We'll turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. I'll read all of Ephesians 4, 1-16. My focus today will really be on verses 11-13 primarily. And this is part 2 of grace and gift that make the church grow. Grace and gift that make the church grow. There'll be overlap from last week's sermon. For all of us, we forget. There'll also be overlap for those who weren't here. I do encourage you to get the sermon, if you're able, when it's available. I think it's online right now. It is online right now. And I encourage you to get that. But we're going to focus on the grace and gifts that make us as a congregation grow because of Jesus' resurrection and ascension. So let's read chapter 4, verses 1 through 16 together. This is God's Word. A lot of folks this day are not under the hearing of God's Word. A lot of folks don't have God's Word. Let's remember the privilege. May it create a great thanksgiving in our heart. Not guilt, but thanksgiving that He's called us to Himself to hear His Word. So let's stand out of reverence, if you're able to. If you're not able to, stay seated. It's no disrespect. But if you can, let's stand. And this is Ephesians 4, 1 through 16. This is God's Word. Listen to the reading of God's Word. a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've 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 the 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. In saying He ascended, what does it mean but that He also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the shepherd-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 in 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. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we ask that you would break open the bread of life now, that Christ might speak to us. that we would have a unity in the knowledge of the Son of God, that we might learn to speak the truth in love, that you might equip us, Lord, through your word, through your sacrament this morning, through prayer, that we might be able to serve. Father, I pray that you'd keep us from distraction, help us to stay focused on Christ, help us to learn of Christ and his gospel, open our ears to hear, our hearts to receive, and our minds to understand. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. for Christ, love for one another. This power is found not in ourselves. It's found in union with Jesus Christ. And that's very important to continue to understand. Paul wants us to see at the end of chapter 3, verses 14 through 21, we see Paul dying, dying to himself, becoming self-dependent through prayer upon God in order to speak about walking a certain way in chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. We even see that Paul speaks as specifically in chapter 4, verse 1, as a prisoner of the Lord. So he wants to see that spiritual power is through humility and gentleness and love displayed through that. He wants us to go on to say in verses 7 through 10 that Christ ascended to God's right hand and that's where all the spiritual power and love we need is found. And yet Christ descended. That is, He came down as one of us. He became humble and He became gentle and He loved us so that we would love one another. So Paul is wanting us to have that frame of reference that he's dying and becoming self-dependent in prayer in chapter 3, verses 14 to 21. That in chapter 4, verse 1, he wants us to know that he's not merely an apostle, he is, but he's more particularly a prisoner of the Lord. He's one who's imprisoned because of Jesus to make his gospel known. And three, he wants us to see a Christ that's not merely ascended, but a Christ who first descended, who humbled himself to love us. He wants us to know this so that we might be filled with all the fullness of God through this Christ, through being loved. Look at verse 19. He wants us to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Chapter 3, verse 19. that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. He wants that as the congregation. Ephesians 4 10. He who descended is the one who ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things. Christ is ascended at God's right hand, but he's still working through his congregation, through his church visible to be church, to be Christ, to the world, to fill all things. And so we're filled. as we know and understand this grace, this humility, this love. That's why he begins in chapter 4 verses 1 through 3. He talks about, I want you to walk a certain way. I want you to walk in a resurrection life. I want you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. And he describes what it looks like to be Spirit-empowered. He says it's humility, it's gentleness, it's patience, it's bearing with one another in love. That's what he wants us to see as one who's died to self, Paul, as one who's a prisoner to the Lord, and Jesus himself who came down to live and die for us. And so this context, this larger context of Ephesians will teach us three things about the church, the unity of the church that we've looked at in the past couple of weeks, the diversity in the church, that is, particularly in the diversity of the gifts, and today what we'll primarily focus on is the maturity. The unity that we have with Christ and with one another. The unity we have in love and purpose. The diversity we have in gifts that make up the whole church. And three, the maturity that will come from that. Now, I told you last week and I'll remind you today that verse seven says that we've all been given grace. Verse seven. Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. So the three things I want to say up front. As a congregation in Christ, as a congregation of people united to Jesus, we have three things in common. One, common resources. We have grace. We have gifts. We have grace gifts. We have a common project, which is to build Christ's church. Not merely make a name for ourselves, but to build Christ's church for His name, for His glory. And three, we have a common goal. A common goal to glorify Christ and to see ourselves, to see a congregation grow in maturity. So we've been given common resources, a common project, a common goal. And this language of building, if you remember back in chapter 2, is because we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. even though we're a temple that's cemented together closer than you can imagine by building blocks, we are that temple where the Holy Spirit has come down and empowered us, and yet we are still to be building that temple, that great, beautiful, eschatological, I used it, the big temple, the heavenly temple that we'll see in all its glory, I used it, eschatological temple at the end of time that we're building now. But what we understand here, and what I must remind you, is that all of our service must flow from God's grace. All of our service must flow from God's grace. All of our service, all of our seeking after maturity must come because of God's Spirit. We're to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. That was Paul's prayer before he even got started with chapter 4, if you remember, at the end of chapter 3. Growth in Christ, people of God, is not possible apart from the divine working of the Spirit. Growth in Christ is not possible if we're not growing in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. As he said in his earthly ministry, without me you can do nothing. In other words, what this means in practical terms in our context is that don't try Ephesians 4 through 6 until you understand by faith Ephesians 1-3. Don't try at home Ephesians 4-6 until you understand Ephesians 1-3. That is the importance of dependence on God. That is the importance of the love from God. That is the importance of being predestined, chosen from the foundation of the world. That having been recipients of grace. Having been recipients of grace even while you were dead in trespasses and sin. Having the seal into the day of redemption because of the Holy Spirit. So, we have gifts and we're equipped to serve. Look at verses 12-13. It says that There have been these offices, and I looked at those primarily last week, but I just will say this, that the gifts are given, that we've been given gifts, and these gifts are particularly men. There's apostle prophets, which were foundational. Then there were the evangelists, the shepherds, and the shepherd teachers. I'm going to call them shepherds and shepherd teachers, or pastors and pastor teachers, but I prefer shepherds and shepherd teachers. Look at verse 12. Two equipped the saints. See, God is given, that is God, that is the ascended Christ has given gifts to his church and they are men. And those gifts are given, verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we attain to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood or to a full-grown man. So what that means for us as a congregation is that we have work to do because Christ has redeemed us to serve. We've yet to arrive as a congregation at our destination, so we're to be moving on to maturity. We're to be moving on to growing up and to mature. And so our common goal here is to be equipped by Christ's gifts so that we can serve one another. And there's two specific aims you'll notice here in these verses. One, the unity of the faith, verse 13a. Church realizes, the church will realize, the congregation realizes more and more of its unity with Jesus and each other. So there's a unity of the faith, realizing your union with Jesus and each other, but also seeking to be biblically, doctrinally and confessionally, individually and corporately as a congregation. That is to understand our unity, not just with Christ, but a unity of our faith. That is the content of our That is, to know what we believe and why we believe it. That is, to answer the question, who do you say that I am? And we answer responsibly as a congregation. That's the first thing. Unity of the faith. And two, mature manhood. Mature manhood. Verse 13b, the church will grow up into maturity. And so shepherds and shepherd teachers teach or are given to equip the congregation. The shepherd elders are equipped primarily with what? With word, teaching the word, preaching the word, with sacrament, by observing the Lord's Supper, by coming to that as a means of grace, through prayer, through different forms of fellowship. The primary means that the Spirit of God uses is word and sacrifice. And so we're equipped in order to serve one another. focus on a few points, and again I will talk more, I'd like to talk more particularly about gifts in our Sunday school time. But for now, generally speaking, I want to say a few things that we need to understand about this passage. First thing is, in verse 11, the shepherd elders are a Christ gift to the church, as I've said. Even before they're ordained as officers, they possess these gifts. It's that when they're ordained, they're recognized officially before the world that they possess these gifts. And so you could say that the organization has been given so that we can grow as an organism. We don't want to disconnect Christ from the organization any more than we disconnect Christ from the organism. It's an organization, the church, as well as a living thing, or an organism. Faithful shepherded elders, to speak generally here, are called by Christ as shepherds, to watch over you, to teach you, to feed you biblically with their gifts. They're to shepherd you only according to Scripture. And shepherd-eldering is seeking to stay biblical, submitting to the Bible, seeking wisdom from Christ, observing the gifts of the members, helping the members with their gifts, which we'll, again, I'll try to do more later, if there are needs that the congregation brings, if there are things that the congregation sees that are biblical that we're not doing as a congregation, and bring them to the elders and the elders shepherds in their ideas. Here's them focusing on the members, the members who are servicing one another. Verse 7 again, all of you have been given Christ's gift, a matter of grace. And as we learned in 1 Corinthians in two places, To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. You must remember that in your service. You must remember that when you do see a need, and when you do realize your gift, that it's for the common good. It's not meant for yourself. It's not meant for yourself. It's been granted to you. You are a steward of God's gift so that you can serve and build the church so it might come to a unity of faith and to maturity. So the Spirit of gifts are given for the common good. We also learn in 1 Corinthians 12 that all beings, all Christians, are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each individually as he will. So the gifts are for all of God's people, and they're given by God, specifically to you. When you become a member of a church, particularly a congregation, your gifts are inescapably valuable in seeking to unify us in the faith and to bring us to maturity. Because your gifts are for the common good, and your gifts are given to you as God is pleased to give them. Now there's a couple of mistakes that we make, that I will point out, particularly when we want to serve. There's sometimes this idea of coming up with great ideas for service, but not seeking the shepherd order to decide whether it be biblical first. But there isn't even a need to do it. Another mistake of members is being too busy to use their gifts. We all can fall into being self-centered so easily. Or we can think that we have age restrictions. Well, I can't serve. I'm older than nine. No, I can't serve. Again, as I witnessed last week, a young man came into my office to remove the first set of boxes so I could move into my office. There's, I think, 20 more young men, if you want to help, and young women, if you want to go for it. But anyway, they came to move boxes. Several hands were moving boxes. We know that we can train our children to use their gifts in the family and in the church by God's grace. So we can be too busy. We can think that their age restrictions don't count. Another member mistake about gifts is that we didn't hurt in another church. Someone didn't recognize our gifts. Someone hasn't thanked us for it. And so we go around with hurt feelings. As I pointed out last week, that is something we have to remember. That's because of self-pity. And so we have to repent of that. I fall into that. You fall into that. Also, they fall into that. You know, I've been hurt. You know, they give them some thank you. Another mistake of members is to not submit to the shepherd elders, forgetting that they are given to the congregation in order to shepherd you in your gifts. And then there's the mistake of thinking that you're part of the organism, but not part of the organization. You know, there's someone who might say, well, I'm Christian, and I'm part of Jesus. I'm united with Jesus. I'm a bigger Christian. I don't want to be part of that particular congregation. Remember, removing the head from the organization or the organism is living with a decapitated Jesus. He's the head of the organization, as well as the organism. And as I pointed out last week, It's not a perfect organization anymore. It's a perfect organization. And that's part of our bearing of one another in love. It's not a simple and humble experience. So, the Risen Ascended Christ has granted gifts to us. The Risen Ascended Christ has granted love and power and grace to this congregation, right here, right now, in Percival. But we have to remember, we can only use our gifts in light of His grace. We must be constantly aware of our self-righteousness, thinking better of ourselves, more highly of ourselves than we are. I'm thinking a little more gifted or less gifted, whatever. We have to be careful of self-pity. We have to focus on Jesus constantly. We have to focus on Jesus. We have to check our expectations. Since we're a building project and we've yet to make maturity, we need to remember very carefully not to have over-realized expectations of your Shepherd-Elders. And shepherd elders, we should not have over-the-life expectations of the sheep. We're all work in progress. We're all a building in progress. And that's why Paul says, in the first part of chapter 4, to bear with one another. Patience. You want to know what power is? It's dealing with each other, even when you can be irritated. Or when I can be irritated. Okay? Now, I want to say something about motivation to serve. And then I'll move on. I want to slow this down a bit, because there's more time somewhere else. And I think it's always important to talk about motivation in service. You want to carefully ask God why it is you want to serve. This is part of being driven to serve because of Christ, because of this gospel. Let me give you some helpful hints. You don't want to serve merely because God won't bless you. You know, the way that you know that you're being motivated to serve is you say, God, if I get involved in this, I can make more friends, I can be well-liked, I can perhaps have a position I've always wanted, I can be in control, I can be seen. We should always be very careful to watch that we're not doing our work to be seen by men. Be careful. Be careful. Be careful of that motivation. Um, you can be careful of the motivation that makes you consent. If I don't serve, then God won't bless me. That's serving because you're fearful of God in the wrong way. And you say to yourself, I-I-I better serve because God will be mad at me. Um, that's not a reason to serve, okay? Don't-don't do that. And if you think God's mad at you, let's talk later. He's not. Let me tell you now, He loves you. Christ has laid down His life for you, and He will never fail with you What's your motivation for serving? They're called Protestant tenants, as I call them. These are the guys who are heavy with guilt, and laden with guilt, and they say that they forget that the default mode of the human heart is worth righteousness. Well, the default mode of repentance, the default mode of repentance for us sinners is penance. That's why it works so well. This says something like this, well, I'm unworthy. I'll go clean the bathroom, and maybe God will forgive me. I'm unworthy. Please, give me all that you can give me, pastor. Give me all that you can. I'll serve, and then my guilt won't be so bad. That's wrong. Love of Christ. Love of Christ. Love of Christ. That's what rooted and grounded in love, love, love, love, love, love, love of Christ is the only reason you're to serve. And when you get yourself serving, and for any other reason, Say to yourself, I'm telling myself right now, I'm telling myself, I'm doing this to gain some kind of righteousness, or to get some kind of forgiveness, but I don't, and I'm not doing that at all. Generally speaking, you're trying to get some righteousness from your own doing instead of Jesus, but you're trying to get forgiveness for your doing rather than Jesus. Be careful, be careful. Love of Christ, that's how Paul said it. 2 Corinthians 5, 14-15, make this your memory verse this week. 2 Corinthians 5, 14-15, for the love of Christ concluded. Because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. You see the two difference? You're either living for Christ at any given moment, or you're living for yourself. Be aware of that. The love of Christ controls you. You're living for Christ as a dead person, living under righteousness and serving for the right reason. Okay? There's other things. We have to keep the gospel first. We have to get... Our works are never good enough. You don't know that. You didn't know that. I will tell you. Your works are never good enough. There's nothing. You can work the rest of your life. You can climb the highest mountain and you won't get any nearer to God than you already are in Jesus Christ. All right. Well, let's move on. I'm going to now focus on truth speaking in love, verses 15 and 16. Truth speaking in love. Our aim is to be unified in the faith. The knowledge of the Son of God and to grow mature. The first way is through service. That's what I've just talked about. through gracious service, being motivated for the right reasons. The next part is truth speaking in love, and there's two aspects of this truth speaking in love I want to talk to you about. The first aspect of truth speaking in love is doctrinally, doctrinally, and the second is developmentally. Doctrinally truth speaking in love, one with another, and then developmentally. Doctrinally first. This has to do with being, as we are, a confessional and catechetical congregation. That is, we confess with the larger church of a body of truth. We confess the gospel as it's been handed on throughout the church age. And so, how do we particularly serve one another, serve Christ and one another in this way? We first seek a unity of faith that is doctrinally speaking the truth as church. Speaking the truth as church. Don't ever forget, you're so privileged, I am so privileged to be part of a confessional story. You know, we don't have to start over. To start over means just going through the heresies of the last 2,000 years again. That's precisely what it means. And anyone who has tried to start over has faced those things who haven't learned from the past. We're very thankful. We don't have to recreate the historical confession. We've been given a faith in our doctrinal life. It's rooted in the orthodox, faithful teaching of the church at its best. KCPC is a congregation that's rooted in the Reformation. And so, because it's rooted in the re-formation, it's also rooted in the formation of the church. The Reformation was nothing but a recapturing by God's grace, a revival of sorts, a restoration of the best orthodoxy of the early church. And so that's why we'll confess together the Apostle's Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed. We don't have to come up with our own creeds anymore. We need to be constantly testing it by Scripture, yes. Scripture is always our final authority, soul authority. But listen, remember, sola scriptura does not mean Scripture by itself. It means Scripture is the soul and only foundation of faith and life. The Sola Scriptura still leaves room to interpret that scripture with the best interpreters of the church in the past. The final authority is still God's Word, but our roots as a congregation, we can come to a unity of faith doctrinally with other bodies. Jesus isn't talking merely spiritually when he says, I pray that they may be one as we are one. I am one with the Father. He's praying that we also be doctrinally unified as much as it's in our power to do as we seek to do that. We don't have to start over again, but build. To put it very starkly, KCPC is a Reformed Catholic Church. That's not Roman Catholic. That doesn't mean Roman Catholic. But it's a reformed Catholic Church. That means that when we confess one holy Catholic and apostolic church, we believe that there's only one church that's been founded on the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone, as we learned in Ephesians 2.20. And so we seek to know and understand our unity with Christ. the knowledge of the faith. We seek to understand the content of that knowledge by looking at faithful confessions and catechisms. We are doing this, as Ephesians 3.18 says, together with all the saints. And to disregard church history, to disregard that is to forget that the risen ascended Christ, in chapter 4, verse 11 of Ephesians, has given pastors and teachers, those who are living now, and those who came before you were ever born. To disregard them is to disregard Christ's death. Shepherds, shepherd teachers, have been writing and interpreting Scripture long before 1967, 1992, and 2001. A long time. And we can grow in our understanding of the interpretation of Scripture by doing it together with all the saints. We're also to understand this in a very humble way. Notice again in verse 13, I want to show you something. None of us have arrived. It says until we all attain to the unity of the faith. Listen, let this humble you. Let this humble us. We as a confessional and catechetical church. Yes, we're confessing with the saints the best that we think is out there, that is scriptural and true. But be careful that you think somehow that you've arrived. that you know all that there is to know about the Bible or about confessions or about the sovereignty of God? Be very careful that you're focused primarily on the gospel. The gospel is your main focus. Jesus Christ is your main focus. As far as it's humanly possible, gather with other believers who are like-minded. Remember, in essentials, unity. In not essentials, liberty. And in everything, charity. Augustine, in essentials, in everything, charity, or love. Seek to unify as much as possible. There's a time when you can't anymore, but as much as you can. We as a congregation are part of a tremendous, a much larger organization called NAPAR, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches of America. So we're part of this larger body that's seeking, even though we're not part of the same denomination, we're seeking to say before the whole world, that we are unified in the knowledge of the Son of God, but that we are attaining it should cause us to be humble. Listen, people, what does this mean? People of God, listen, listen, beloved, listen. What does this mean? It means that we don't have to quibble or squabble over the foundational stuff, the essentials. We don't have to resurrect a talk over the Incarnation, or the virgin birth, or the humanity of Christ. The Risen Ascended Christ gave us pastors and teachers who articulated this before 1967. And that's good. And we take that knowledge and we take the scripture that they gave us to compare it with the scripture. And like good Bereans, we say, aha, they do know more than I do. So doctrine is something that we learn over time. Listen, please remember this. You, you, we are on a journey until we attain the knowledge of the Son of God. This is a journey to understand. Be humble. Be gospel focused. Be gospel focused. Be more concerned about your evangelical brother or sister knowing the gospel than knowing the sovereignty of God. Although they need to know both. Hear me again. Put the priority on making sure they're even Christians. Making sure you're focused on Christ and his gospel. My point in saying that is not that I'm suggesting they're not Christian. It is that the gospel is the most important part. Jesus died for sinners in all its simplicity. They may not know that. They may be built up on a work's righteousness. Then share with them the sovereignty of God and how he saved them through that. Be careful that you don't put your priorities in order. Be careful. Yes, we're a confessional church. Yes, we believe in the sovereignty of God. Yes, we believe in election. Yes, I free, kill, free this nation. Yes, yes, yes. I'm unashamedly reformed. Yes, yes, yes. But I'm also very concerned that we miss the gospel because we're trying to get our theological ducts in a row over here and we grow in arrogance and we forget that there's a simple gospel we proclaim to the world, the lost, that we get our priorities mixed up. All right. Now, We know the love of God doctrinally. Let's try to know the love of God developmentally now. I'm going to look at that. There's so much more I could have said about the love of God doctrinally. You understand that knowing the knowledge of the Son of God, so much more we can talk about. But developmentally, truth speaking, this is truth speaking more in relationships. So we grow in a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God. We grow into maturity through truth telling. Gospel-focused truth-telling, Christ-centered love and truth-telling. How do you do this? Sometimes I talk here. How do you speak the truth in love? Well, first of all, closely. The Bible says you need to know the love of Christ yourself. You need to saturate your heart in the love of Christ. Saturate your heart in the grace of Christ. You need to learn to trust one another. That you are such a cross-centered, Christ-centered person, that you're a gracious person. That when you approach your brother to speak the truth, that you do it in love, because you're driven by love. You're not driven by your rights. You're not driven so you can change them and be the Holy Spirit and be in control of their life, manipulate their destiny. It's all what we want to do. We speak the truth in love. That means knowing our own hearts. There's some nasty stuff inside our hearts. Nasty stuff goes through our minds all the time. That's not a confession merely personally. That's something we all know. We have to understand the love of God in Christ for us. Go back to the beginning of Ephesians, as I said. Look at Ephesians 1, 5 again. In love, He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purposes of His will. Camp on that. understand that so you can help others doctrinally and developmentally in speaking the truth in love. Camp on it. You were predestined. You were predestined from the foundation of the world to be adopted. You had nothing to do with it. It all happened before you were born. Before you've done anything good or bad that should humble you. That's grace. Speak the truth in love. We're to grow up into him and into him every way to mature. So what are the three ways? Well, you've been loved in Jesus. You've been loved in Jesus. He's shown that to you. Meditate on Ephesians 1-3. Pray Paul's prayers in Ephesians 1, 15-23. And Ephesians 3, 14-21. Pray those prayers for each other, for yourself. Get a focus on Christ and his gospel. So you're to bear with one another in love because Jesus bears with you in love. And you're to speak the truth in love, in the love of Jesus. So can you speak the truth in love? You see, because of our self-righteousness, people of God, we want to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. We want to think ourselves better. That's why we don't trust anyone half the time. We want to think of ourselves better. We want to wear masks. Hypocrisy is a safe place until you go before the throne of God, honestly. And you better not feel safe there with your hypocrisy. Drop your mask. Drop your mask. Drop your mask. If you learn to be honest with God and learn the love of God and the forgiveness of God, you can learn to approach your brother and sister not in a self-righteous manner, but in a way that's humble. Because of our self-pity, we want to feel sorry for ourselves rather than forgive and seek peaceful conversation. That's why we don't speak the truth in love. So here's some questions you can ask yourself. How would you want Jesus to speak to you in a situation How would you want Jesus to speak to you truthfully about your sins, your failures, and your shortcomings? Better, how does Jesus speak to you about your sins, failures, and shortcomings through the scriptures? He tells you you're forgiven when you confess. He says, if you forgive, you shall be forgiven. Very important connection there that we realize before God that we have been forgiven. That's why Paul says in Ephesians 5.1, Walk in love, or 5.2, walk in love as Christ loved us, gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Wrong scripture, it's chapter 4, verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as Christ has forgiven you. How would you want Jesus to encourage you when you're down? That's speaking the truth in love. You be Jesus to one another. You go before Jesus and you say, Jesus, I know I'm loaded with sin. I know that I have no merits or demerits before you. I have nothing but demerits. I know you don't relate to me by my merit or demerit. I have nothing I've earned before your throne. Forgive me. Now give me love to go and speak the truth in love. To be you. To die to what I'm trying to accomplish and do what you want to accomplish. Listen. Die to what you want to accomplish in someone else's life. Stop the manipulation. Die to what you're trying to do to someone else and do what Jesus wants to do. That means getting out of the way. It means dying. It means loving like Jesus. See, we can speak the truth about others. You understand that? We're very good at that. Those who know us best. That's one reason why we don't trust each other very well. You start finding out that I'm an imperfect person. You're armed with mean things. Speak the truth to me. I'll speak the truth to you. This is what I see. You speak the truth. Yes, meanly. You speak the truth in an unkind. What is gossip but speaking the truth half the time? Bless his heart. Bless her heart. You know, whoever just can't get her life together and look at her children. We can't speak the truth in love. That's harder. They have to be humbled. We can avoid the truth sometimes because we say that it's unloving, but that just means sometimes we're scared because it's confrontation. See, there are things in your life that only others will see. There are things in your life that only others will see. There's things in your life that only someone else can see and help you with. Because you've got these blind spots. These shoulder blade places, right? Where you can't see very well. and see well. And if you go before Christ, you say, Lord, I don't want to just change that person, him, her, so that they'll be easier to deal with because they're irritating. But I want to go and change them so that they might experience more of your joy and your love. And I know that I'm an irritating person myself very, very easily. Lord, help me Because some people aren't going to like it. But in a congregation, we build trust with one another by learning to be ourselves. If we're honest before God, we can be honest before each other. If we wear one face before God, we can wear one face before each other. It's when you try to mess up your life and you wear two faces. You have one in your private and one in your public. You're two-faced. Literally. And you're going to have a hard time knowing which one to be. You have to go back and be one face before God, the throne, seek love, and then go be one face before others. And so grace in Christ must saturate our hearts. Christ never said that loving was easy. A lot of his address to his people is constantly reminding them of the importance of forgiveness. Part of his ministry when he was here on earth was reminding his apostles who were quick to judgment. We're easy. It's easier for us pulling down fire from heaven than it is to speak the truth in love to one another. And yet we, like Peter, are the ones who have been restored so many times they said it, and called to forgive as many millions of times we have asked to be forgiven. You've asked to be forgiven if you're a Christian at least, I don't know, lots of times. And he's forgiven you. And you're going to go and expect immediate payment for what someone did to you? We have to be forgiving. We have to be loving. And so this is all done doctrinally and developmentally. A lot more we could say doctrinally as well as developmentally. But all this is done so that we have a goal, which is maturity. That we might grow up and no longer be children. Why? Because of this common goal of maturity, we must say two things. We know we're going to get there. He who began a good work with us will continue it. We know he's committed to us and to his congregation more than we are. We know that. But we also know that there are going to be weaknesses in us. We're going to grow weary at times of doing good. We're going to let offenses hurt us. And we must, as quickly as possible, take those to the throne of grace and seek forgiveness. Speak the truth in love to one another so we might move forward. Speaking the truth in love, listen, is not only for the other person's sake, it's for your sake. You hold something inside, you're in for danger. It's like the gossip, who comes and says, you know, someone has the biggest problems in the world. The first thing we should speak, the way we should speak the truth in love to the gossip is, no, no, right now, with all love, you've got the biggest problem. Because you're trying to remove a speck while you've got this huge telephone pole hanging out of your side sockets. Remove the telephone pole. And you'll see clearly, you go and remove the speck. And that's what you'll judge it as like. It's a speck. It wasn't that big after all. Grace can cause you to see the most heinous of things. Make you see through the cross a speck. A speck. A speck. Respects aren't worth bothering with, are they? We can, by God's grace, be a bigger man than man. That's what this text is saying. We can be a bigger man. We can come to mature manhood. But let's never deceive ourselves that we've made it, doctrinally or developmentally. Don't deceive yourself. We have a lot more to go. That's why God's equipped us with shepherds and shepherd teachers. Childish behavior, deceitfulness. Childish behavior is something like this. You know, we can have all our theological ducks in a row and we can know all about God's sovereignty and his electing purposes in Jesus Christ. And yet we can lack humility. We can forget that we've been forgiven and that God in his sovereignty made his sovereignty known to us by his sovereignty. We can forget that we've been forgiven and that God in his sovereignty made his sovereignty known to us by his sovereignty. We can also say that doctrine is not important. We can be arrogant in that way too or that studying with the church is not important. Even though Ephesians 3.18 says we're to come to know the love of Christ together with all the saints. We can be arrogant in that way and think that everything started back in 1967. We must understand the grace of God in Christ if we're going to avoid our childish behavior. There's a lot of stuff on the outside people of God that we can get rid of. Behavior stuff. Branch sins, as they're called. Branch sins. A lot of stuff we can cover up. It's like when I was a teacher and I'd walk through the hall, they all knew I was a Bible teacher, right? That meant I must be righteous or something. Or I was the guy who couldn't tell them. Because I was with Jesus. But I'd walk through the hall as a teacher and the worst students would put on a smile and act like everything was together. They'd change their behavior immediately. Our children do that. We do that. Those are branch sins. That's behavior changes. What you need is a root sin change. And that's only through grace. Then your behavior will change altogether. You'll bear fruit of the Spirit. But the big free root sins are big free for a purpose. Cry, unbelief, and doubt. They're big. They're in us deeply. We believe in Christ, but we don't always believe Christ. Let that keep you humble. There's a lot of work to be done in the stuff that no one else sees. So don't be presumptuous and proud. Remember the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that has bought you. We must grow up. We can grow up. We are growing up. We are realizing who we already are in Jesus. Did you know that? We're already united to Jesus Christ. All the service and efforts that we live with today, that we try to serve with, will give us no more righteousness before God than we already have in Jesus. Do you understand that? But that should make you rejoice that He's not holding the pride and the unbelief and the doubt against you. He's forgiving you and telling you to go and forgive. He's forgiving you and telling you to go and serve. He's serving you in the heavenly temple right now. He's King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He serves you by ever praying for you, by Standing as your advocate mediator, he's working hard as your high priest and king. How could we not serve him? We get a glimpse of Jesus serving us in his life, in his death, in his resurrection ascension now. You'll be motivated by God's grace to serve. You see him serving. You see him serving. You see him serving. You see him serving. And you'll serve. We have a common project to build Christ's church, have a common goal to glorify Christ, and to grow as a congregation and majority. May we do that in the next year. The unity, chapter 4, verse 16, brings us back around to unity, and I'm closing, the whole body and the body. Notice verse 16. I'll read it as we close. From whom the whole body and the whole body. joined and held together by every joint with which it's equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself in love. Notice the unity, the whole body, the body, the diversity, every joint, each part, and the maturity. It is equipped. The body grows and builds itself up in love. It's a give and take, Billy. Jesus is the head, and it's from him we get life and grace. and the resources to do what he's commanded us to do. And as we do that, by his grace, it goes back up to his glory to make his body and to fill all things with the glory of God, even now, as we await the restoration of all things. Thanks be to God for his Christ. Thanks be to God for his word. Amen. Amen. And amen. May it be for us. Let's pray. Our Father, our God, what does true maturity look like? We know that it looks specifically like Ephesians 4, verse 6. It looks like a unified congregation of love. It looks like husbands loving wives and wives submitting to husbands. It looks like children being obedient in the Lord. It looks like saints standing in the full armor of God. It looks like putting off the old man and putting on the new. Help us, O Lord, as we continue this series that you would help us to grow as a congregation, united to Jesus, recipients of your grace. We pray, O Lord, that you would continue to work in us. O Father, we know that we're just one square in a larger quilt. We're a thread in a greater tapestry. We're an organization that's part or organism that's part of a greater body. And we're an organization that's part of the greater heavenly business. And so we pray, O Father, that you would work in us as a congregation so that we might work properly in growing to maturity and not be immature. Help us, O Father, to understand the love that you've shown to us and continue to show to us, the forgiveness. Help us, O Lord, to walk in love, bearing with one another in patience, knowing that we are united to Jesus by grace, we're united to each other. Help us, O Lord, in the use of our gift that we serve for the common good. Help us, O Lord, that we'd speak the truth in love, doctrinally and confessionally as a church, seeking to unite as best as we can with others as we're able. And help us developmentally to speak the truth in love that we might be able to approach one another, grow in our trust of one another, wear only one face before your throne and before each other. We pray these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.