disciplines us because he loves us.

And I'm like, don't want it! I'd rather be comfortable.

But it's good for us.

And so we see that as a result, that God is good at doing that.

And just if you hear nothing else in this whole passage of how does a how does a church grow?

How does a body grow?

A body grows when each of its members grow healthy, right?

All together in that.

But the way that that happens is that the whole body is able to follow the word of God and able to follow the Holy Spirit in order to all row in the same direction, so to speak.

And so if you hear nothing else in this whole passage, it is all from Him, from Jesus.

The body is held together by His Spirit.

So may we continue to stir one another up in truth and in love, married together.

May we continue to desire to grow, not to earn anything, but as a proper response for the love for God and for the love for one another.

And may we continue to keep our eyes on him, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

Because that's the part of Hebrews 12 I like.

Okay, let's pray.

Jesus, I thank you so much for how good you are.

I thank you for your faithfulness in all things.

I thank you for your goodness in all things.

And Lord, we joyfully proclaim that we have no capacity to grow apart from you and apart from your spirit.

That our righteousness, our works, our efforts, when not fueled by your spirit, are like filthy rags in your sight.

And yet, when motivated by you, when fueled by your spirit, when unified as a body, as we grow, it is a beautiful thing, whether it's a millimeter or a mile.

And I just ask, Lord, that we would continue to, if nothing else, keep our eyes on you, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Lord, I ask, I pray on behalf of all of us who are shepherds at this church, Lord, grow us, shape us, mature us, conform us more and more to your image as we pray at every elder meeting.

I ask, Lord, that we would continue to shepherd in a way that loves the sheep, that learns from them, that grows in that way, that you would continue to grow us as well.

That we would be a body that is knit together with all the body parts working and functioning well together, unified, to glorify you and to edify one another.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.