There is no substitute for the preaching and teaching of God's Word. Each weekday on Enjoying the Journey, Scott Pauley leads us in a brief study of Scripture. Today on the Weekend Pulpit, we are happy to share a full-length Bible message given through Scott's pulpit ministry. These messages were recorded live in a local church or gospel event in recent days. It is our prayer that the message will be a help to you today. Amen. Let's open the Word of God, would you please, to the book of Ephesians again. We've been in Ephesians all week long. What a rich, wonderful book it is, this book of fullness. We have seen the fullness of time. We're living in time, but very soon time's going to fill up and Jesus is coming back. That's in the Word of God. We have seen the fullness of Christ, the fullness of God, and the fullness of the Spirit. You almost get the idea the Lord's trying to tell us something, don't you? When God created the world, the Bible says that the earth was without form and anybody remember the next word? Void. It was empty. Would you like to guess who filled it? God filled it. When sinners come to Jesus, you know how they come? They come absolutely empty. Absolutely at the end of themselves. And they say, Lord, I got nothing. And you know what the Lord does? The Lord fills them. The Creator makes a new creation. The God of the Bible is the God of fullness, and God designed it so that every individual Christian and every church collectively could know all the fullness of God. How many of you would like your church to know the fullness of God? Look, I don't want to get to heaven someday and discover that I missed so many things God had for me. Now, I'm sure that's going to happen for all of us in a measure because of our unbelief and disobedience. But I would honestly hate to think I lived my whole life and enjoyed just a little bit of the salvation God gave me when the Lord had so much more for me to discover and enjoy. I'd hate to think that I got to heaven and gave an account to the Lord and discovered that God had so much more for me, not there but here, and I missed it all because I was willing to live empty. Most Christians are living such substandard Christianity so far below the divine provision and the divine expectancy. They're like the prodigal that says the father's got bread, never to spare the house, but I'm content just to live down here on this, on this little scraps. I want you to know God doesn't want you to live and die empty. God wants you to live and die full. And the Lord wants his church to be a full church. So tonight we turn our attention to Ephesians chapter four. And if you'll permit me, I'm going to read a little lengthy portion of scripture without making any comment at all. And I'm going to read it slowly so that you can think on these things. And I want you to follow along as I read beginning in verse number one of Ephesians four. Paul writes, I, therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all loneliness and meekness with long suffering for bearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. But then to 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 under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. 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 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 in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. As I read these verses, two things immediately, immediately jump out at me. The first is that this passage shows us that God always has more for His people. I'm convinced there's a whole bunch of people. They get saved, they get baptized, they become members of churches like this church, and they come even with regularity and carry Bibles and go through the motions, but they are living so far short of the fullness that God intended for them. God, I say again, always has more for His people. The other thing that impressed me in this passage of scripture is that he not only has more for his people, he has more for every one of his people. Earlier today, I had the privilege of preaching to a great group of preachers, and I love preachers. I am a preacher, and I thank God for your faithful pastor and the men that are laboring here alongside him. But I just want to tell you tonight, what I'm about to show you from the Word of God is not just for the preachers, it's for all of God's people. See, the reality is the Lord does give pastors and teachers and evangelists and all of that that's listed in the passage, but don't miss the broader picture. It's not about them. It is what God is doing through them in the lives of every one of His children so that then the church can know all the fullness of God. Now before we walk through the passage, turn back a page in your Bible and look at chapter one again with me, because this is where we started our meeting. So let's go full circle back to where we started. Look at verse number 23 with new eyes now. This is the fullness of Christ, but look how it ends, which is his, what's that next word, church? What is the body of Christ? Maybe the better way to ask that is, who is the body of Christ? That's exactly right. How many saved people are here tonight? Raise your hand, would you please? You know you're saved? Hold it up just a minute, big and high. You know you're saved? You're glad you're saved? All right. You are the body, a part of the body of Christ. He's the head, we're members of the body. Some members more visible than others, some members more respected perhaps than others, but every member is vital to the health of the body and every member subject to the head of the body, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. If my arm just arbitrarily started doing its own thing, you'd say something's wrong here. If I'm standing up here preaching and all of a sudden my leg just starts shaking, you say, what's wrong with that preacher? The head controls the body. Christ is working in and through his local church. And this is, there's a lot of doctrine in verse number 23. That's one of the shortest verses in the whole book. It's full of truth. Look at it, please. The fullness of Christ is seen in this world through his church. An empty world will never know a full Christ unless they see Him in us. God, this is amazing. This is the miracle of grace. This is the wisdom of our Lord. I wouldn't have designed it this way. I'm not God and you're not God either, but God designed it this way. God made it so that His fullness is revealed in this world through what He is doing in the local New Testament church. That is why I have a deeper conviction than I ever have in my life that the Lord's church is so very important and every one of us ought to be giving more attention to it. Look, if it was important enough for Jesus to die for, don't you think maybe we ought to connect our life to it? And yet, people view church and their part in it so haphazardly, so flippantly, they can take it or leave it. If it's convenient, I'll come. What's in it for me? I want you to know, when we get to heaven and meet the head, we're going to be ashamed that we gave so little attention to what he wanted in his body. And so tonight, we come to the fullness of the church. The fullness of Christ and the fullness of God and the fullness of the Holy Spirit is to be seen in the fullness of the church, the Lord's billboard in this world. And let's just get this out of the way before I show you what it is. Let me tell you what it isn't. I'm not talking tonight about a building full of people. It's a great crowd on Tuesday night and a weeknight in the summer. This is pretty amazing, really. And I love to go in places and see the place full of people. But frankly, I've been in some full buildings where there was a whole lot of emptiness. So I'm not talking about how many people we get in the building. I'll remind you that even the devil knows how to get a crowd. I'm not talking about a full slate of events. Somebody said, oh, our calendar is so full, preacher. Well, you can be busy and not be right with God. So just because you're going night and day doesn't mean you're spiritual. I'm not talking about how big the church is, and I'm not talking about how busy the church is. How many of you know we're the body? Remember, we're the body? How many of you know that if a body is big and busy, that doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy? Amen to that? So just because there's a lot of people, or there's a lot going on, or the bank account is full, or the idea tank is full, or the programs are full for every age group, doesn't mean that the fullness of the Lord is being seen in that local New Testament church. My pastor used to say this, that the greatness of any church is measured by one thing. It's likeness to Jesus Christ. Can I tell you what's great about any church? Jesus in that church. You know, your location is second to none. I drive by on this interstate and see that giant cross out there and the signage and all that. It's wonderful. But I want you to know this church is not great because it has a great building in a great location. No, no, that's not what makes this church great. This church is not even great because you got nice, sweet people that come, though you have a lot of them. It's not great just because you got a long-tenured, faithful pastor who gives the Bible every week. That's great, but that doesn't make the church great. The greatness of any church must be measured by this. Can others see Christ in this church? So go back with me to Ephesians chapter number 4 and mark at the end of verse number 10 that he might fill all things. That's the purpose statement. That's Christ's mission and work right now in us. And then mark the last phrase of verse 13 and connect the two in your Bible and in your thinking. Here's our goal. If his mission is to fill all things, our goal is that we would grow under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Oh, I want the Lord's fullness in my life. I want all that God has for me. Is this a healthy church? Only the Lord really knows the answer to that question. And maybe the pastor would know as well as anybody, but is this a healthy church? Is your church a healthy church? I asked a young pastor today on the phone. He called me about some things and was asking about some things and working through things. There's always stuff to be worked through. And I said to him at one pause in the conversation, I said, would you say the church is healthy? And he paused for a moment. He said, I need to think on that a little bit. He said, I don't know if I ever thought of it quite that way. We better be thinking of it that way. If the body is a living, breathing organism, how many of you think health matters? It's not an organization. This is an organism. As a matter of fact, the only way you can organize an organism is dissect it and that kills it. So just because you organize the thing doesn't mean God's in the thing. Look, please, when the Lord fills his people, you will know it. You can't work that up. You can't reproduce it in any other way. It is God working in and through his local church. So what does that look like? Look with me in Ephesians chapter 4, let's walk through it, and I'll give you five things I want you to write down tonight in the margin of your Bible. Number one, look at verse number one. It begins this way, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called." This is fascinating to me. He's reminding them who they are and whose they are. And for the record, look where he's writing from. He's writing from jail. Can you hear the clang? Can you hear the clang of the chains? He says, he says, I'm the prisoner of the Lord. I love that. Every time I read that, I just smile. Because he was the prisoner of Nero, but he wasn't really the prisoner of Nero. He was saying, Nero's nothing. I'm here for the Lord's glory. Nero's not holding me here. God's holding me here. If God wants me here, I'll be here. If God wants me somewhere else, I'll be somewhere else. We're the Lord's prisoners and we're the Lord's servants. It's not about us. It's all about the Lord. Don't you ever forget who you are and whose you are, because that's the foundation of everything we're going to see in a full church. Now, keep reading. Look at verse two. With, don't miss the with. with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." Here's the first mark. Would you write it down? Here's the first great mark of a full church. You'll know the church is a full church first when it is marked by a fullness of humility. Truth of the matter is, most of us are so full of us, we can't be full of God. And as long as we're full of our pride and our arrogance and our self-will, we are not a full church. No, we're the opposite of that. Do you know the most dangerous and deceptive and destructive pride is religious pride? It knows all the Bible answers, you see. It's heard it all before. It knows that already. It's done that before. Do you know the group in the church it's most dangerous in? those of us who've been saved a long time. I see a dear one here tonight who trusted Jesus as her Savior on Sunday, and I'm glad to see her here. That's very encouraging to me. I love being around new Christians. Any of you enjoy being around new Christians? I love it. I mean, to me, it's my favorite group. It really is. Because there is a beautiful simplicity and humility in a new believer that just says I'm wide open to God Lord you show me and I'll do whatever you want me to do but something happens after a few decades of knowing Jesus if we're not careful we become professional Christians and suddenly we are so full of what we already know and what we've already done we are not open to let God do in us now what the Lord wants to do in us now And so when you come to verse number two, he begins here with humility. And notice, it's never manward first, it's always Godward first. We're not talking about just being humble towards each other. We're talking about submitting yourself to the Lord. Look at his description. He begins this way, with all lowliness. Look, why would a man be lowly? Not beaten down by circumstances, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about willingly submitting himself to the High One, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Do you know why God cannot bless most churches? It's not because they haven't gotten big enough. It's not because they haven't gone high enough. It's because they have never gotten low enough. You let a group of people get low before the Lord. Oh, I love this. See, the Lord's way is opposite of the world's way. The lower you go, the higher he lifts you. You know why that is? Because God is near the humble and the contrite heart. And as we lower ourselves before God, the Lord smiles on that with all of us. Look at it again, and meekness, this gentle way, this willingness to be taught, this willingness to submit. Why should we be lowly before others? Because God is the only high one. Why should we be meek in our dealings with one another? Because the Lord has been so patient and gracious to all of us. And then this word, look at it in verse number two with longsuffering. That is a word that doesn't get used much anymore. Somebody says, what's that word mean? Chop it in half and flip it around. Longsuffering means suffers long. You ever think about how much God puts up with from us? I want you to just chew on that a second. You ever think about how much God has suffered because of your sin? That's fascinating to me. To think, even Christian people, what the Lord puts up with from us. Look, friend, you better be glad I'm not God, and I'm real glad you're not God. We'd squash each other like bugs every day. But our God is so long-suffering. Isn't it funny that we can't put up with people because they annoy us and aggravate us and agitate us, and we just can't put up with people, and yet God puts up with sinners like us? Look at the end of that verse, forbearing one another in love. You know the word forbearing means put up with each other. love one another. There's a beautiful humility here that is the image of Jesus Christ. Who was our Lord? He was the one who descended first, who came low for us. Who is our Lord? He is the one known by the meekness and the gentleness of Jesus Christ. Who is our Lord? He is the one that when he was smoked and when he was spit upon, did not even answer a word and didn't make no defense for himself. He suffered through all of that. Why? Because of the humility of Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not raw to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man. And being made in the likeness of man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. There's only one way to humble yourself. You've got to die. You've got to die to what you want and what you think. And this is the amazing thing. When you begin to humble yourself before God and before man, the Lord stamps, this is wonderful, He stamps the beauty of Jesus on your life. Can't explain it any other way. The fullness of Christ is growing in you. Somebody's gonna grow. It's either gonna be you or it's gonna be Him. And I gotta tell you, I wanna be more like Jesus than like Scott. And so the fullness of the church first is marked by the fullness of humility. There's a second mark. Look at verse, beginning in verse number three. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. in the bond of peace. Would you write down, it's full of humility and then it's full of unity. And only the Lord can do this. Only God can do this. And by the way, I did not say uniformity. We are not all the same. How many of you are glad we're not all the same? The Lord made us different, yes? Everybody turn and look at somebody around you. You're not allowed to look at me. Turn and look at somebody around you. How many of you think you're sitting next to somebody that's a little different than you, yes? How many of you think they're a lot different than you? Anybody? I could get you in real trouble now, right? We're different. That's good. That's not bad. This is the miracle and the mystery of the church that the Lord can take people who are so very different and bring them all together. You think about the first church, the first church made up of that original 12 disciples. And Jesus was the first pastor because he was the shepherd of that original flock. Do you know that in the first church to hold on to your seat, he called a tax collector named Matthew to be part of the first church. and a guy named Simon who was a zealot. Do you know those two guys would have hated one another? Like literally hated one another. Simon was a part of the zealots. You know what they wanted to do? They wanted to take up arms, pull a sword, and kill all the Romans and overthrow the Roman government. You know who Matthew is? Matthew is a sellout to the Roman government that the Jewish people would have hated because he was skimming off the top. He was taking a little tax money for himself on the side. By all natural standards, Simon and Matthew would never have gotten along. And yet, they didn't just get along. They spent three and a half years together, and they labored together for the cause of Christ. Can I tell you? Only Jesus can do that, my friend. You say, well, where does this unity come? Well, I'm glad you asked. Keep reading. It is the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We don't make each other think the same. We don't all think the same. Pastor, does everybody in this church think the same all the time? Heavens no. Somebody said, how do you get everybody to agree over there? You ready for it? You don't. But I'm going to tell you what spiritual people do. You ready? Spiritual people said, we may not always agree, but let's do this. Let's all agree that whatever the Lord wants, we'll agree with him. It's sweet, people. It's peaceful. I see churches ripped apart, dividing and fussing and fighting and feuding over stuff that doesn't matter. We're going to be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ when we kneel at the nail-pierced feet of the Son of God and we fussed and criticized over a whole bunch of nothing while billions of souls went to hell. We missed the whole thing Jesus left us here for. I'll tell you what we need. We need some churches who have the bond of peace, not just your name on the membership roll, not just we sit down the pew from one another. People leave churches. They probably never leave this church, but people leave churches and go out the back door fussing over a bunch of nonsense. I want to tell you something. Some of us need to get our eyes back on eternity. Remember who we are and whose we are and where we're going, because very soon every member of the body is getting ready to meet the head and give an answer to Almighty God. And the full church is a church full of unity, full of unity, that only the Holy Spirit can give. Keep reading. Look at verse number four. See if you notice a common word, all right? See if you find the key word. There is one body and one spirit, even as you're called in, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Anybody want to guess the word? One, boy this is a smart class, very good. One, you understand Satan divides, God brings together. Sin disrupts, the Lord brings together. It's interesting, isn't it? In Scripture, the double mind is always bad. No, no, we need one mind, a single mind. Isn't that interesting? A single eye, a single heart. Why is that? Because the Lord is all bringing us back to what truly matters. Our oneness is found only in the Lord. By the way, there's seven ones there. You know what that is? That's a picture of perfect oneness among the people of God. Somebody said that most churches are more like goat pens than they are sheep folds because everybody's always butting heads all the time. Friends, it ought not be that way. The world, look, I know no church is perfect and I know sometimes there's disagreements and in the church you got to work through that kind of thing. People are people, so just get used to it. People say, I don't go to church anymore, they're a bunch of hypocrites. We're all a bunch of hypocrites. The reality is not a single one of us is perfect and always thinks right and says right and does right, but we're sinners saved by the grace of God and we're part of the greatest thing on planet earth called the local New Testament church. Let's get over the junk and determined by the grace of God and for the glory of God, we're going to be a people of unity. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in the community looked at a local church and said, I'll tell you one thing, those people are all different over there, but they got something that we need. In a world of war and strife and contention where nobody can get along anymore and social media is full of it, wouldn't it be great if we were a good advertisement of the oneness of our great God? Think of this, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in unbroken union and communion from eternity past, the God who is one God wants us to be one in Him. This is the unity of the full church. Write this phrase down, would you please? We must remember what we have in common in Christ. Maybe you don't have much in common in some other ways, but we must remember who we are in Christ, we're children of God, and we must remember what we have in common in Christ. And I love the fact in verse six, he takes us back to this fatherhood of God. How many dads and moms are here tonight? Dads and moms? How many of you dads and moms like it when your kids get along? Can I testify as a dad tonight with none of my kids here? Nothing aggravates me anymore than when the kids are fussing and fighting at each other. You know why that is? Because there's something in a father's heart that wants the children just to get along. Let me ask you a question. If we earthly fathers think that way, don't you think the heavenly father sure would smile if his children could stop tearing each other down and instead start pulling for one another? Don't you think maybe the heavenly father would be pleased if his children could just get along? Keep reading, look at verse number six. He said, that our God is above all and through all and in you all. Boy, I love that. That's like him saying, of him, through him, and to him are all things. Look at that. He's above all, he's through all, and he's in you all. Look down at verse number 13. Till we all come in the, here it is again, 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. If you know Christ and I know Christ, we have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us. Now, I'm not trying to sound spooky or mystical, but I travel every week, and it's always fascinating to me when I can go to places where I've never been before and I meet people that I've never met before in my life. And in a matter of a few moments, the witness of the Holy Spirit between us is so strong, I feel like they're family members. Do you know why that is? Because we are family members. The Holy Spirit in you And the Holy Spirit in me, one spirit, is what ties us together. So look, all this talk about equality. Friend, there is nothing more equal in this world than the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and what God does in saved sinners. We're all just a bunch of sinners. I don't care what your background is. I don't care what color you are. I don't care what language you speak. We're all just a bunch of sinners. We all need the mercy of Jesus. We all get saved the same way, and we all get brought into God's great family. This is the unity of the church. There's a third mark. Look at verse number seven. He said, unto every one of us. Does your Bible say every one of us? Yes or no? Hmm. Every one of us. Mark that in your Bible. Every one of us. is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Would you write this down? The full church is not only full of humility, not only full of unity, it is also full of ministry. Some say, oh, you're talking about the preacher. No, no, no. That's why I just had you mark in verse 7 every one of us. Because the emphasis of this passage is not on the full-time minister, meaning the man who may lead in the congregation, but rather on the ministry, to borrow Paul's Holy Spirit-inspired phrase, of every one of us. God gives grace to every one of us, and God doesn't give you grace to keep, God gives you grace to serve. God says here in verse number seven, it is the gift of Christ. I love, I wish I had time to show you verse eight, nine, and ten. This is a beautiful passage about the ascension of Christ. And I hear people talking about this passage and debating about him leading captivity captive. I personally believe he took those from Abraham's bosom back to heaven with him. And I think I could show you that in scripture. But don't miss the point of the passage. Some people get so detoured talking about what all happened that we're not quite sure about. Let me tell you what I am sure about. When the Lord went back to heaven and sent his Holy Spirit to live inside every believer, he gave every one of us some spirit gift, spiritual gift, that we're to use for the edifying of the entire church. You know why a lot of churches aren't healthy? Because only a handful of members are working. You can tell a great deal about the health of a church by the volunteer spirit in that church. When a handful of people have to do everything and people become, excuse me, spectators instead of participants and sit on church pews and warm the building but never put their hand to the plow and never want to serve to get the gospel out and try to encourage somebody and help the work of the Lord move forward, then we're not healthy like we ought to be. Because the full church must be full of ministry. So let me just ask you, I'm going to meddle tonight on the last night. I'm just going to ask you, what's your ministry? What is your ministry? What are you doing in this church to help this church move forward? What are you doing to help get the gospel to the tri-cities right now? Is there anything, anything right now, you say, that's my thing, the Lord led me to that, the Holy Spirit prompted me in that, and I'm obeying God, and this is what I'm doing. Are you open to let God use you? Because if you're not, I just want you to know, you're one of the members that the body's having to drag around all the time, and no wonder we can't stay healthy and move forward if all the members aren't working together this way. The full church is full of ministry. I gotta show you this. Everybody hold your place here just a second, okay? Did you know this is an exact quote from Psalm 68? I love the Bible. I do. I love the Bible. Go to Psalm 68 with me just a second. I saw this today and started laughing and then started praising God for it. Look at Psalm 68. This was prophesied, and it's fulfilled in the church, the fullness of Christ in the church. Look at Psalm 68, verse number 18. See if it sounds familiar. Thou hast ascended on high. Tell me, who ascended on high? Jesus ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity captive. Who did that? Jesus did that. Thou hast received gifts for men. Oh, Jesus did that for us. And here's the phrase that caught me today. Yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Brother Sanders and I were talking about this earlier. You know one thing I've observed through the years? That very often God takes the worst people, at least by human standards, and does the best things with them. God takes the worst sinners and somehow uses them to accomplish more for his glory and honor. Look at that verse. Yay! I like that positive word. Yay! For the rebellious also. Any other rebellious people here tonight? Let's just take a survey. Any rebellious people? There's no rebellious people. Just a handful of you here tonight. Well, let me tell you about me. I got a rebel heart. Oh, sure I do. You say, you're a preacher. You're an evangelist. It doesn't matter. I got a rebel heart. I want my way when I want it, how I want it. And you know what the Lord has done by His grace? The Lord has touched this old rebel's heart and put things in me because He wants even to use rebels and sinners who finally yield to Him to accomplish His purpose in this world. Aren't you glad God loves rebels? Aren't you glad that the grace of God reaches to the rebellious also? And I love this. He doesn't just take your sin away. He puts the gifts of God inside of you. People say, well, I'm saved now, not going to hell. Well, praise God. But what does the Lord put in you? When the Holy Spirit moved in you, he brought his own furniture with him. So how has he furnished you? What has he put in you? I think it's tragic that some people are going to live and die and even sit in church every Sunday and never discover how God made them. Never discover the gift that God put inside of them and how it can be exercised and how it can be used. I'm telling you that the church is only really a full church when it is full of God's people engaged in ministry like the Lord intended. Go back with me to our passage quickly in Ephesians chapter 4. In verse number seven, he gives gifts to every Christian. In verse number 11, he gives gifts to the church, and he names some of them here. The apostles and prophets are first, because we're built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. We find another passage. And then evangelists, that's the work God's given me to do, concentrating on gospel work and trying to get people saved. Somebody said, all right, tonight, is revival meeting. We've got a bunch of saved people here. And how's the evangelist operating tonight for the gospel? And let me answer that question for you. Because I'm convinced that an awakened church will evangelize the world, that there's a direct link between revival and the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm convinced of this, that when the Lord's people really get thoroughly right with God, nobody have to pump you up and prime you up to testify about Jesus and bring people to Christ. You will want to do it because you can't help yourself. And evangelism isn't just done when the evangelist is in town or the evangelist is in the pulpit. If everything reproduces after its own kind, then when the evangelist leave, there shouldn't just be new Christians here. There ought to be new witnesses here because every one of us should find our place in getting the gospel to this lost world. and then you got pastors and teachers and let me just pause and say you got a faithful pastor in this place who teaches the Bible he stayed by the stuff I admire him as much as anybody that I know you ought to hold his hands up every day in prayer and pray a hedge around he and his wife and just ask God to keep giving him strength to do the work God has given them to do I wish I could tell you, but I've talked to so many preachers today, not in our preacher's fellowship, not today, here. I've talked to preachers. When I woke up this morning, I had messages from preachers. All afternoon, I've been on the phone with preachers. I've never heard from so many preachers who are having such a hard time in the battle right now, and the devil is attacking. You know what we need? We need some of God's people to say, I may not be able to do the preaching, but I can do the praying. I'll hold the ropes and be one of the intercessors in that local church. Look, friend, if you can't do anything else, you can pray, and I would say and submit to you that the greatest ministry in any church is the ministry of intercessory prayer, because when we pray, it's not just us working, God goes to work. And you get not what men can do, you get what only God can do. Find your place of prayer and find your place of ministry. Look at verse number 12. Why did he give these people? I used to read this wrong, pastor. I used to think this was like three things I'm supposed to do. Like, I'm supposed to help perfect the saints, and I'm supposed to do the work of the ministry, and I'm supposed to edify the body of Christ. That is incorrect. I started studying out the grammar of that verse, and what I discovered? It's not I do these three things. No, no. My role, and this man's role, and every pastor's role is to do the first thing. That's very interesting. And the first produces the second, and the second produces the third. See, we got this idea that only the clergy do the work of the ministry. That is ridiculous. That's not in the Bible. Every member is to be a minister. Every saint is to be a servant. Look at that verse again. The minister helps to perfect the saints, to mature the saints, so that they can do the work of the ministry. And when the Christians start doing the work of the ministry, look what happens at the end of that verse. The whole body begins to grow and gets edified. We got too many churches just hoping things will get better and the pastor will preach a better sermon next Sunday and the church can move forward. Now I'm sorry, I don't care who the pastor is, no church moves forward on the pastor's good sermons. And no church moves forward on a special meeting where some guy blows through town, preaches a handful of sermons like I am. Churches move forward when every member in that body says, Lord, I want to find my place and do my part. I want you to use me. And when you and I find that place of ministry, suddenly there's fullness in that church. Then there's a fourth mark. The full church is not only full of humility and unity and ministry, but number four, it is full of stability. Lord help us, we need some of this today, don't we? Everybody changing and twisting and turning, the whole world upside down, culture's gone haywire. They call evil good and good evil. Is there anything that's the same? Oh yes, the word of God is the same. So look at the stability of the full church. In verse number 14, that. We henceforth be no more children. Now that's not saying kids are bad. I'll come back and explain that to you in just a moment. And we're still children of God. We just read that. So what could that mean, 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 and wait to deceive. Look, we're living in a world of liars right now. Satan is a liar and the father of it. He's lied from the very beginning. But we're living in a world of lies. You don't even know who you can believe anymore. You know what a world of lies needs right now? A church full of the truth. People who are steadfast in God and settled and secure in what they believe. This is a day, this is a day to know what you believe and why you believe what you believe. And saying what my pastor said is not good enough. Our church beliefs is not good enough. My mom and daddy said is not good enough. No, no. You must know the word of the living God because only truth can cut through all these lies. Only truth and the simplicity of it can cut through this complicated mess that we're living in. So, how do you get that kind of stability? Well, he uses two illustrations. Look at the verse carefully. First, he takes an example from your own home life, your children. There are different words for children in the Bible and in Paul's day. This particular word was a word used for infant children. children that could not speak, that had no vocabulary, because they had not yet come to the place of understanding. You know, they can drool, they can smile, they can eat a little bit, but they can't express anything because their mind is not developed to that point. Oh, this is really important, church. I'm glad we're all children of God. I'm glad you know the Lord is your Savior and God is your Father. But if we could see some Christians like the Lord sees them, I think they'd still have baby rattles in their hands. Do you know God doesn't just want you to be one of his children, God wants you to be one of his mature children. If you see somebody that's 30 or 40 years of age and they can't communicate, then you think something's not exactly the way it ought to be. I want you to know God didn't just want you to get born again, God wanted you to grow after you were born again to the place where you can discern truth and so much so you can explain it to somebody else. Peter said, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. It is not enough to say, come to my church, the preacher will tell you what we believe. We must learn to have the word of God in us so that on the job and at the gas station and at the restaurant and in the supermarket and with our family and talking to the neighbors over the fence, we can speak intelligently and plainly about what God has done in our hearts and what the Bible says. That is stability. And then there's a second illustration. Look at it carefully. He switches from the home to the sea. He uses an example from nature. He said, I don't want you to be tossed to and fro. It's the same phrase that was used for the disciples on the Sea of Galilee when the storm came up. That boat was tossed to and fro. He said, don't miss this, church. The storm is going to come. You can't stop the waves from chopping. You can't stop the rain from falling. You can't stop the wind from blowing. But I'm going to tell you what you can do. You can drop anchor so even in the midst of the storm, you are not blown off course. Oh, I'm praying this. I'm praying right now for a generation of young people to get in the word and let the word get in them. I'm praying for a generation of older saints to get serious about this thing again, of knowing what we believe and passing it on to the next generation. Because in a day when it seems everything is veering off course and people don't know what to believe, the full church will be marked by stability. Brother, sister, why don't you drop some anchors? I said to somebody the other day. They asked me about a certain part of life, and they said, it doesn't seem like you've changed your feeling about that. You haven't changed. A lot of people changed about that, but you haven't changed about that. And I said to them, I want to just tell you early in life, I got some anchors dropped in my heart, and those anchors have kept me from drifting in that area because I'm rooted in something. I'm grounded in something. That's what we need. We we got enough of this shallow sentimentality. We got enough of this feel good religion. What we need are some people that know the truth of the everlasting Word of God. When persecution comes and pressure comes, all this feel-good kind of religion isn't going to hold people up. The stable church, the full church, will be the church that is full of the truth of the Word of God. I'll give you one more and I'll stop. It's full of humility and unity and ministry and stability. And number five, just keeps coming up, doesn't it? It's full of charity. He mentions love in verse number two, but in verse 15 and 16, he elaborates on it. But speaking the truth in, would you mark it? Love. I hear a lot of people right now speaking truth, and I don't think there's any love in what they're saying. It's true, but it's ugly. It's mean-spirited. It ought not be that way. Jesus said, by this, they'll know you're my disciples when you have love one for another. Speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Are you still growing? Are you a growing Christian? I'm not talking about we ate too much and we're growing this way. No, I'm not talking about somebody say, well, I'm up in years now. I'm not growing anymore. I'm shrinking. I heard somebody say that the other day. I'm shrinking. And we're not talking about physical things. As long as you're on this earth spiritually, you're supposed to be growing. So I'm asking you right now, are you still growing? Most people grow more spiritually in the first six months after they get saved than they do the rest of their Christian life combined. You know why that is? Because new Christians so wide open to God, they just start eating it up and soaking it up and obeying God. And then somewhere we find us a comfortable little rut we're going to sit in the rest of our life and we stop growing. How many of you would like to see your church grow? Anybody would like to see your church grow? Then you grow. Because a growing church is a church full of growing Christians. And as they grow and as they go, guess what God does? God builds His church. Look at verse number 16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplied. Mark every joint in verse 16. Go back to verse 7 and mark every one of us and connect the two. Every one of us, every joint supplied. According to the effectual working and the measure of every part, make an increase of the body. unto the edifying of itself in love." Circle love in verse 15 and love in verse 16. Watch the difference. In verse 15, it's love without. It's how we speak. It's how we represent God's truth in this world. In verse 16, it's love within, growing in our hearts and growing in our homes and growing in our lives. Oh, I love this. It's love on the inside and it's love on the outside. D.O. Moody told his church one night, he said, the only way any church can get the blessing, the only way any church can get the blessing is to lay aside all pettiness and party feeling. And he said, when that church is willing to live in the spirit of the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, the great charity chapter of the Bible, he said, I can guarantee you that church will grow and many will be brought to Jesus Christ. Oh, let this church, let your church get a fresh baptism of the love of Almighty God. Let us get saturated again with the love of God, so rich and full, so measureless and high. Oh, let us get a glimpse again of who God is and whose we are. And I tell you, only then will we be the church full of what we ought to be full of. I end as I began, I love the church. I love it. I'm in different local churches every week, I'll be in another local church later this week, and another next, and I love local churches. But I started looking at them different. Because I used to be impressed by certain things, now I'm not impressed at all by those things. You know what impresses me? To look in a church and see the humility of Jesus among the membership. and the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Isn't that like it? I was in a church the other day, and it was like everybody was just serving the Lord. I mean, people didn't just come in, plop down in pews and take in the sermon. Everybody was finding their thing and doing their thing, and I thought, now something's been taught here, and something has been done here. There was ministry there. Oh, I love to see that. I love to come in to a church and see stability. They're just teaching the Bible and memorizing Scripture and teaching the next generation. I love to come around a church like this and sense the charity, the love of God among His people. And here's what I'm convinced of. I'm convinced that the way the world measures the church and the way the Lord measures the church are totally different. Would somebody please tell me how many they ran in Sunday school in Ephesus? Can anybody tell me how many they had on a big day at the church in Colossae? I'm just curious. How about Philippi? I mean, I'm sure they had some big campaigns there. How many do they have in Philippi in their church meetings? We don't know. Would you like to know why? Because that is not the emphasis of the New Testament. That's not how Jesus measures his churches. Do you know how churches must be measured? by the plumb line of the word of God, the measuring rod of truth, watch, and by the image of Jesus. Would anybody look at my life and your life and this church and say, I see Jesus in those people. That man reminds me of Jesus. That woman reminds me of Jesus. Those people, I think they know God. I think that place is full of God. I'm just going to tell you, if a church ever gets full of God, they'll never have to worry about being full of people. They'll be full of people and they'll be full of all the resources they need because the problem is never numbers or money. The problem is that we so often ignore the very one we say we have come to worship. I say that a full church is a church that is full of Christ and full of God and full of the Holy Spirit. And friend, that's the kind of church I want to be a member of. you. If this Bible message has been used of God in your life, or we can pray for you in some definite way, please contact us at enjoyingthejourney.org. We hope you will share the message with others who may also be encouraged by it. For additional full-length Bible messages, please visit Dr. Scott Pauly's YouTube channel. Tomorrow is the Lord's Day, and we want to encourage you to be faithful to attend a Bible-preaching church in your area this Sunday. Thank you for listening to The Weekend Pulpit, and don't miss Enjoying the Journey daily devotional podcast each Monday through Friday.