I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. As you're turning there, I just want to quickly let you know that if the Lord allows, we will take this summer to return to the Psalms. We did that last summer, and it would be my intention that we would look at the Psalms beginning next Sunday for 10 weeks or so and enjoy time as a church in that songbook of the Old Testament, but really a songbook for God's people for all time. But this morning, we want to return to Ephesians chapter four, passage that we've been in now for this, our third week, at least in this section, speaking on equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. Really, this whole section is about the saints of the Lord Jesus Christ being equipped to do the work of the ministry, which is building up the church in love. I want to focus on the last two verses, verses 15 and 16 this morning, but to get a running start, I want to begin back up in verse 11. And he, that's Christ, gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Let's pray together. A father sometimes feels as though so much remaining corruption is in us and comes out of us. Lord, the words that come out of our mouths and the thoughts that are in our minds and the intentions of our hearts are often ungodly, displeasing to you. And so, Lord, we ask you that by your spirit, by your word, you would sanctify us in the truth. Your word is truth. Father, we pray that you would do that even now as we, as your people, are here before your word. Help us to listen. Help us not to dismiss what is in front of us. Father, I pray that you'd bring conviction to our hearts where that is necessary. And I pray that for all of us, you would encourage us, giving us strength to live how you desire us to live. Oh God, I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. The major theme of these verses that we've been looking at is that there is something of a collective effort The collective being the church, the effort being individual, but the whole church putting in the effort to live the Christian life together. It is so obvious to anyone who has been walking with Christ and has been walking in good fellowship that your Christian life truly cannot grow in the way God intends without your brothers and sisters around you. It is a requirement for Christian growth that you have others around you who are walking in the Christian life with you, sharpening you as one man sharpens another. And really the thesis this morning is the same, that Christian growth and maturity happens when Christian church members are using the gifts given them by Christ to build one another up in love. There's so many different analogies for the harmony that's supposed to come together in the church. One of them could be a symphony composed of different instruments, strings, percussion, wind instruments, and then you have other players. You have the conductor, you have the composer, you have the sound team, and you have the ushers all working together in harmony to create a lovely performance. There is, in a real symphony, not the emphasis on a soloist, but on all of their instruments coming together to create some beautiful music. So, too, the church is not to be a place where there's primarily soloists, but a place where all of the gifts come together for the greater good and the greater maturation of the church. Now, in one sense, We each are responsible before the Lord for how we live our individual lives. There will come a day when each of us will be before the throne of Jesus Christ, and there will be an accounting for our life. And it will be you giving an accounting for your life, not for someone else's, but for yours. First Corinthians 3.13 says this, each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it. Each one's work, your individual life in Christ will be manifest on that day for what was stubble and hay, straw that just gets consumed and is worthless and that which is valuable and precious jewels and gold and that which remains as true service unto the Lord Jesus Christ. your life will be accountable for by you. But in another sense, even now, we are to carry each other's burdens. And we live out our Christian life not for specifically our own individual benefit, but for the benefit of others, for those around us. And so we cannot be in some isolation chamber thinking that our conduct here and now only affects Your conduct affects those around you. Whether you are helping carry someone else's burden affects the person with the burden. And so you need to be cognizant of the fact that Galatians 6.2 commands you, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ in a good way. We are to live our Christian life for the good of others. When others rejoice, we should bring the confetti along. And when others weep, there should be a line of shoulders for that person to cry on. And when there's sin, there ought to be those who can come and correct the one who's sinning. Where there's false thinking, there ought to be the loving confrontation of the truth by others. And so you will have to give an account for your life, but while you live your life here and now, you have a responsibility to those around you to carry their burdens. And this passage should be making this truth plain to our hearts as plain as the sun is in the sky, that the Christian life is not one of isolation nor of self-indulgence. The Christian life is not to be one of isolation because we are put by Christ into the church. When He saves somebody, He puts them somewhere. He puts them into the church. A major part of what Christ has done and what has been illustrated for us in the book of Ephesians is that he has taken two groups of people, Jews and Gentiles, and brought them together as one in the church. And so if we isolate ourselves and think of Christianity as primarily individualistic, we are undermining the very thing that Ephesians has been straining to teach us, naming that Christ has put us together. So if we isolate ourselves, we really deny what the whole book of Ephesians is about and what Christ at the cross accomplished, bringing former enemies together, not just humans to God, but humans to humans. To live in isolation is to suppose Jesus just died for me. Well, no, he didn't. He died for us, his church. And so we cannot live in isolation. He did die for your sins, don't mistake me, but he died for all of our sins, all who belong to him. And so we cannot be isolationists. As a corollary to that, we must understand that the Christian life then is not one of self-indulgence. It cannot be. It must be lived with others in view. You exist for the glory of God and the good of others. You have been gifted by the victorious Christ. Abilities are gifting to help others follow Christ and live out their Christian lives. That's your responsibility. You cannot be self-indulgent in the Christian life. Well, you can. but it's contradictory to what Christ has done for you and done in you. We live for others. And in this way, we experience the oneness that Christ has purchased at the cross. There's so much in modern Christianity that pushes us towards individualism. And so much in our modern culture that pushes us towards isolationism. You can place things in your ears and ignore the world around you. And there's so much in modern Christianity, in modern culture, that pushes us all towards immaturity. It's like we live by the Toys R Us motto. I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys R Us kid. I just wanna stay at this level of immaturity and childhood. But we ought not to be content with spiritual immaturity. When you remain spiritually immature, you resist the goal of Christ, you detach yourself from the source of Christ who gives you growth, and in some way, you miss the methods that Christ gives. But when you grow in spiritual maturity, then you've been experiencing the goal for which Christ has you in the church. You're linked to him so that his life flows to you and through you, and you're living out the methods for which he has given to you for church growth. You have to understand that Christ has a goal for you. He has a goal for us, and that's maturity in every way. So what it says in verse 15, Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. Christ's goal for His church is its maturity. You can see that throughout this passage. Just look at some of these verses. In verse 12, The reason for equipping the saints is for the work of the ministry, and that is for the building up of the body of Christ. That's maturation. Verse 13 is until we all attain to the unity of the faith, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Verse 14, so that we may no longer be children. Verse 15, we are to grow up. Verse 16, makes the body grow, builds itself up in love. You hear this language of maturing, of growth, we're to grow up, we're to move from infancy to adulthood, spiritually speaking. In verse seven, we begin to realize that this is, again, not just an individualistic race where you think, can I outpace the other person next to me in my spiritual growth, but rather you realize that this is a collective effort Verse 7 says that grace was given to each one of us. Every one of us has been given grace. Verse 12, to equip the saints the body of Christ. Paul's looking collectively at the whole. Verse 13, we must all attain. Verse 16, the whole body. This is all of us who are in Christ. He did not purchase us with His own blood so that some of us mature and some of us don't. He is after the whole of His church to mature, all of us. The measure of maturity is Christ. We are to grow up into Him who is the head, it says in verse 15. We're to grow up into Him who is the head. It can be different pictures about what spiritual maturity looks like. Some people have kind of this picture of a superhero Christian that wears a cape and can fly. That's what we think of when we think of spiritual maturity. Or you think maybe of a missionary who goes to a foreign land. Well, in fact, there have been a lot of immature missionaries that have gone out into the world. So we have to understand what maturity actually looks like. Well, what it doesn't look like is childishness. In verse 14, we're told that we're not any longer to be children tossed to and fro. An immature child gets kind of tossed about by every fad. An immature adult gets tossed to and fro by every fad. They're always changing with the winds of the culture. They are easily convinced by lies. And so that kind of sets up a picture for what maturity looks like. Maturity looks like stability. It looks like stability. That you're not easily moved here and there. That you're not kind of going here one day and then here the next day. That your mind isn't going back and forth like a metronome from one side to the other all the time. Rather, you are like the Psalm 1 person, a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season. Its leaf does not wither. Maturity involves some sense of permanence. In contrast to that Psalm 1 righteous man, you have the Psalm 1 wicked man who's like chaff, just kind of blown away. Chaff driven by the wind. True maturity is stability. And the place that you see that preeminently is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the one to whom we are to grow into. Christ is the leader of the church. He's the head of it, it says, the one who founded it. And as such, we are to follow him and to grow up into him means that we are to grow to be like him. This is what we are predestined to be according to Romans 8 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. So look to Christ and what do you see? You see a man of consummate maturity. You see him They're told in the Gospel of Luke that He set His face to go to Jerusalem. Why? Because that was the will of His Father in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He set His face to do the will of God. He was like flint set on a specific destination. In regard to temptation, Jesus Christ is the preeminent example again. He fights with Scripture when Satan comes at Him with all of those temptations. Each time He's able to parry the blow with Scripture, He is not moved. He stands firm on truth. In regard to persecution, when he's slapped and mocked and hit, he stands firm and suffers to the glory of God. In regard to his neighbor, he stands firm in love and loves his neighbor as himself. In regard to his father, he always loves his father and always obeys him. In regard to the lies of the world, he confronts them with the truth and he is not moved by them. In regard to his priorities, he has only one, Glorify His Father. Christ is the model of maturity, and he is the model of not being tossed to and fro. He was a rock in the middle of a stormy ocean. In the waves of persecution, in the waves of temptation, in the waves of sorrow, and defiance, and abandonment, and rejection, and betrayal, and pain, hunger, weariness, lies, false witness, and injustice, and demonic attacks that came against him, he, like a solid rock, weathers the storm and is not moved. He had commoners come against Him, try to trap Him. He had governors trying to get Him into trouble. He had religious leaders accusing Him. He had so-called friends and even His own disciples betraying Him. And Satan himself came against Him, and what did Christ do? He stood firm. The winds blew, and the rains fell, and His house stood firm. That's spiritual maturity. And that's the one into whom we are to grow. And we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. In all those ways that Jesus models for us spiritual maturity, we are to follow Him. We are to imitate Him. you don't get to kind of pick and choose which ones you're more naturally inclined towards. It says, again in verse 15, we are to grow up in every way. In every way into him who is the head. Means the whole of your life should be maturing toward Christ likeness. How absurd would it be if someone goes into the gym for a workout. They go three, four times a week. And every week, they go in to work their left calf. And that's all they do. Left calf exercises for the whole of their workout. And they walk out of the gym after a year of doing that, and their left calf is just monstrous. but the rest of their body is atrophied. We are told that we are to grow up in every way, every way into Christ. Whole body workouts is what Christ is after. Where is it in your life that you know you're not pursuing in every way? Maybe you've been focusing in just one area and you've been neglecting some other areas in your life. In every way we are to grow up into the likeness of Christ. Some Christians get so niche-focused, and their spiritual maturity just is like a giant left calf in one area. They become expert theologians, but they can't manage their household well. Or they can maybe diffuse the situation and be a peacemaker, but they gamble away their money. Or they're puffed up with conceit, but they can run a soup kitchen. Or they can draw detailed eschatology diagrams, but they can't look another believer in the eye and tell them how they're really doing in their life. We all have areas of weakness. We won't be perfect until Christ comes for us or brings us home. And He's patient with us. But don't develop a giant left calf. In every way, grow up into Him who is the head. He's our goal. The goal is to become like Christ. All of us. In every way. He's the goal of our growth. He's also the source of it. He's the source of our growth. It says in verse 15, to grow up in every way into Him who is the head and Christ. And then it says, from whom the whole body, dot, dot, dot, makes the body grow. From whom. It means that all growth in our life is ultimately derived from Christ. He's not only the goal of our growth, He is the source of our growth too. He's the one who makes us grow. The whole body derives its growth from Christ. And this is true in several ways. First of all, because we only have life from Christ to begin with. If you are spiritually alive, it is because Christ has given you His life. He's given you the Spirit. Secondly, the way that we grow is through gifted church members helping us, and those gifted church members are gifted by Christ. He's given them gifting to help you grow, and He's given you gifting to help others grow, and so all of our growth ultimately comes from Him. This helps us to understand that wonderful phrase, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. From Him, He is the source. Through Him, He is the means. To Him, He is the goal. From Him, we have life from Him. Through Him, He distributes gifts to those whom He wills. And to Him, the gifts He gives us makes us grow to be more like Him, and so He receives the glory. From Him and through Him, to Him are all things. All glory to Christ. source of your growth is found in Christ. This is important because we may identify areas in our life that we feel we need to grow in. That's not all that hard unless you're just extremely proud. It is easy to see areas that you fail in, but you identify that area And how often do we grow so uncomfortable with it that we want the quick fix, we want the easy answer. And do you know who has the easy answer? Satan, who lies in this world and tells you that there are answers to your problems apart from Christ. And you know how you find the answer? You just Google it. And you look up, how do I deal with this in my life? Google. And you look at the answer the world gives, and it gives you some pat answers about how you rearrange your life a little bit, or you take on some new methodologies in your life. And then you do that, you detach yourself from the source of your growth. All true growth comes from the source of growth, Jesus Christ. And so you have to seek him. And so when you have a problem in your life, instead of asking Google for the answer, how about asking Christ? Lord Jesus, what do you want me to do with this pattern of lying in my life? What do you want me to do with this worry in my life? What do you want me to do with this obsession about money and material goods in my life? What do you want me to do with how I break relationships in my life? Ask Him. He has the answer. He is the fountain of all good for us. All blessings flow through Him. All wisdom, all knowledge are from Him. All purpose and meaning comes from Him. Go to Him. Look to Him. From Him, the whole body. From Him, the whole body. He gives some methods of growth to us. We should not necessarily ask Him for answers to our problems and then wait for some kind of spiritual download. There's some methods that he gives for growth. There are two main methods that are listed here for how growth happens in the church. The first is speaking the truth in love. Speaking the truth in love. Just prior to verse 15, Paul has identified a danger for the Christian church. It is the danger of remaining infants and being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Some of us are so gullible that we'll believe just about anything. If somebody says it, we think it must be true. The Bible's not so optimistic. The Bible understands for us that there are schemers in this world who are slaves of the ultimate schemer, Satan. And so lies have permeated almost every avenue of life, and they try to get you to follow their methods, their philosophies, their teachings. And don't be surprised if they take the name Christian on themselves. Schemers are all over the place. And they keep people immature because they're just as good as a fad. For one day, they say, do this and you'll have success in life. And then 10 years later, they say, that was a complete waste of time. Now do this and the church eats it up. And so the church remains immature. What will protect us from this immaturity? Well, Christ has given us, the church, a task to exercise in relation to one another. Instead of the world filling our ears with lies, the church is to fill each other's ears with truth. That's what we are to do. Speak the truth. The antidote to lies is truth. This is why Paul puts an adversative there at verse 15, rather speaking the truth in love. Instead of being tossed here and there by schemers, church, speak the truth to one another. That's what we're to do. Satan's schemes with lies all around us are tugging on our shirt tails all the time. stopping us, trying to get us to listen. Well, what are we to do? We are to bend each other's ears with the truth. That's how we help one another. You speak the truth. We need one another to tell us the truth. You see a brother or sister hurting, Tell them the truth that the world's not gonna tell them. You see a brother or a sister sinning? Tell them the truth that the world's not gonna tell them. You see a brother or a sister wandering away? Tell them the truth that the world's not gonna tell them. You need to speak the truth to one another. And it has to be truth, not your opinion. To be truth, that basically means it has to be scriptural. 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be a complete equipped for every good work. If you want to speak the truth to somebody, make sure it's not just coming from your own mind, but it is coming from the truth of scripture. That's the kind of truth we need to give. Not your opinions, not the opinions of the world, not your best guesses, not man's wisdom. The truth is basically what God thinks about any subject. That's the truth. If God doesn't think it about a subject, then it's not true. So you want to have the mind of God in your heart. You want to think like He thinks. How are you going to know what He thinks? what He tells us in His Word. You will think what God thinks when you listen to what He says, and then you will be able to speak the truth to one another. So know this Word, know God's Word, fill your mind and heart with His Word, meditate on it, chew on it, obey it, believe it, live it, pray it. and then speak it to one another. Now, there are a lot of wrong applications of speaking to one another or speaking truth to one another. We may think, I have filled myself up so much with truth that I'm like a loaded machine gun, and I'm ready to take people out. And we aim our sights on other Christians and we're ready to pierce them with the truth. And we want a lot of dead bodies on the floor with our truth. A lot of people do this. They think they know so much about scripture that they can just bludgeon people with it. take people out, and we blurt out the truth without any sense of packaging. It's not just packaging, it's not just having the right words, it's actually having the right motive. Having the right motive. A lot of times, we will be willing to tell another person the truth simply because we are annoyed with them. And we want them to hear what I have to say, even if it's true, or especially because it's true, because I want them to stop doing what they're doing, because it annoys me so much. So we open our mouths and we speak the truth. It's truth, but it's out of heart of annoyance, agitation, hatred, bitterness. But Paul tells us, speaking the truth in love, in love. That means that when you see someone who needs to be spoken to, Your motive is not selfish ambition. You're not just trying to get the person to do what you want to make life easier for you. You rather are speaking to that person with an attitude of love for them. That means that you're not seeking your interest, you're seeking theirs. You're seeking their good. You want what is best for them. You want them to thrive and excel in Christ. You see them wandering from Christ and that hurts you because you know for their own sake they need more of Christ and so you speak the truth to them. You see a fellow member of the church weary and discouraged. and you want them built up and edified, and so out of love for them and for their own good, you go and speak a word of truth to them. You see a brother or sister sinning, and you know that dishonors God, and you know it hurts them, and so you go and speak the truth to them out of love. Brother or sister, please stop your sinning, it's hurting you, it's hurting the church, it's offending God, stop. Not so you can make a name for yourself, not out of annoyance for what they're doing, but because you love them. And here's a little hint. In order to speak the truth in love, you actually have to love the person that you speak to. You have to love them. There's this worldly mentality that's out there that has kind of taken on this phrase, I'm just being honest. I'm just being honest. And usually that either proceeds or follows saying something incredibly offensive but true to the person that you're speaking to. Because you are saying what you feel about the other person. Like, I'm just being honest here. I think you are the most annoying person in the whole world that's ever existed. You deserve the truth and so, I'm just being honest with you. That's not the kind of speech that Paul is talking about here. That kind of heart attitude needs to be dealt with in your heart before you ever open your mouth to that person. If you want to use the phrase, I'm just being honest, Use it before you quote scripture to the person with their best interest in mind, not yours. Paul's not looking for you to throw a grenade of truth and hope the shrapnel hits the person in just the right spot. He's not looking for you to spout your subjective opinions about other people in the spirit of being real and saying what's on your mind. There's a different kind of truth that he's referring to here. It's the truth of the gospel and its implications. It's telling the person who's wondering about God's heart that God sent his son for them. It's telling the person wandering away into sin that God forbids that and has offered Christ to you and Christ is better than any sin you can ever indulge in. to repining the person who's in the midst of a trial and feeling forsaken, helping them to see, helping them to experience, and helping them to know that Christ has declared, I will never leave you nor forsake you, and walking through the hardship of that trial with them, speaking the truth in love. In high school, I attended a Bible study that was led by one of the dads of one of my friends, he gathered 10, 15 teenage boys into his living room once a week, and he had a Bible study with them. I wasn't saved at that point, I don't think, but I loved going to that man's house because I knew he was loving us. I knew he cared about us. How did I know he cared about us? Well, he bought us a 24-pack of Mountain Dew every time we went there. He knew us by name. He asked us how we were doing. And he opened the scriptures, and he taught us every week. I don't remember a lot of what he taught me. I remembered that he loved me. And I'm sure that what he said to me bore more fruit in me than I know in specific. We speak the truth in love. Do the people you speak to know that you love them? If you want to know what this looks like, then you can just turn to 1 Corinthians 13, and you can see what love would look like and try to apply it to how you would speak to one another. truth with patience and kindness, truth without envying, truth without boasting, truth without arrogance, without rudeness, without insisting on its own way, without irritability, without resentment, without rejoicing in wrongdoing, without looking to your own interests. This is the way your speech should happen. And when this happens, guess what happens with it? Maturity. Maturity happens. Maybe not right away, maybe not instantaneously, but you or us collectively speaking truth to one another in love will build each other up. It will help us grow. It will help us flee from the lies of the enemy. And so a key component of maturity in the church has to be us opening our mouths and speaking truth to one another in love. That's the first method that Christ gives to us for how we are to mature. The second one is that every part of the church is to be connected to each other and working properly. Verse 16 says, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Practically how maturity is going to happen is by the church being together, connected together, every part working how it ought to be. And maturing will happen as a result. The image of a body is just a wonderful picture for the Christian life. all of us kind of connected together. As soon as one part of the body is amputated, that part that was amputated dies and the rest of the body seizes the benefit from that part. So when one part of the body kind of removes itself from the rest of the body, That part is going to die that was removed, and the rest of the body is going to no longer experience the benefit of that part of the body that was there. We are all to be connected together, held together. The language Paul uses, saying that we're joined and held together, again, is an image really not of biology, but of masonry. Saying that each one of us is like a stone shaped carefully by a mason to fit together in a stone wall so that each stone kind of overlaps just so to build a solid structure, interconnected so well. That is to be the body of Christ. Christ having made it so that he has all the parts of the body that he wants and puts them into the local body of the church. And in that case, each part has its function. And when each part is working properly, then the whole body will thrive and mature. When that happens, the body grows. You can think of your own body, Think about your lungs wanting to draw air. And think about taking your hands and putting them over your nose and your mouth, closing where you have access to air. Your lungs can try to breathe in as deep as they want, but as long as that access to the oxygen is held off, those lungs can't do what they need to do. If the hands are fighting against the lungs, then the body will not work together. We need to be interconnected, each part doing what it needs to do, And when that happens, then the body will grow. The way that I envision that happening is kind of easy to see already in the way Christ has built this church. Take this morning, for example. We have people who are serving in the kitchen, preparing refreshments for us afterwards, so that there can be a time of fellowship where it is enabled that we can speak the truth and love to one another. Each part doing what it needs to do. Some preparing food. Some of you should prepare in your own hearts so that you are ready to speak as needed to one another so you can say the right thing at the right moment. Maybe even praying, God help me to say the right thing to a brother or sister today. Just the right word, spoken in love. Even right now, we have some ladies in the nursery watching young children in our church so the moms can be here and be edified. What a wonderful picture of each part working properly. Moms soaking in the truth so that they can be back in action, caring for their children. Others serving in the nursery so moms can receive that benefit. After the service, we have a VBS meeting with a host of volunteers getting ready to serve children of our church and children of the community to make the gospel known. What a beautiful picture again. Not everybody needs to do this, but some do. Those who have signed up feel it is the Lord's will that they would do this. Working properly so we can have this ministry. Others doing other ministry. These people doing this ministry. We have people all the time in the church praying for one another. Sometimes you don't even know that it's happening. Probably most of the time you don't even know that it's happening and they're praying for you. People making phone calls and sending text messages with encouraging scriptures or prayer requests, bearing one another burdens. There's confession of sin happening, there's exhortation happening, at least there should be. And this is all the parts of the body doing what they need to do, being interconnected, not in isolation. And the end result is that we all together are growing together into the likeness of Christ. Some of you may be feeling a bit convicted, thinking, I'm not really connected. I'm not really meshed in as a body is to be linked together. I've isolated myself. I've removed myself. We all know the excuses for why we can do this. You could say I'm too busy. Got other things going on in my life. I don't have time to get together with these people. I don't have time to pray for the others. Maybe you think you're too good. Kind of a self-righteousness that prevails. I don't want to spend time with those people. It's just kind of uncomfortable for me. They're not my kind of people. So you stay away. Could be that you're too scared. You know that you're a sinner and you don't measure up. Letting other people into your life is a vulnerable thing to do. You may actually have to change some part of your life if somebody actually gets to know you, what's going on in your life. You may have to speak the truth to somebody else when you see them sinning and then you have to consider whether you're living by that truth yourself. So you may be scared. You may feel like you can hold it together for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. People won't get to know you too much in that time period. But any more than those few hours, then the makeup will air off, and people might see your blemishes. And so you hold back, you kind of withdraw. Or you may be too worldly. You have worldly expectations for what your relationship should look like in the church. You feel like you have to have the right house, the right yard, the right car. All of your dishes have to be done all of the time before you have anyone over. Or if you go to somebody's house, all you can see is all the way their house is better than yours, or it's not as good as yours. And you've taken on the better homes and garden mentality for your Christian life. And you've let it impede you from true fellowship with one another. In order to mature as a church, we all have to be connected. And when we're connected, we have to at least have enough opportunity to speak the truth to one another. In order for the truth to be effective, it has to be given in love. This is why Paul says, after all of this, in verse 16, that it all makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This is the atmosphere the church needs to live in. If you've been withdrawing or holding yourself back, you're missing out. You're missing out. But not only are you missing out, but we're missing out as well. We need you. And you need us. We need to be together. It is God's means of sanctifying us, and Christ deserves to have a sanctified people. He's worthy of it. Give yourself to one another, speaking the truth in love, growing up in every way into Him who is the head. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, first of all, that you have rescued us from the condemnation that our sin deserves. We thank you that you have given us Christ in the Holy Spirit. You've given us even one another here in the church. I thank you, Father, for the wonderful relationships that you have built in many in the church. Lord, what a blessing it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity. And I thank you for how that has been experienced in such a great degree here. Don't take it for granted, Lord. It's a gift from you. I pray that it would continue. Father, I pray that you would humble each one of us to yield our lives for the good of others and for your glory. Wherever it is, Father, that we are not engaged with one another or not working properly as we ought, I pray that you would show that to us. and give us the grace and the strength so that we would follow Christ, be like Him, and maturing together. We thank you, Father, for the patience you have with us, for we are a weak and frail people. Oh, Lord, we thank you that you are a merciful God. Oh, continue to have mercy on us and continue to sanctify us. Oh, Lord, you are worthy of a people that are sanctified. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.