Ephesians chapter 4 verses 14 through 16. So we're going to zero in on verses 14 through 16 but I want to go back up one more time and read from verse 7 down. Verse 7 through 16 is the section that's the where we're going to get our context from. And we noted several weeks ago that in Ephesians 4, 7 through 16, there's a pretty logical progression. Starting in verse 7, Paul talks about the source of the gifts that we've been given. The source of those gifts are Jesus Christ. The securing of those gifts, those gifts were secured by Christ through the incarnation and through his redemptive work. the nature of the gifts we saw in the preaching and teaching and ministering of God's word. And then what we've been on the last couple of weeks is the purpose of those gifts, and that is the building up of the body of Christ. And so let's read there one last time, starting in verse 7. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. Now, as we zero in on verses 14 through 16, where he talks about not being children, from there down, the title of the message this afternoon is that we are joined together so that we might grow together. You've been joined together to grow together. And we'll see that that's taken straight from the text in a few minutes. So the first part in verse 14, that we henceforth be no more children. The word for children there is a word that really means the inability to speak. And so the picture there is an infant, a newborn baby. And the idea of where Paul is going with this is an immature Christian. Here's the reality, we all start out as immature Christians, right? I mean that's kind of an embarrassing thing to think about and you don't want to admit your immaturities and you don't want to admit sometimes or maybe you think you look at it as a source of shame that you need to grow in particular areas or there are places to where the Lord still has plenty of work to do, but when we are brought into spiritual life, we all start out as spiritual infants, immature Christians that need to grow. And the other reality to that is that there is no fast track to maturity. Okay, so you can't go from being a spiritual infant to being a fully mature Christian in one year of dedicated Bible reading, or one year of dedicated Bible study. Matter of fact, you can't go from being an immature spiritual infant to a fully mature Christian in five years. or 10 years or 15 years. It's going to take your entire life to be brought into maturity, but I don't want to paint the picture as if you're always an infant until you die, but you are being matured. You are moving away from infancy and being matured you live the Christian life and according to our context here as you live amongst and with the church body that you've been placed in okay now verse you know as we jump in here in verse 14 we are you know, we're really piggybacking off of an idea, off of a contrast. So verse 13 says, until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the experiential knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect or a complete man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So, In verse 13, he's really moving toward or hitting the goal of this is our arrival point. This is why Christ gave these gifts unto men. This is why you have these gifts in the church for the perfecting of the saints, so forth and so on, and so that you might attain full maturity verse 13, that you might hit the measure or the standard of the maturity of the fullness of Christ. And then verse 14 kind of contrasts that. So that we are no longer children. We're no longer infants. We're no longer spiritually immature. And what does it look like to be spiritually immature? to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive." Tossed to and fro, just the imagery there is the imagery of a ship, a boat on the water that has absolutely no control. Wherever the winds blow, that's where the boat goes. Wherever the waves take it, that's where the boat goes. There's no steadfastness there. There's no real control there. It's just kind of chaotic. And what Paul does with this picture is he says we should or we are growing to full maturity in Christ, and then the push here is that we would not be children tossed to and fro and carried about. There's another place in Mark 6.55, it talks about the fact that the sick were carried about, that the men were carrying them, and the idea, if we kind of take this phrase here, is a person who is completely helpless in the hands of another. So you think about the picture that Brother Isaac ended off with, or at least close to the end of his message this morning, about the friends who brought their friend to Christ. He was helpless. He was in their hands. Wherever they went is where he went. And where Paul's going with this is that your mind and your heart is the same way. It's going to carry you somewhere. And when we think about moving from spiritual immaturity to spiritual maturity in Christ, the type of growth that needs to take place is that we grow in knowledge and instability in doctrine, carried about with every wind of doctrine. Now, when we think about doctrine, I want to make sure that we don't reduce this down to, that if we could just get settled on the five points, then we would be fine. That's not what Paul has in mind here. The word for doctrine is the word for teaching, and as it applies here, really what Paul's saying is, is that your understanding of reality is not just carried about with every wind. Your understanding of how life works and how God relates to your life is not carried about with every wind of doctrine. What does that mean? Well, number one, it obviously means we need some biblical knowledge, right? In things like, the character of God, the character of man, all of these doctrinal type teachings on prayer. We need things like what Brother Isaac preached this morning. But we don't need them just so that we can recite them when somebody's curious about an encyclopedic knowledge of what the Bible has to say about this or that. So we can sit around and chew the cud and talk about what the Bible says about this, that, or whatever. But it's more in the sense of, brother Davis's song him request this afternoon I'm I'm calling this him out because it has been meaningful for me in times of trial and I hope to be meaningful for you to what's that. That we're not gonna understand everything right now are we. We're not. But we will understand it one day. Right we're not gonna get all the get the ones that we need one day. What will that do for you? Well, just in the general sense, that'll help you know what it means to trust God, right? You don't have to have every answer to every question in order to trust God. That's going to help you navigate trials. And we're just using one little thing here. But when we think about God's character, can I trust God? Is God good? How do I know if God is good? So when we're thinking about not carried about by every wind of doctrine, really what it means is how God relates to me and how I relate to God. How can I connect the dots between what God's doing and what's happening? in my life. Now, there are some really easy ways to bring this sort of principle, what Paul's talking about here as far as maturity versus immaturity, to light in some of the more modern things that the church is wavering on in a lot of ways. And when I say the church, I'm just talking about in general. And one of the most Blatant ones would be the reality, the doctrine behind things like marriage, right? Or homosexuality, those kinds of things. there's a new movie coming out or maybe it's already out I don't know the timeline in it but it's a movie about a boy who struggles with same-sex attraction and his dad's a small church pastor and they send him to this treatment place and you know they end up doing all kinds of bad things to him and this and that to try to get him to not be attracted to the same sex and it doesn't work and And at the end, I don't know who all accepts it, but he ends up being homosexual. And it's just this big push celebration of, well, now we know. That was back in the 90s when folks didn't really understand this stuff. But now we know. Now we know. help it. People are born that way. It's something that happens, you know, biologically to them. It's things that they can or can't change. And I don't want to get too zeroed in on this, but brothers and sisters, there are churches by the droves that are embracing this kind of thing. And the reason they're embracing it is little more than some emotionally charged, cinematic-type presentation of, this is what we know now, okay? This is what we know now. Well, that's what it looks like to be carried about with every wind of doctrine, okay? I'm not settled on what the scripture has to say. And so since I'm not settled, when you come along with something that just rubs me in the right way, I'm there. I'm there. I'll go wherever you lead me. That's called biblical, or maybe I should say spiritual immaturity. It's someone who cannot, primarily someone who cannot think. They cannot interpret reality the way that God interprets reality, who's the one who creates reality, and we could go from there, but you can see what I'm saying. Tossed to and fro. Carried about. Carried about. Why? because of not necessarily, I guess there's two sides of this coin, it's not just what you haven't learned, it's what you're actively embracing, if that makes sense. It's what you're actively pursuing. It's what you're actively saying, yes, this is right. This makes sense. This is what really ties all this stuff together. And brothers and sisters, we live in a culture, I don't have to tell you, that's been long, long, long standing. this craving for discovering truth through some emotional moment, discovering truth through a tearjerker, through chill bumps, through really some dramatic presentation of something. So we don't really talk about Oprah that much, because I'm not even sure that Oprah does anything anymore as far as her show. But that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about. Dr. Field, that kind of thing, where the expert comes in, and the person who's struggling comes in, and the expert makes sense out of what's going on in this person's life. and they do it in a way that just really unfolds the narrative and you can see how the person's hurt and suffered and you feel compassion and you almost, and in a lot of cases it's not almost, you feel guilty if you feel compassion and yet say what they did was wrong at the same time. That's called being tossed about with every wind of doctrine, okay? Is it okay to be compassionate towards someone suffering and yet still condemn sin? Yes, that is okay. That's okay, that should happen. Because the other side of that is just demonizing every struggle that every person's had and holding a perfectionistic type deal, and that's been the other side of that. But Paul says, we are brought together so that we would come to full maturity, and what that means is, is that we would grow, that we would be able to understand, that the teaching that we receive, that the way that we understand reality would be consistent with the scriptures, with what God has laid out as reality. In the spiritual infant, there is no doctrinal stability. It used to be, and in some circles it still is, it used to be kind of a sign or at least kind of displayed or written off as a sign of spiritual maturity because someone was really in tune with what the Lord was doing in their life. Now what that meant was, not necessarily that they had any idea what scripture had to say, And that was kind of a boring deal, but it was the fact that they prayed and they knew how to discern in their feelings, they knew how to discern in the way that the Lord privately got their attention, how he was moving in their life. And that was a real spiritual giant. That falls straight into this kind of category right here. This doctrinal instability to think that maturity, spiritual maturity means that I have a one-on-one with God. And he talks to me in my feelings, emotions, so forth, so on. Matter of fact, when you look at the context here, this is anything but a solo Christian growing in what he has in a solo avenue with God. This is a church body growing together. You're growing in doctrinal stability together. We are. It's not some spiritual plane that you've hit because God has a you know, some kind of a pipeline straight into your emotions to nudge you when you should go this, that, or whatever. Look in 1 Corinthians 13. Starting in verse 11, Paul says, when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now, I just want to go there to set out this principle that whenever we are growing in maturity, then what we are doing is we are putting away childish things. We are putting off, putting away childish thoughts, childish attitudes, childish actions. We're growing in stability. And that ought to be the norm that we expect. Now, you know as well as I do, we have different expectations for different people. So there are some things that David will do. There are some things that Avery will do that are fine. I got tickled. I don't see Michael and them. But they were getting embarrassed Tuesday night because every time Isaac would talk, Avery would start walking around. And you could hear his feet trampling. And Michael and Rachel would look at each other. I thought, it's fine, you guys can enjoy the service, but let me get up and do that every time Isaac starts talking. Right? And then what? Pastor call Sunday, right? It's not acceptable. It's not acceptable. There comes a time when that won't be acceptable for him, although it's okay right now. Well, the truth is, There are some ways that we currently think that are childish that need to be replaced, need to be matured. There are some attitudes currently that we have that are childish, spiritually immature attitudes that we need to grow out of. And there are some actions that we currently take that are childish that need to be grown out of. And you know the old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, God's idea is that it takes a church to raise a believer, right? It takes a body to mature the saints, and we mature together. And so really, the first part, as far as it being helpful, is to be able to realize, to be able to admit that we have areas in our life, and maybe even if you can't see them, that we have areas in our life that are still spiritually immature, childish. And so if you can't see them, then maybe you pray, Lord, bless me to be able to see those areas so that I can grow. Look in Colossians 2.8. Colossians chapter 2, verse 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Paul speaking to the Colossians says you need to beware, you need to look out. lest any man spoil you." The word spoil is to carry away. Same kind of idea of being carried about in Ephesians 4. How are they going to do that? Through philosophy and vain deceit? Through the traditions of men? After the rudiments of the world, not after Christ? What does that mean? How are they going to spoil you? Through not just getting you, but enticing you to embrace a reality that is inconsistent with the reality of Jesus Christ. to entice you to embrace something that is completely opposed to what scripture has to say. That's the kind of beware that Paul is giving here. And it's, when Paul talks about this, even in our passage in Ephesians, he talks about this vain deceit, this trickery, this deception. And the reason that he lays it out that way, I think, is because it's so easy to be deceived, isn't it? It really is. It's so easy to be deceived. So many things make so much sense until you're faced with the truth. Look in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Here Paul is talking in terms of spiritual warfare and he says, this is the weapons, these are the weapons that we have. We cast down imaginations, we cast down everything that would exalt itself against the knowledge of Christ. We bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Again, When Paul thinks here about what it means to fight and then by implication what it means to grow in maturity, he's thinking about someone who knows how to think. Someone who's fighting not just a war on the outside, but someone who's fighting with their mind. Someone who is challenging and someone who is learning discernment, the ability to distinguish between truth falsehood, the ability to discern against good and evil, and how is that done? Paul says it goes all the way down to the level of taking captive every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Now that's discipline, isn't it? That's nothing passive about that, is it? How are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? Well, you're going to do that as you grow in your knowledge of the Word. How does that happen? Well, that happens as you're reading it. That happens as you're sitting under the sound of God's word. That happens as you're listening whenever someone gives a praise report or a thanksgiving and they talk about how God used either this passage or God blessed them in this way and you can connect dots to the passages. It happens as you're in conversation with people and you're able to hear about how they were impacted by this or that. It happens as you receive encouragement or as you receive rebuke and you understand how that ties into the scripture. It happens as you interact with God's people and God's word. That's how it happens. It's not that all of a sudden, or that your goal is one of these days, again, that your mind is gonna be a biblical encyclopedia so that you understand every single perfect proof text for every single thought that you have. It's that you've grown in maturity. It's that the way that you think is changing. Now there are times where you are going to have to go and look and dig and see what the scriptures say about this or that, but over time you begin to accumulate that and it becomes part of you and you grow and you are growing in your ability and in your skill to use the scriptures, to recall the scriptures, so forth and so on. And so I don't want to make it some wooden literal deal to where you need to pin a verse on every thought that you have. Someone who has grown in discernment is someone who's not fretting over finding the perfect proof text. It's someone who, through labor in the word, experience, and walking with God and God's people, understands truth because they've walked in it for years. There's a big difference in that. so that we're not tossed to and fro. We mentioned this earlier, by the slight, this is back in Ephesians, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. So the word slight of men, it's just the deception of men. So we're not being deceived. Rather, verse 13, the contrast to that is that we are growing in the knowledge of the Son of God, right? It's not, again, it's not just what's not happening, it's what is happening. Growth and spiritual maturity is not just about what you're not doing, it's about what you are doing. If you're not being deceived, you're growing in the truth. The flip side of that coin is, if you're not growing in the truth, then you're setting yourself up to be deceived. It's not just that you're stagnant one way or stagnant the other. Both are happening at the same time. And so, by the deception of men, by the cunning craftiness, or by the subtlety, the trickery, the cleverly deceptiveness whereby they lie in wait. That is, whereby they plan with the specific purpose of harming, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. We could just look at a passage like that and somebody think, oh, come on. Who in the world is lying in wait to deceive me? Who in the world is out there trying to trick me that's spending any kind of real energy trying to deceive me or harm me or anything like that? Come on, get real. What are you talking about? Look in Acts 20. Verse 29, this is Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders, and he says this, for I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. You see the language that Paul's using there? Grieving wolves are gonna enter in, and what's gonna happen? The flock will not be spared. in the sense that these wolves are out to devour the flock. There's an aggression that's there. Where does that come from? And again, is that even a reality for us today? Well, look in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." Look what Paul says. He's fearful here for the saints. Why? because the serpent that beguiled Eve through his subtlety might, through their minds, corrupt their thinking, corrupt the simplicity that is in Christ. So I go there to point this out. This idea that there's an aggression, that there is a deceptiveness, that there is a, A purposeful trickery, harming. Where does that come from? Well, it comes from Satan. The one who's described as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, right? The one who is at war, not just with you, but the one who is at war with the Lamb of God. And he's at war with you if you're in his kingdom. Ephesians 6 really kind of ties this together at least bring some clarity here and in Ephesians 6 verse 11 It says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wilds of the devil, that you may be able to stand against the schemes, the trickery, that you might be able to stand against the plans of Satan. What does that mean? Well, that means that the things that you're going to be facing, the things that you're going to be fighting against, the things that you're going to be faced with, They're not just on accident. You don't just accidentally stumble upon them. And it's not always just because, and as we think about this, we could remove motives from the man who it may be coming through, but it's not just an error that happens to slip up. Satan will use whatever Satan can use to destroy you if he can, right? Satan will do whatever Satan can do to bring shame to the name of Jesus Christ. And this idea that there's this deception, there's this subtlety, there's this plan, purposeful harming that's out there is not just something that was there for the first century church. It's something that's alive and well today. And it's something that exists, again, in the way that you think about God and the way that you think about life. It's something that occurs within your heart. And if you remember, it's been a while back now, but when we talk about the heart, it has to do with the way that you think. It has to do with the way that you feel, the way that you desire. It has to do with the way that you respond. All these things are working together in those avenues. It's a calculated deception from the father of lies. And he knows just how to deceive me and just how to deceive you. And if we understand that, then we go back to a passage like Ephesians 4, 2 and understand that if we're not walking in humility, we are fair game for being deceived. You realize that all you need to do to deceive somebody is play on their pride, right? I heard someone say about con artists that the only kind of people that can be conned are people who are needy and people who are greedy. You find somebody who's not needy and greedy, and chances are you can't con them. Well, brothers and sisters, we have all kinds of areas in our life where we're needy and greedy, and Satan knows just where to hit us. That has to do with a lack of humility. I need more, right? So as we are in the body, he says, you are here to outgrow that. You are here to grow in maturity and move beyond that. How is that gonna happen? And I'm not gonna preach this, I'm just gonna read it and then we'll come back and preach it next time. Rather than being tossed about every wind of doctrine, we are speaking the truth in love to each other. Literally in the Greek, it reads this way, but truthing in love, but truthing in love, speaking truth, ministering truth in love to one another that we may grow up into him in all things. That's, we're not done with the verse, but that's an amazing thought, that we have the opportunity as we gather together, as we live together, as we grow in our relationships together, that we have the opportunity to speak the truth in love and that the result might be that we would grow up into Christ in all things. Being part of the church is a tremendous, tremendous responsibility and it's a tremendous, tremendous blessing, isn't it? And I just want to leave it at that and we'll come back and I don't want to rush through this next part because we won't do it justice. Thank you for listening to this message. Our prayer is that you've been blessed by the messages and the daily devotional blog on Sermon Audio from Ripley Primitive Baptist Church. We would love the opportunity to be of greater service to you and your walk with Christ. In other words, we would like to get to know you better. Do you have need of counsel, of a home church, or can we just pray for you? Please feel free to contact us by phone at 662 837-8590 or visit our website at www.ripleypbc.com