SPEAKER_00 0:04

Good morning, church. Before we get into the message and scripture reading for today, I have a friend, Grace, who is part of this body here at Point, and she wants to share a word of testimony of what God's been doing in her life. So thank you, Grace, for doing that, being willing to share.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I've had a pretty eventful life. When I was three years old, my father committed suicide. After that, my mom couldn't handle the pain and took it out on us kids. I was raised Catholic and went to church every Sunday, but didn't know the Lord the way I do now. I goofed around with mostly alcohol and a few drugs during my teens, and I finally thought I had my life together when I married the man that witnessed to me about the Lord. But the marriage did not work out. There's actually good news coming up.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

This is all the It's like wow, boom.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Yeah, I know. Once the husband left, God took care of my girls and me. He blessed the girls with numerous scholarships. My relationship with the Lord continued to grow. But now looking back, I did not give the Lord total control of my life. I always thought that I was not worthy, which I'm not, but now I realize that if our Heavenly Father sent his son to die on the cross for us, then he must love me more than I can ever imagine in earthly terms. Then three weeks ago, I got the dreaded C word diagnosis. I was diagnosed, I said I wasn't gonna cry. I was diagnosed with lobular carcinoma breast cancer. I pray to the Lord every day to show me ways that I can glorify him, but being diagnosed with breast cancer wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I've always been an anxious person, I've always worried about the little stuff. I was have always been the person that takes care of everything and everyone else, but I finally felt helpless and knelt down to the Lord in tears of fear and anxiety. I poured out my fears to the Lord like I have never done before, and I suddenly felt a comfort and peace that I cannot explain. And ever since that moment happened, I am still experiencing that peace. The moment I completely surrendered all control to the Lord, the Holy Spirit consumed me. I had remembered reading in the Bible when Jesus went back to heaven after his resurrection, and our Heavenly Father sent His Holy Spirit to be with us, but I never really fully understood that until now. I have shared with many people that I feel as I am truly living life right now, even though I have a long road to recovery. God is showing me things he has never shown me before, but then I got to thinking maybe he has always shown me these things, but I spent too much time worrying about everything under the sun and missed out on his glory. I have never felt so blessed in all my life. I've actually found myself thanking God for allowing me to glorify him during this valley in my life because I know it is for my good and his glory. I am super blessed because my oldest daughter McKinsey is a nurse and my youngest daughter, Kelsey, she's sitting over there, is in her last semester before she becomes a nurse. Furthermore, I've been blessed with the most awesome Christian surgeon and oncologist. But best of all, I have the one and only true physician, our Lord Jesus Christ. I have been even more blessed by finding out that the cancer is not in my lymph nodes, so there's just a lot of blessings. The Sunday after I was diagnosed with cancer, a lady that I had never seen before tapped me on the shoulder after the service and told me that the Lord told her that she must pray for me. I asked her how she knew that I was just diagnosed with breast cancer, and she said she didn't, but that the Lord spoke to her. Supernatural things like this have been happening to me ever since my diagnosis. I told my daughter now this is true living. I just went through the emotions before, but now I'm actually feeling the Lord's presence continuously. In closing, I will continue to fix my eyes on my Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus and not on my situation. I've decided that my number one purpose in life is to glorify God, and if that means having to do that while I battle cancer, then it is well with my soul because I surrender all. And I should be starting chemo this coming week, so if you can please add me to your prayer list, Grace Timmins, I would very much appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Thank you. Yeah, let's take a look. Join me in praying for Grace. Father, just so thankful for this testimony. Um, a reminder to us all of your presence with us, even in the trial and the struggle. Uh my heart is stirred this morning uh just to hear how appropriate her name, Grace, as you have demonstrated your grace to her and through her today. And I thank you, God, that you do not leave us, you do not abandon us in our trials and our struggles, but actually it's through those that we see you even more clearly, we hear your voice more clearly. And I just pray that for anyone in this room today who may be struggling with fear and anxiety and doubt, that God, even through this word of testimony, they be might be reminded that you are near and that you are you are calling us to yourself. I pray that you would just bless Grace as she goes into this treatment, and I pray that you would sustain her body, that you would physically heal her. We ask for that. We want that. We believe you can do that, and we would ask for just an amazing um uh just turn that the doctors and all those involved would just be in awe of your goodness through healing. We would ask for that. We pray that God, if she continues this treatment, if she continues on this path, that you would sustain her also in her spirit to continue to bring you glory and to touch each person along the way, that you would work through her as a conduit of your love and grace to them. And we just pray this all in your strong name, Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Grace. I've asked uh Luis Preciado to read our passage of scripture this morning from Ephesians chapter 4. So if you have your Bible, I encourage you to pull it out. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1 through 16. And Luis actually has been leading our Spanish ministry here. So it's a great opportunity for me to remind you of that and would ask that you continue to pray for Luis as they even met last night in this room, uh, and they are doing a Spanish-speaking ministry. Some of you may or may not be aware, but even as we preach and teach on Sundays, we have translation going on, live translation. There, that's why we have a booth in the back of the room and a team of people who help translate it into Spanish. Um, but Luis is also preaching in Spanish and they're doing worship in Spanish for uh for those who need that and want that, and and uh we're really thankful for him. So, Luis, did you read our passage this morning?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Absolutely. So, yes, like I said, we are in Ephesians 4, and we'll read verses 1 through 16. Therefore, I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of the Messiah's gift. For it says, when he ascended on high, he took prisoners into captivity, he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean, except that he descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with the stature measured by Christ's fullness. Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness and the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ. For him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part. All right, let's bow heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this glorious day that you give us, Father. As your word says, your mercies are new every morning, God. And we accept your mercy and your grace this morning, Father. And I pray, God, as Nick brings the message today, thank God, that it be you, that your Holy Spirit speaks through him as a vessel prepared for you, God, to speak your word, God. May we all receive it by that same Holy Spirit, God, and receive your word. And God, may it edify us and help us to grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And thank you in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Amen. Thanks, Luis. So we are continuing to work through a teaching series on the church. And uh we've said that we are church, that we as the people of God are church. And I want to just give you a quick review for those of you that maybe have not been with us. Um, and one note on this is that during this teaching series, we wanted to be helpful uh to answer questions you may have regarding the church. Um and so I want to call your attention again to the fact that you can text message in your questions uh if you should you have some. Uh, and if you don't, that's no problem. You don't have to make anything up. Uh be kind because uh I have to answer those. Um but at the end of the service, we'll try to answer some of the questions that get brought. And uh so you can text in those questions to this 512-982-9580, and uh Harley will be taking those and then we'll bring them at the end of the message so that we can answer some of them. Okay, we know that being the church is a difficult process, it's a it's a difficult experience because, as I said last week, if you were here, uh church means that people are involved. And it's not so much a question of what is the church, but who is the church, because that's what the Bible teaches us that the church is a community. In fact, to, as I said, review with you, there's a phrase we've been using to sort of describe at a high level, uh summarize what is the church, and here's what we would say the church is the people of God, saved by the power of God, for the purpose of God. Now, we've said this every week of the series because we hope that this is a sticky statement. We hope that it sticks with you and that you're able to use this as you talk about what is the church, and maybe even it'll help you remember uh periodically what is the church. And notice in the definition, it says that it's the people of God. It's not just the building, it's not just the programs, it's not just the religious practices, it's actually the people who compose the church, comprise the church. And so here we are this morning as a group of people who are gathered as the church. Now, we're only one expression of the church, and I use the word expression to mean that we're we're sitting in the room as a local demonstration of how the church works and gathered here, but the church is global. It's all over, and so it's uh what we call the big sea church, the capital sea church, uh is all of the believers all over the world who Jesus has gathered to himself and will ultimately gather to himself one day when he returns. And so we have this group of people, this global group of people, this diverse group of people, followers of Jesus, who've been saved by the gospel. We've been saved, we've been reconciled to God through the work of Jesus. Through Jesus going to the cross, paying the price for our sins by his suffering and his death, and then him going to it to a tomb, to a grave, and then coming out of that grave and being resurrected, and then him sending his Holy Spirit into the life of the believer, which we're going to talk more about in a minute, and then also uh he then is gonna one day come back to get us. And so all of this is part of the good news of the gospel. The good news is that we were sinners, and we just sang about this. Uh, we couldn't save ourselves, but Jesus stepped into our mess, he stepped into the darkness, he stepped into the to earth uh and made himself uh uh of flesh and and walked among us, but he walked sinless, he was perfect, and then he went and suffered and died and then rose again. And so that being said, we are God's people, but we are saved by God's power, not by our own works. Week one, we said we are not saved by works. We're not saved by being good people, we're not saved by being uh you know churchgoers, we're not saved by being good dads or good husbands or or or even pure singles. We're not, we're not, we're not saved by what we do. We're saved by what Christ has done. And we now have a purpose. We actually have a mission, a ministry. And we said that week one uh and week two, we've kind of come back to this, is that we have a ministry of reconciliation. As God has reconciled us to the world, he's made us right with God, he's allowed us to come near and come into his presence. We we couldn't in our sin, but he has washed us clean so we can come into his presence. Now we can go and be ministers of reconciliation, representatives of God. And it's an incredible opportunity that we have in front of us, and we do this again in community. But also, we said last week, as we looked at the book of Acts and we looked at the highlight uh uh description, if you will, of what happened when Peter, who was one of the apostles, preaches the first sermon, the first gospel sermon at Pentecost, and he, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, tells these Jewish people, basically gives them a little bit of a history lesson, and makes the point that you killed the Messiah, and at that point the people that are listening to this sermon, at least 3,000 of them, are cut to the heart, and they say, What should we do? I mean, if we killed the Messiah, what can we do? And Peter says to them, he says, You need to repent, you need to be baptized. And on that day, 3,000 people repented, were baptized, and the church was birthed. And we said last week that you have this picture in Acts chapter 2, even in Acts chapter 4, a little bit of description of this beautiful community of people who were living drastically different than they had been living just a short time before, because they now had a common unity in Christ. They had been rescued by Christ, they had received the salvation and the work of God and the power and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so the church, no matter where you are in the world today, as I said, because the church is global, no matter where you are in the world today, there's three uh ways that the church functions, regardless if it's actually the church. Okay? In order to be the church, there's three things that should be true about it. It should be a place of worship of the one true God, Jesus Christ, right? It should be a place of worship, responding to who God is and what he has done. It should be a place of ministry where we are ministering to one another. We are doing the one another's that uh we listed out last week. 59 of those are in the New Testament, where we love one another, we bear with one another, we forgive one another, uh, we carry one another's burdens. We we do all these things together because that's part of what we do as ministers of reconciliation in community. And thirdly, we witness to the world. So we actually are on a mission. As I said earlier, we have a purpose. We have this mission to make Christ known. That's what he said before he left. He said, Go into all the world, make disciples. He said, Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So hopefully, all of this is review for you. But if you're new today, maybe you'll understand a little bit about how we operate and why we look to the scripture to define church rather than just coming up with our own construct, because God actually is the one who created church. He's the one who instituted it, he's the one who initiated it, and he did that by rescuing individuals first, right? And then calling us into community together as the people of God. So this week is the passage that uh that Luis just read to us from Ephesians chapter 4 is one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament, again, that tells us how the church actually works and specifically how the church becomes a mature church, how it becomes a mature body, how we move from being immature to being mature. And I have to say this on the front end because I hope you know uh the goal in preaching and teaching is not to just offend people. But God's word, when we pick it up, sometimes it offends us. In fact, we don't always like what the word of God says. But here's what the word says to us it says to us that we are all immature in some way. It tells us that we all have areas of growth, right? That's the more modern way to say it because we don't like to talk about weaknesses and struggles. We say, oh, you have growth areas, right? No, I get it. We're in the part of the self-esteem movement, and I grew up in it. But here's the thing: we need to say what it is. We have weaknesses, we have struggles, we have sin, and we rebel against God, and we need help, okay? And we all are immature in some way. In fact, you will see where Paul says in verse 13, which we just read. Did you notice what he what he said there? Um he says, until we all reach unity of faith, I actually want to focus in on verse 14. He says, Then we will no longer be little children. Some translations say infants. We will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness and the techniques of deceit. Now, what's amazing about this to me is that Paul uses we language. If you know anything about the Apostle Paul, I don't know that anyone in this room would accuse Paul of being immature, of being an infant, of being a child. And yet Paul says, we are like children. We can be like infants, right? And I think if Paul's an infant, then we're like, you know, just out of the womb. Right? I mean, let's be honest here. He can, if I compare my life to Paul, I'm like, well, man, I'm super immature compared to him. And he's saying he's an infant. He is young in some ways. But every believer, when you come to Christ, when you come into the kingdom of God, you come in as a baby, right? I mean, even think about this. John 3, when Jesus is talking to Nicos Demos, he says, you must be born again. When you're born again, you don't, you're not born into full maturity. You're born as an infant. It's one of the hard things about people coming to Jesus is that you have to recognize what you don't know. And you've got to recognize where you are immature. And I just want you to know that we as a church body, me as one of the leaders here, we're immature in some ways. We have weaknesses, we have struggles, we have sin. We have places that we need to grow. And we see how this is working itself out, and I'll talk more about that in a minute. Now, Paul tells us what immaturity looks like. First, he says we're infants, and I would just simply say this uh if you know anything about infants or children, by nature, children and infants are selfish. Would you agree? They're self-focused. When you come into the world, especially as a helpless infant, you don't have the ability to see outside of anything other than, you know, I need food. I need my diaper changed, right? And the truth of the matter is that churches sometimes are full of poopy diapers. Okay? Maybe that just gets takes the edge off of it, but there's many infants here. We have a lot of diapers to change because this is, again, an infancy at times, an immaturity at times where there's a lot of mess. And as I said last week, we don't have to run away from that. We just get to acknowledge the truth that church is immature, that we have these these areas of growth. And the fact is, is that we see this come out in self-centeredness. How does self-centered work itself out? Well, I can tell you in my own life it works it out where I only think about myself. I only think about how I'm offended by things. I'm always offended about things. I'm always self-conscious. I mean, if you ever talked to a kid before, you talk about being self-conscious and walking into a room and they're like, well, I wonder what people are thinking about me. And I just remind my kids fairly often, listen, they're not thinking about you, they're thinking about themselves. Right? Because we that's how we are. In our infancy stages in our immaturity, we all think about ourselves by nature. But by God's Spirit, as we grow up, we start to actually think about others. And we're going to talk more about that maturity piece in a minute. But self-centeredness is a mark of immaturity. And let's just be completely honest this morning, all of us are self-centered in some ways. We all want our way, we want it now, we want it in the ways that we want it to be. And this is one of the ways that we have to work through our flesh, work through our immaturities. The other thing that you notice that Paul says is he says that also immaturity looks like not being able to discern good teaching. They're toss about what? Every wind of doctrine. One of the ways that we find we can be immature is not being able to discern what is good teaching and what is bad teaching. And I would say to us that there are many people who are in the church today, and again, I'm talking about even the big C church, not just point, who struggle in our immaturity sometimes to discern, is this of God? Is this biblically sound? Is this focused on the right way or is it not? And at the core of it, I would say this: that all false doctrine points to man and our efforts. All true doctrine points to Jesus and the worship of Jesus. Trusting Jesus, okay? And I would say that many times we teach morality in church more than we teach worship to Jesus and obedience to Jesus. There's a big difference. Did you know that? Being a good person is not the goal of the Christian life. Hopefully, the more you follow Jesus, people would define you as a good person. But obedience to Jesus, following Him, looking more like Him, that's again the goal, and we'll get to that shortly. So not being able to discern good or bad teaching, and believe me, in our culture, with the amount of information and content that's out there, there is a lot of teaching that you are taking in. I know many people who love to listen to podcasts. I know many people who Love to watch television shows with preaching and teaching on it. You need to be very careful what kind of content you're allowing into your mind because it will shape what you believe, which will shape how you live, right? And this is the standard. God's word is the standard. And I know some people can use the Bible inappropriately, but Satan did. Satan used the Bible to try to twist things. So we know that there can be teaching from God's word even that's twisted. I've heard people try to support slavery from the Bible. Like, what are you talking about? So the bottom line is that we need to be very careful. And as in our immaturity, we will find ourselves struggling. But also within that, we see that immaturity looks like not like instability. Immaturity looks like instability. If you see toss back and forth, have you ever noticed how quickly a kid can be distracted? It's one of the ways I actually can get a kid to stop crying. Distract them with something else, right? But they're distracted easily, tossed to and fro. I even think also about the picture of a toddler walking, and we're gonna go to a birthday party this afternoon for my niece who was adopted a year ago and is just turning one, and um, and she's just been recently walking, and it's just funny to watch her walk, right? And we've gone through that sixth time with our kids as they kind of stumble and fumble their way forward. And as an immature uh believer, sometimes we're stumbling and fumbling over ourselves because we're still learning how to walk. We're still learning how to grow and to be mature. But tossed back and forth, easily distracted, not following through, wanting our own way again, and getting distracted by that. Now, here's the thing: we should not be surprised by immaturity. We shouldn't be surprised. In fact, we should note that if you're a human being, if it's in you, it's in everybody else, right? Part of the challenge that I have is that sometimes I'm just a lot more gracious with my own immaturity than others. To be honest, I just give myself a free pass, but not others. And God is growing me in how to be gracious towards others in the same way I want them to demonstrate grace towards me. And that takes God's help. But we should note that the scripture says that no one is righteous, no, not one. We should note that the scripture says that all fall short of the glory of God. And we should note that we're gonna need to work this thing out. But here's the thing: we can't be okay with our immaturity. We can't be okay with it. Um, I know that in the modern era that we live in, there are many people who say, Well, I'm just a sinner and I'm broken and I mess up. The end. As a Christian, that's not the end. A Christian says, I'm a sinner, I struggle with sin, I struggle with flesh, but God. And now I can actually repent, I can actually turn away from those beliefs and those behaviors, and I begin to walk in truth, walk in the light, walk in freedom, walk in joy, walk in what Christ purchased for me. He didn't wait, he didn't say, Hey, you're saved, now do whatever you want until I come back to get you, and then I'll perfect you. He's actually perfecting us now. And the New Testament's full of passages of scripture saying, now we can actually grow up. Now we can mature. We don't have to wait till heaven to start to see the signs of the kingdom at work, to see the Spirit working. That's why we had the Holy Spirit to walk in a new way of life. So we can't be okay with our immaturity. Yes, God does love us right where we are. He is so gracious and merciful. Man, I can't even begin to imagine what he has to feel as he looks down on humanity and sees our immaturity and sees our rebellion and sees our foolishness and sees how we hurt ourselves and how we hurt others. I can't even imagine how he feels because he knows what brings life. He knows what is what he created us for. And he sees us worshiping idols and worshiping ourselves, and he sees all these things, and I know it has to grieve his heart. But he also has offered us a way to grow up. I heard it this week. You know, we're all like eggs. You either hatch or you go bad. Right? We need to grow up, we need to mature. Some of us need to hatch, we need to kind of move forward. We need to make steps forward in progress. We need to stop wallowing in sin. We need to stop just giving ourselves a pass. Well, you know, I'm a wounded person so I can hurt others. I have a free pass in that. I say this as gently and as kindly, like Christ was wounded so that your wounds could be healed. Christ was wounded and nailed to a cross so that you don't have to walk wounded for the rest of your days. He wants to heal you, and this body wants to be a part of that. And we have to work this out together. So, how do we actually mature? How do we actually grow up? Well, Paul gives us some great instruction here, he gives us some great insight, but I want you to know this we will never grow up into maturity apart from the church. And some of you are like, oh man, just be easier if I could just kind of go into a hole, you know, and figure this thing out and work it out. But that's not how God's made us. He's actually made us for community. And I recently heard it said, it's not just that the church brings out the best in us, but it brings out the worst in us. It's being in community with other believers that many times exposes our weaknesses and our failures and our struggles and our sin. It's being in community. And honestly, it would be much easier to do church if we all just kind of kept the friendly wave and the how are you doing? Fine, fine, fine, that whole thing. If we just kept that, we wouldn't have to worry about the mess that we have. But the fact is, is that's not actually being the church. Being the church means we actually get to, should I say get to? I don't know. Um, we're in each other's mess. We experience the pain and the hardship and the difficulty of being in each other's lives and therefore seeing each other's sin. And as I said, we are called to grow in that. And everything in the church, everything that we do, when we gather here on Sunday, when we gather in groups, when we gather even just over coffee one-on-one, it should be growing us towards maturity. It should be helping us grow up from infancy, from just drinking milk to eating meat. So, how do we do that? Well, I'm gonna give you three things that Paul says in this passage, Ephesians 4. First one is this every member living out their calling, every member living out their calling. Let me take you back to verse 1. Therefore, I, the prisoner for the Lord, which by the way, I've got to stop there. Paul is not, well, let's put it this way. What prison is he in? Is it the Lord's prison? The Romans' prison, just in case you're wondering. And but he says, I'm a prisoner for the Lord. I urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received. Walk worthy of the calling you have received. Let me remind us all this morning that each and every one of the members of God's body has had an individual call from God on their life. That's how they came into the kingdom. That's how I came into the kingdom. You guys that have been with us, we've been working our way through the book of John. In John chapter 10, we hear that Jesus is the good shepherd. It talks about how that Jesus is the good shepherd and how he lays down his life for his sheep. And it said, what? It says that he calls his sheep by name and they come. No one comes into the kingdom of God unless God draws him. Now, I'm going to tell you right now, my mind is blown by that reality. But the more I live as a Christ follower, the more I see that it was true. Because I would have never chosen God if he hadn't first called me. He called me to himself, and I'm thankful that he did. I'm thankful that he reached out to me and called me. But what did he call us to? Well, 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10 says this you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his light. He called us out of that into his light. That's one of the things he called us to. In Ephesians, he's already made the case in Ephesians chapter 1. In fact, if you're struggling with depression or discouragement or difficulty, I encourage you to go read and meditate on Ephesians chapter 1 and think about what it is that God is saying to that. But it says in verse 3 there, even in Ephesians chapter 1, praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. For he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Do you hear what he's saying? He's given us everything. That's what we've been called into. We've been called to everything into everything we need in Christ. Every spiritual blessing is available in Christ. That's why when somebody says, How are you doing? There's two answers to that question for me now. One, and I've heard many people say this better than I deserve, right? Um I don't say that. Um I say, you know, honestly, in Christ, I'm doing awesome. Because if there's anything good that happens after I've received my salvation, it's icing on the cake. I have everything in Christ. But then I can also say, but you know what? This world, this hard world is difficult. Sin is difficult, and I don't have to hide, and I say, I see my immaturities and I see my struggles and I see them in others. And so I don't have to hide from that reality at the same time as just knowing that Christ is sufficient, that he's good, and that he's offered us everything, he's given us everything we need in him. In Colossians 1, verse 13 and 14, it says, He has rescued us from the domain of darkness. There's that darkness word again, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. We now are in a new kingdom. We're citizens of a new kingdom in Christ. That's what he's called us into. A new kingdom, a new way of thinking. Not an earthly kingdom, but an eternal kingdom. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins in him. The church could literally be called the called out ones. Can we call the called out ones? We are. We're called out by God. We're here. If you're a Christ follower, you're in this room. If you've put your trust in Jesus, you are a part of the called out ones. The gathered and called out ones by Christ. And I would say to us this morning, as the called-out ones, this is beautiful, that we are now connected to Christ. That He is the head of this body. And He's not just stapled on, by the way. He's not Frank, we're not Frankenstein. Okay? He is connected to his body because we are part of this living spiritual organism called the church, the community of God's people. And we now have access to a divine nature that indwells the hearts of every believer. A triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Try that on for size, right? That God is working in our lives. We have this divine connection, that the life of God is alive in the lives of believers. Like we said last week, when we come together, this is like a power surge, right? Because the Holy Spirit's at work, God is at work in each of us individually, and as we come together, we see a collection of that. We see the significance of God at work in all of us. And Jesus Christ is the head of this body. And we now have the Spirit making us into people that we never could be. People that were dead have now been made alive. And I want you to understand something that's really important. As Christians, we're no longer, we're not just nice people, we're new people. We're not just moral people, we're not just good people, we are new people in Christ. There's a big difference. We are actually new. We have a new way of thinking, we have a new way of living, we have a new value system. If you've never read Matthew 5 through 7, Jesus teaches a Sermon on the Mount and he talks about the upside down, the inverted reality of the kingdom of God and how completely opposite, where you love your enemies and you pray for those who hurt you and you bless those who curse you. Like who does that? God's children, kingdom people, people that are new, not just nice, but new. That's who lives the way of the kingdom. The spirit is at work in us. And I want you to remind you of this. Listen, as the spirit's at work in you and the spirits are work in me, the spirit is always reminding us who we are before he's telling us what to do. This is really important in order. Okay? The spirit is always reminding us who we are, and should I say whose we are before he's telling us what to do? He is reminding you that you are his called-out one, that you are his child, that you are loved, that you are cared for, that you are a part of his people, his royal priesthood, his holy nation that belong to him now, no longer to ourselves. So when we start to all live out our calling, we will grow up as a body of Christ. So individually, we all grow out of personal obedience to Christ as we're called into community. Does that make sense? We now all have a personal responsibility to God, then a responsibility to one another. And as we experience walking that out, as Paul said, walk out your calling, live a life worthy of your calling. We are responding. All of our life is a response to the grace and the goodness of God. The second thing is this: every member working towards unity. Now, I will be honest, I was not planning to teach this passage in this particular way. But God, even as I was praying, even as I was wrestling, it's like I can't jump over all of this. It's here. And I feel like God, you just, by your divine appointment, put these pieces in front of us today. Isn't it awesome how his word works that way? And he just said to me that in the book of Ephesians, we hear, or Colossians, or Corinthians, sorry, I'll get there, Paul, it's eventually. Um, Corinthians, we see how Paul talks about spiritual gifts, but one of the things he says is that before you get to the gifts and before you just think about the gifts, you've got to think about the maturity to use those gifts well. So they actually do what they're supposed to do and produce the right result. And Paul is saying here that we should be a people who pursue unity. Now listen, these are some hard words. You ready? Verse 2. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another, some translations say bearing one another in love, diligently keeping the unity, diligently keeping, man, that's a diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us. Now, unity is hard work unless you take the world's approach. And what's the world's approach? Well, let me tell you what the world's approach is. Just tolerate each other. Just ignore that we have disagreements or that we have you have your beliefs, I have my beliefs. That's not how the kingdom of God works, that's not how the church works, and that's not actually real unity. We are called to be unified, to work this thing out. And in fact, in verse 13, Paul clarifies what unity looks like. In verse 13, he says this until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Let me summarize what it says in the Greek there. He's saying to us that we as God's children are called to become one man together. Sounds kind of weird, isn't it? Doesn't that sound pretty odd? Maybe you've been in church long enough, you're used to the body language and being one. But he's saying that maturity in the body of Christ is unity, oneness in display of Christ Himself. That we as a body are unified in putting Christ on display, becoming more and more like him. Because you guys know maturity ultimately looks like Jesus. In the life of every believer individually and collectively, we are to look more and more like Jesus. Like we said earlier, we're not stuck. We have hope. We have the Spirit to work and to make us more like Christ. It's what discipleship's all about. It's what growth is all about in the kingdom. But I want you to also notice there's several ways that he talks about how we get there. One of the ways that he talks about is he says in these verse four through five, or four through six, he gives us seven ways that we are already ultimately unified through Christ. Follow with me. Here we go. He says, there is one body, one spirit, just as you were called to one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father. You hear what Paul's saying? He's saying, you are one because of these things. Not because you like each other, not because you all get along naturally, but because these things are true, that the same Spirit is residing inside of you, the same Father is over all. You have one baptism, you have one faith. That is what makes you one. That's what unifies you. Now, just because we are ultimately unified in Christ doesn't mean we actually are living like we're ultimately unified in Christ. Agreed? Just like we know that just because Christ has made us all righteous in this room, he's made us all in right standing with God, he's declared that we are now forgiven and holy, doesn't mean we're actually living as if we're forgiven and holy. Are you with me? And so I would say to us this morning, people in the room, we need God's help to pursue unity. In fact, it's so clear when Paul says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Do you notice that humility, gentleness, patience, and love are all fruits of the Spirit? They're all fruit of the Spirit. You guys know what fruit of the Spirit are? Fruit of the Spirit are what Paul lists out in Galatians chapter 5, and he says, when the Spirit's in you, you'll be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, right? And what I'm telling you this morning is that we won't live in unity with others. We won't show humility and patience and kindness and not any of those things, those fruits, without the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. However, I would also say this: if the Holy Spirit's alive in you, if you have truly become a child of God and the Holy Spirit is now in your life, you actually want unity. And you want to pursue those fruit. You want to see those fruit in your life. We've said this before, and I'll say it again. If you want to pray a prayer that Jesus will answer, ask Jesus for the fruit of the Spirit to be evident in your life. If you want to ask a prayer that you can guarantee Jesus wants for your life, it's Jesus help me to show the fruit of the Spirit in my life. He wants to help you do that. Now, be prepared that his answer to that may be pressing you so that you see where you're lacking. Okay? Because we feel some of that, don't we? But I want you to understand, and I need to understand this morning that we desperately need the Spirit to actually demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit. Now, because we've been called to this divine nature, we have help to act on this way. And I would want to draw your attention to one final piece of the unity that God's called us to. In Ephesians chapter 4, just right below where we're reading, I want you to read this with me. If you have your Bible, pull it out. I don't even know if this is on the screen above me. But I want you to read along with me. Verse 29, all the way through chapter 5, verse 5. Okay? So it's going to take a second, but I want us to read it slowly together. Because in verse 15, Paul says something very powerful about unity and about how we grow in maturity. He says, But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him. That's Jesus, who is the head. Christ, there's the head, who's connected to the body, but let's grow into him in maturity. That's our goal. But he says, speaking the truth in love. So here's what I want you to hear. Verse 29. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don't grieve God's Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger, and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. What's the measure of forgiveness? Like Christ has forgiven us. Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children, and walk in love as the Messiah also loved us and gave himself up for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you as is proper for saints. Coarse and foolish talk or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. For know and recognize this: every sexual, immoral, or impure or greedy person who is an idolater does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of the Messiah and of God. Anybody who thinks that behavior doesn't matter in the New Testament church hasn't read the Bible. Are you hearing me? Listen, I'm saying this very gently, very kindly, and from a heart that is broken this morning because I have seen the fruit of what happens when we walk in sinfulness. Even recent days, I've seen the fruit of what happens in my own heart and in the lives of others. And what I'm telling you this morning is that it is a farce to think that God no longer cares about our behavior. Is real, it's destructive, it's deadly, and we cannot stand for it. We have to speak the truth in love. And I love what happens in this passage is that he sandwiches behavior. Look at Jesus and how he did this. Behavior. All the while reminding us we are God's children. And our example of how we're to address sin is the same way that Jesus addressed sin. He called it out and then he died for it. He made a way for us to be forgiven. He called it out, but then he forgave. Now, maybe this isn't as pertinent to you as it is to me today, but I am telling you, when I said earlier that we are immature in some ways, this is one way that I am very immature in my life and I am wrestling with that I have struggled to know how to speak the truth in love. And many times I don't want to speak the truth personally, I'm just being honest. Maybe this is my own therapy session for you guys. Welcome to my therapy session. Because I'm afraid of people rejecting me and not accepting me and not loving me. And the fact of the matter is, is in Christ I am as loved and as secure as I'll ever be. And that my job is not to sit back and condone sin and to take a passive approach. In fact, passivity will never bring peace. And it'll never bring maturity. And men in the room, we know we are probably some of the worst at just being passive towards sin. And rather than addressing it, we we sit back, we think it's going to get better and it gets worse. But here's the truth: God is very serious in all of our lives about holiness. Not because he doesn't like us or because he doesn't love us, but because he loves us too much to let us stay in it. He sees how destructive it is in our life, and he sees how destructive it is to the people around us. And I'm telling you this morning, I need to confess to you as a body, even as one of the leaders here, that I need to grow up in this. I want to be a person who speaks the truth in love. And what I've learned is that sometimes I speak the truth, and it's really more, one of the reasons why I struggle to that, and maybe you struggle to that, is because it's really all about my comfort, it's all about my pain tolerance. And once it finally hits a certain threshold, then I finally deal with it. But a lot of destruction happens before that. We have to be embracing the reality that God has called us to be different. Yes, to be gracious and compassionate towards weakness. Because we all struggle. And that's what gives us the ability to be gracious and compassionate, is to see ourselves rightly before God and understand he showed incredible grace and compassion towards us. But until we recognize that, and then we act on it, we let the body be immature. Did you notice some of the words that Paul's addressing there? Those are not fun words. Those are not kind words. They're not the kind of words that make you give you warm fuzzies, but they're the kind of things that will help us grow up if we address them. Listen, love without truth is deadly. Love without truth is deadly. In fact, it's not real love. I would even argue and go as far as this. I was talking to some of the guys this week in a residency about just how do we minister to people. And the truth of the matter is that the opposite of love is indifference. I know we tend to say it's love and it's hate. I think one of the greatest forms of hate is indifference. Hey, I see you're struggling over there, but it's a little too inconvenient to deal with that. And so hopefully you'll get better. And I just want you to know, we as a body have got to stop. I've got to stop. We have got to grow up in this way, we've got to stop being infants in this way. Because love without truth is deadly, and truth without love is destructive. We are not called to condemn one another. We are not called to slam and to condemn one another because that is not in Christ. In Christ there is no condemnation. And we need to walk out that truth today. We need to know that we can come to each other not from condemnation, not comparison, from a place of love. Thankfully, we are not saved based on how mature we are. Thankfully, we're not saved based on how much progress we've made in goodness. We are saved by the grace of God. We've got a whole nother section, but I'm gonna stop right there today. I feel like the Lord's saying stop. And you guys said, thank you. But here's the truth. We have to grow. We have to grow. We have to grow. Why do we have to grow? Because it's Jesus' name and his reputation, it's his sake. It's not my comfort level that's about. This is not about my offense level, it's about the holiness of God. It's about his name, it's about his renown, it's about his church representing him. And I would say to you today, listen, I invite you, I invite you. In fact, I even implore you, if you see sin in my life, please come call me out. In the name of Jesus, kindly. Okay, just make that. Kindly, but come call me out because I need to grow up. And I will make a commitment to you that we will help you grow. I will help you grow. And if we see it, let's not take a passive approach because that's not doing anybody any good. Let's love people well. Let's love Jesus well by loving people well. Let's seek to be the people God's called us to be. Let's pray. God, thank you so much that you are faithful and kind and gracious and merciful. And thank you that God, even as I stand on this stage, I can feel like apart from your grace, like I have no, I have no credible ground to stand in front of this group of people. I'm a chief of sinners, just like you said, Paul. Just like the Apostle Paul said, I see my own areas of struggle and immaturity. I see my own poopy diaper. God, I see the struggle that I have where there is weakness in me that needs to be overcome by your power through the Spirit. But I also, God, even in that, I'm not gonna let that disqualify me from proclaiming your word. Because I don't stand qualified by my performance, but because of the cross. And so today I just call this body and I call myself to be a people of reconciliation, of repentance, of brokenness over our sin, of dealing with things rightly, of not taking a passive approach when we see it in the lives of others, because we love each other too much. And I just ask for your help, God, moving forward. May this be a new day for me. May this be a new day for many in this room, God, that we would actively love one another by speaking the truth. And it's not our opinion that we're calling people to, it's to your word. It's to the character of Christ that we're calling people to. We're not the Holy Spirit. We get that, God, we understand, but we are called to be brothers and sisters in Christ who pursue each other and love each other and speak truth. Please help us, God. We need your help. Please. I don't want to wait till heaven to let and just let some of these things go and watch destruction happen. God, it's not of you. Oh, God, my heart aches to see your church be the kind of church, the called-out ones who are pursuing unity because you pursued unity with us and we didn't deserve it. I want this world to see a beautiful bride, not a disfigured one. Please, God, help us. Praise in your name. Amen.