Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to roots of faith, where we continue our journey through Paul's powerful letter to the church of Ephesus. In today's episode, we dive into Ephesians 413 17, exploring what it means to grow into the fullness of Christ. Like Paul's call to the early believers, we too are urged to mature in our faith and daily walk, no longer spiritual infants, but grounded in truth. Together, let's uncover the hallmarks of a mature Christian and learn how to live out our faith with conviction, wisdom and steadfastness in God's word.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: This morning we're going to again turn back to Ephesians chapter four as we continue to move through this passage, and we're looking at verses 14 to 16 this morning. But I want to go back and just review with you the verses that we just came and tie them together with what we look at today. Now, beginning at verse seven of Ephesians chapter four, it says, but to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why, it says, when he ascended on high, he took many captives and he gave gifts to his people. What does he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended high than all of the heavens in order to fulfill or to fill the whole universe. So Christ himself gave apostles and prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, or the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for the works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the oneness or unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming, instead speaking the truth in love. Or you can translate that. Maintaining the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect, the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. I want to keep our focus as we go through this passage on the fact that it has an individual application. It has the individual application of how God works in your life, what God has given you to do. You are gifted people. But there is also the fact that this is for the building up of the body corporate. So there are those times and seasons with each one of us where maybe we need some building up, maybe we need strengthening. And it's also where you have the fact that as newborn, he calls us, we're no longer infants, that we come to maturity then. So there is a growth cycle that goes within the church, and sometimes that's difficult. As every parent knows, when you come to adolescence, one psychologist said it was the time of thankless parenting with your children. What is it, adolescent? What does it mean to go from infant to you and then to maturity? Well, one child psychologist said that an adolescent knows he now has more freedom of choice than it's good for. But he still relies on his parent to help make decisions for his protection. And he called that period of family life the age of thankless parent. I wonder if the Lord deals with us and realizes that we come to a place of thankless parent. As we grow in the Lord. The path to maturity in our spiritual life is called adulting. Now, that term adulting, actually didn't come into mainstream English until about 2015 because of one writer that included it in his articles, his popular articles, and Time magazine and so forth. But adulting refers to growing up. I think I was first introduced to it by my now 24, 25 year old grandson, who said, it's hard adulting. And I looked at him and like, what do you mean? Then I saw him buy a house.
It's tough, adulting. So the term commonly is used to refer to the context of all the tech, the tasks that we have to accomplish and the activities we have to go through in order to carry out our position in society and for the church. Adulting in our spiritual lives means following those tasks and activities whereby we are knit into the body of Christ. And adulting is hard. You remember what you had to learn. The same thing is true of our christian life. We have to learn how to be mature in Christ as we grow together in him. It's actually not an option. How ridiculous it would be to think of a 25 year old who, by his own volition decides that he's going to sit there and just live in mom and dad's basement and, you know, when's dinner? Feed me now. We think that's kind of cute when you're dating. I'm going to feed my girlfriend. But what is it when we need to be fed and to grow in the Lord? Are we living in the basement of our parents house and not growing and maturing? So Ephesians 413, which is that transition verse from last week, looking at the gifts that are given to the leadership of the church comes and says, okay, what is it? That is maturity? And 413 says that adulting of a Christian in the body of Christ is until we all reached the oneness or the unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Let me break that down real quick for you, because what I want you to see is when it says that, what it is actually referring to is we have to grow as a body of believers to come to a place of, well, it says the unity of faith, but that oneness means that we come and understand the gift of salvation and understand what that means in daily life. You did not raise your hand in Sunday school. You did not walk forward in a service. You did not kneel beside your bed one time and say, lord, I accept you. Yes, you did. But that's just the beginning. And what we're to do is to come to an understanding of how that faith unites us in Christ Jesus. It is a unity. I am believing in a living God who sent his son to die according to the scriptures and was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, who redeemed us, and who is now gone above with the promise that he will return. And when he returns to, first of all, call the church out. He is saying, okay, I'm going to come, and I'm going to take you out, and you shall see me, and you shall be like me, for you shall see me as I am. In the garden of Eden, in the first chapters of the book of Genesis, it says that God created us in his image. What happened? Well, mankind in Adam rebelled against God. God, you just didn't give me the exact perfect garden. You kept that one tree back for me, and it looked so good. It wasn't the fact of the fruit that was on that tree, although that's true, but more so it was mankind saying, God, I know better. You're holding something back. And that is the exact rebellion that lives in every heart and life, even today, because it says in scripture that we are sinners because of our nature. And Christ came as the perfect Adam, not born through a mother and father, whereby the sin nature is passed down, but was born of a virgin. And at virgin birth he became flesh. He came as the living embodiment of what the image of God is and how much we failed. So if we begin with a working definition for adulting christians, it's the believer who has come to depend by faith on the truth that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried. He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve. And after that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time. That's in one corinthians 15, verses three to six. We've looked at that a number of times over the last couple of weeks. But that's the definition of where you begin adulting. And you begin to learn to do the tasks and activities that are necessary to carry out then in order that you are to live and function within that body of Christ. That Christ gave gifts of leadership. He gave gifted leaders, but he also gave gifts to you and to me. And it says so that we could do the works of service that he prepared beforehand for us to do. So we have a purpose. So adulting has to begin right where Nicodemus was in John three three, where scripture says Jesus told him, you must be born again. Nicodemus was so confused by that statement, how am I supposed to go back to my mother? I'm not talking about there is a birth, that is a physical birth, but then there is a spiritual birth. And that spiritual birth comes through faith. But our verse in verse 13, which talks about the adult, until we reach, until we attain, until we come to the place of oneness in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, which was, again, the word is epigonosco in Greek. And it means a full knowledge, an experiential knowledge. In other words, I come to know and just verses before he said that we are to know the power of Christ. What power? Think back. Scripture gives us the testimony of what Jesus did in his earthly ministry. All of those times that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, that he would heal the daughter who had died, that miracles that Jesus did in casting out the demon, those were all demonstration of the power of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus rose again and ascended on high, he gave gifts so that we might know the living power of Jesus Christ in our lives. No, I'm not suggesting that you go out and raise the dead. But what I am saying is that there is the demonstration of God's power that goes beyond physical healing. It's to the healing of the heart and our sinful rebellion, so that we become a new creation in Christ Jesus. I want you to also bear in mind that when we talk about receiving by faith Jesus Christ into our lives, it's not just mere mental ascent. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, there's enough historical evidence. Yes, I agree. You see, what it does? It goes beyond all of that, and it goes to the very fact that Christ died for your sins and mine. And his shed blood on the cross cleanses us from all unrighteousness. And I am regarded in God's eyes, God the father's eyes, as standing upright, righteous, in and through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I can't say that enough, because that is at the very foundation of what we believe in Christ. So what we do in Romans ten nine, it says, if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Notice there's two parts. There is my verbal assent. That to me, that's I'm recognizing and I'm verbalizing. I'm saying, yes, Lord, I understand. I know that I'm a sinner. Sin has separated me. Please understand very carefully. When we talk about sin, we're not talking about the big huge ones. We're talking about any activity or act or thought in our own minds that does not glorify God. We fall short in our lives of glorifying God. Maybe I fall short with the gas pedal. Maybe I fall short with the things that catch my attention. And so each one of us is to be in a relationship with a holy goddess. And I've said this a number of times over the last couple weeks, and I still have to go back to it. When God came down on the mount and met with Moses and Aaron, nobody was allowed, not even the animals were allowed to go near the mount, because God is that holy, so separate from us. Yet Jesus Christ came, was born of a virgin, and what it says in scripture, and he tabernacled among us, he dwelt among us. That is the holy God that we serve. And what he has done is he has shed the blood of his son as the perfect sacrifice, so that my sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west, as David said. And now I'm owned by Christ. And what I'm to do is I am to grow in Christ. That's exactly what verse 13 said. When we talk about what an adult is, it's we grow in the knowledge, the experiential knowledge of the Son of God. And the Niv says, and we become more mature. I love going back to the literal statement that's in scripture. It says, made into the perfect man. Now disabuse yourself. The way we use perfect, the term that's used there means complete. So as I am maturing. I am to become complete in Christ. I am to become a man or a woman who is reflecting Jesus Christ growing in the image of God that we were created, created to be. And it says they're attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. I think it's King James that says growing into the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ. It's actually, how tall are you if I got out my spiritual tape measure, how tall am I compared to the living God who has claim on me when we believe? And I'm going to go back and I just want you to understand, and I think it's a great succinct statement. And I will tell you, I freely borrowed this from Dallas Seminary's doctrinal statement because I thought it was so well worded. It says in there that through sin, and as a consequence of that sin, all humanity lost their spiritual life, becoming dead in our own notice that in our own trespasses and sin and have become subject to the power of the devil. Apart from Christ, I have no protection. I live as a worldly person, and I am subject to what Satan desires to reinforce his rebellion where he says, I will be like the most high. We also believe that this spiritual death or total depravity of human nature has been transmitted to the entire human race, the man Christ Jesus alone being accepted, and that as a result, every child of Adam is born into the world with a nature that not only possesses, possesses no spark of divine life, but also is essentially an unchangeably bad apart from divine grace. You want to own up to that? Do you want to understand that that's where you and I are? Think about your own heart. Jeremiah, chapter 17, verses nine and ten, says, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Now listen to this. When Jeremiah was speaking those words, the next verse, he says, because he was speaking as a prophet of the Lord, he says, I, the Lord. This is what the Lord had told him to say. I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind. You know, tv and movies have jumped on this idea of what if a man could understand what a woman's thinking, it sure would help when birthdays come around an anniversary or vice versa. But it's such an intrusion that we kind of just go, eugh, ick, I don't want to know that. But you see, the Lord God, who is totally separate from us, who has set the bar to be in the image of God, searches our heart and our thinking. What about the way. Oh, what about the way you think about that driver in front of? Good thing they can't understand what you're thinking. But you see, it's the practical sense of what we understand. He says, I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve. If the Lord ever knew and does know my mind and my heart, I don't deserve anything. But God's provision was his only begotten son. And going back to what we looked at many weeks ago in Ephesians, chapter two, verses four and five, it says, but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression. It is by grace you have been saved. How did he give gifts? It says that God, by his grace, gave gifts. By grace he gave equipped, provisioned, gifted leadership for the church. That's because God loved us, and it's by grace you've been saved. And then in verses, in verse eight, it says in that same chapter, in chapter two, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. What was it? We're supposed to come together into a oneness of faith, into a unity of faith, so that we understand what it means to be possessed of a living God who knows our hearts and knows our minds and knows the way we think. And he knows the way we act when no one's around. He knows the things that we struggle with in our lives that we know are not going to be pleasing to God. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not from yourselves. It is the gift. Notice that it is the gift of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. So when we come to Christ, that's not a stopping point. We have to mature from there on out. First Corinthians three, one, three. And the Niv says, brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly. He goes on to say, mere infants in Christ, I gave you milk, not solid food, but you're not ready yet for it. Indeed, you're still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans people? What God wants from us is that we would know him and that we would move on from being controlled by this world. And the things that pressure us and that worldly doesn't just mean, oh, hey, I'm going out and doing this or that. No, it means that the mind of this age actually works in us, where we have to interact. And he says, some of the evidence is right there. And he says, I'm calling you infants because I can't give you the solid meat of the word of God. You're still infant. Hebrews, chapter five, verses eleven to 14 say, we have much to say about this, but it's hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. So not only is it saying, hey, we're infants because we don't want to grow with solid food. I'm sure you can all remember when kids are little and you love to spoon feed them. I love it. You know, you got to the pureed carrot and what did your kid do? You know, there goes my carrots all over the place. Why do you give them a bib when they're a baby? Cause it comes out all over the place. That's the picture of how infantile we are, because we're not eating the spiritual meat, we're not growing in crop. So it says, we have much to say about this, but it's hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. That means that there has to be that purpose within us, that we want to know him and the power of his resurrection. In fact, though, by this time, you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elemental truths of God. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about uprightness or righteousness. You haven't grown. And I tell you right now that there is so much of the church today that's stuck in infancy because there has to be that desire for us to grow and know the Lord. The great commission did not only tell us to go out and win people, but it says, to disciple. That's what discipleship is. It's growing in the Lord. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use, notice that. So it means you're exercising that faith and that knowledge. Constant use have trained themselves to distinguish between what's good and evil. So as I understand the word of God, I'm going to have more understanding about the way I am supposed to live because I have been created in the image of God who rescued me. Ephesians 414 says, then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming. Those are all the dangers of infancy. It actually says, when it says you're tossed to and fro, that has the idea of the waves coming up and just moving you. And when it says it's by the cunning, I want you to know that every time you say to someone, can I please have an ice cube? When you get to the ice cube, you can tell somebody you're now speaking greek, because the word is cube here. And what it refers to is the sleight of hand of somebody rolling a cube. How many sides are on a cube? Six sides. There's 1234 and five and six. It's dice. And what it's saying is the way somebody cheats at dice, they've got a loaded pair of dice. It's always going to come up 711. It also says the craftiness of people, and it has the idea of manipulating. And I'd love to tell you what that word actually means, because it says the methods. That's what it says in the Greek, the methods of the way people want to distort and deceive you into error. So the characteristics of an infant Christian is you're living on a diethouse of milk and Pablum. It's nutritious, pre cooked. I remember for almost an entire six months I lived off of pureed food one time because I had been sick and in the hospital as a kid. Thankfully, my father had to go through the same thing at the same time. So we enjoyed our pablum together. But that's not the way God designs it for us. A child is easily led astray, distracted, and all those methods of error come into our lives. But I'm going to take you back one step further. I want you to know this. When we first started looking at the book of Ephesians, we went to verses 17 to 20, which was Paul's first prayer for the church. What did Paul pray for? He said, I keep asking that God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the spirit. It's spiritual, the spirit of wisdom and understanding or revelation, so that you may know him better. So the first thing you want to do is to know Christ better. I pray that the eyes of your heart, where your affection is, that you're looking, that you may know and look at the hope to which you have been called. The riches of his glorious inheritance we have in the body of Christ. And this incomparably great power for us who believe that power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realm. And verse 15 of chapter four, Ephesians says, and I think Williams in his paraphrase captures it a little bit better of the original language because he said that we're to be speaking the truth in love, but he translates it this way. But on the other hand, we shall go on holding to the truth and in love, growing into the perfect union with him that is Christ himself who is the head. We're to grow up. We're to increase. We're to grow up into him. Him who is the head. Is Christ really when you think of the head, that's what I think about. So when I'm driving, I'm supposed to be thinking, when I'm doing something at work, I'm supposed to be thinking, it requires my head. We're to grow up into him who is the head? Directing our line this morning, I would beg of you to examine where you are in life and to know the reality of growing as a Christian. Dear people, I love you so much and I want to see you grow. I want to see the parts functioning together so that Christ is in this body, in this, because Jesus Christ loved.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Gave himself thank you for tuning in to this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of Lawen evangelical Congregational Church in lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's word is always fresh and powerful to transform. If you were blessed by this episode, share it with a friend, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. Until next time, stay rooted in the word, stand firm in faith, and keep growing in Christ.
Bye.
