God's Field

1:27We should love to be together. We should seek after. We also talked about how in the New Testament, a lot of times the way that the apostles are describing the church are through word pictures. So instead of just telling us, do this, this, this when you come together, there are some texts like that, right? We read one of them last time, 1 Timothy 2. I desire that when you come together, first of all, this is not in the right order, a loose quotation, but first of all, that you should pray.

2:01Paul says that to Timothy, that when the church gathers, they should pray. So there are some texts that give us specific instructions, but most of them are word pictures. And what were some of the ones we talked about last time? A building, right? What else? An assembly, right? What else? A flock. Bride. Body. Any others? There's more. Pillars, that's right. Yeah. The pillar of the truth. Well, the one that we're going to look at today, the ones that we're going to look at today, are more of the agricultural ones. He says in 1 Corinthians that we are God's field. And so we will jump in in 1 Corinthians 3. Before we do, let's pray one more time. Father, we're so grateful to be together. We're so grateful that. That we can be among the company of the redeemed, that we can not only celebrate in our common salvation that we've been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, that we're awaiting the same hope.

3:16We can not only gather to celebrate and worship, but we can also gather in love. We can gather to encourage one another. We're so grateful for our brothers and sisters in Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. That brings up another one: brothers and sisters, right? It says in the New Testament that we're a family, that we're the household of God. And brothers and sisters, that brings up a question I wanted to open with tonight: last time we talked about, you know, the universal church and the local church. We talked about what do we do when we get together as a church? We pray, we read the word, we sing.

4:06Another question I wanted to ask you is: what is the balance? Or should a church service be transcendent and worshipful? Or should a church service feel like family time? Casual. Yes. That's a good answer. You know, I think that when I was growing up, one of the churches I was in as a teenager, they would often quote, I think it's Luther that said this, that when you walk into a church building, you should feel the awe of God. And so everything in that church was centered around not feeling like a family, but feeling very glorious. You know, there's wonderful, beautiful architecture. There's stained glass everywhere. When you walk in, the lights are a little bit dim, and there's loud music, not loud, but there's glorious music going on. You're supposed to walk in and be silent and be meditative.

5:09There's a transcendence there that they were going for, so that every time somebody walked in to church, they would feel this awe. Well, my family and I were speaking last night about how another church that we were in growing up was the total opposite of that. They were all about the family. And, you know, the pastor, his son, would stand up every single service before they passed the plate, and the pastor's son would pray that God would open the hearts of the people and open their wallets every single Sunday.

5:48And then, you know, with no other cue than the choir would just start to sing. They would sing this song called the Welcome Song. And maybe you had this growing up in your church. But the choir would just, have you guys heard this before? The choir would just start singing this, and this was our cue to start singing and walking around and hugging everybody while we sing. And it was, there's a welcome, here, there's a welcome. Here, there's a Christian welcome here. And we'd all, you know, kind of walk around and dance. And, you know, totally, totally opposite churches, right? One is so focused on only transcendence. One is so focused on so casual. I think that, you know, we should strive for that good mix, that we should strive to sing songs that are full of excellence, good words, glorifying doctrine. I think that the pulpit overall should be a serious pulpit, or at least a pulpit that takes the word of God seriously. That every sermon is not just one big joke or one big life story or something, but it's delving into the scriptures, examining them verse by verse, seeing what God has to say. So there is that transcendence, but there is the reality that we are a family. You know, it's why we can get together and do hymn requests and sing together and even laugh together.

7:13Anyways, that was just some thoughts. But 1 Corinthians chapter 3. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not salt. Solid food, for you are not ready for it. And even now you're not ready, for you are still of the flesh. So for while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. I love that verse. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. And so then in verse 10 and following, he'll continue that idea of God's building that he just mentioned there at the end. But so far, what we just read was him talking about God's field. And what are some of the things you notice about the church in that passage?

8:37Or just observations about that passage. Right. There's not supposed to be this cult of personality. What else? Right. God's the one that causes the growth. Right. There's these different levels of maturity. They're supposed to grow in maturity. What else? You know, I think you can tell his main point here is that in an immature church, one thing that they're going to do is have these different factions, have their favorite teachers have these different divisions among them.

9:26Or worse, you might have teachers that claim responsibility or something for someone's spiritual maturity, dueling teachers. I don't know if you've ever been in a church like that where eventually there will be a split because you've got kind of one group of disciples over here and one group of disciples over here, and they form their faction and they get angry at each other and eventually leave. I think that he has, Paul has the opposite attitude. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. He's just saying, we're all just workers. We're working. Hopefully, God will use it and give the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers, and you are God's field. So it's a pretty astounding statement for Paul to say we are God's fellow workers. This is the apostles speaking about the church in Corinth in Corinth. But I think that the principle is one that we can clearly see applies everywhere: that it should be God that gets the credit for giving the growth. He's the one who works. In our lives, and he's going to work at different teachers in different times, but it is God who gives the growth, and so there doesn't need to be any of these divisions or strife in the church. We spoke about some of that last week. Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 13 for a different agricultural metaphor for the church. Matthew chapter 13.

11:01We're going to start in verse 24. There's a reality that though we come together and though we love each other and though we strive for unity and we work hard for this, there's a reality that there's going to be in churches, there's going to be people that are not true believers, that are maybe pretending or have or are self-deceived or something like that. So look at Matthew chapter 13, verse 24. He put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

11:46But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, Then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to them, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, An enemy has done this. So the servants said to him, Then do you want us to go and gather them? But he said, No, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them.

12:28Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. You guys remember this parable? What are some of the things you notice in this parable? What do you think Jesus is trying to teach? Yeah, I think that that's this main point of the parable: the seeds of the kingdom have been planted, and while they're growing in this world, it's going to be mixed. You don't always know. The weeds look like the wheat.

13:21What else do you notice? Yeah. Yeah. And right. He, he, the servants, they question and they say, should we go and pull the weeds out? And God says, no, just let the weeds grow along with the wheat. Anything else you notice? Yeah, it's a good point. Right. You can continue to grow. It's the weeds, yes, they're there, but the wheat is still growing. It's a good point. So you have this picture that overall, there's going to be this mixture that we can't always tell on the outside. These weeds are going to look like wheat. Otherwise, it would be really obvious. You'd be able to just pull the weeds. But he's clear that he's saying, no, wait. You know, we'll sort this out later, but we don't want to pull up the wheat with the weeds. Let them grow together. The reason why I bring this up is because this is a reality in our churches when we go to different churches. Now, maybe that is a reality on a large scale. Maybe you're in an apostate denomination and almost everybody in Your church is a weed.

15:05Maybe the opposite is true, that you're in a really solid church, and almost everybody there, all the professing believers, are real believers because they truly understand the gospel. But I think the reality is there that, at least in God's providence, he allows the two to grow together. And so the question is: how do we think about that? What do we do? You know, it makes us want to immediately, kind of like the servants in this passage, it makes us want to immediately go and get those weeds out, you know, do some kind of test where we can tell who's a believer and who's not and kick them out of the church.

15:44But I think that if we're accepting people's profession and we're trusting, then on the outside, you might not be able to tell. Now, what other passages does that make you think of? Yeah, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. What else? Right? At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, many will say to me, acting like they're the Lord's people, Lord, Lord, but they'll still be cast out. You can turn water into wine, you can probably turn it into further. Right. That's another reason.

16:32Right. They could be convicted of their sin, right, in turn. Any other passages this makes you think of? Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I think we need to be careful when we're suddenly making these false standards for people. You know, some of the passages that this makes me think of is: what about when those people become evident? I think that the painful thing for a church, if we're going to get together and we're going to love each other, is the reality that at some point in your life, if you are truly being faithful, if you are truly fellowshipping with the saints, probably at some point in your life, there's going to be somebody in your church that leaves, you know, that doesn't want to have anything to do with the faith anymore. And that's so painful because we thought they were wheat, but they were weeds. And so how do we think about those people? I think that one of the ways those will show up is by outward sin, unrepentant sin. So let's turn over to Matthew chapter 18.

17:59Though we Aren't trying to just constantly scrutinize things in each other's lives to pretend like we can determine whether someone is wheat or someone is a weed. There are times when someone's sin becomes evident and they are publicly unrepentant of that sin. And they are making it very clear that if they're not a weed, they're at least acting like a weed and you should treat them like a weed. So let's look at Matthew chapter 18, verse 15.

18:32If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Okay, so we'll keep going in just a second, but already you can tell what's this passage speaking about. How do we normally refer to this process?

19:03Church discipline, right? And for some of us, this is a very familiar concept. We've dealt with this before. Maybe you've been part of a church where somebody was disciplined. For some of you, this is a very new concept of someone sins against me, I'm supposed to approach them. You know, sometimes instead, we just kind of sit back and say, well, I'm not going to hang out with that person anymore. That's not the call for the church. The call is to love. The call is to approach. And if you win him, then you've won your brother. If you don't, you try again with a couple more people. You have sinned in this way. Please repent.

19:47Verse 17. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. There am I among them. So he's saying, you go with the two and three, you go and you talk to this person about their sin. If they are still refusing, even though there's two or three witnesses, if they're still refusing to repent, then you tell the church.

20:39Sometimes when we think of church membership, we forget about this part. That this is a real reality. This is something that we would practice in this church. That if there's someone living in unrepentant sin, we would go through this process. And hopefully, when one person confronts them and says, you need to repent of this sin, you sinned again. Me, hopefully, they say, I'm so sorry, and they repent right away. And if they don't, hopefully, when two or three come and say, We witness you, you sinned in this way, you need to repent. Hopefully, then they repent and they're convicted of their sin. That's the goal in this process is for them to repent. But at some point, if they're living in unrepentant sin, and now listen, that doesn't, the key word there is unrepentant.

21:25I think that sometimes when we think about church discipline, what we think of is how terrible is the sin. You know, church discipline has to happen for something really bad. You know, they have done something terrible, they need to be disciplined from this church. That's not the terminology he uses. The terminology he uses is unrepentant sin. If it is shown very plainly that this is a sin, if you've confronted him with the scripture and he refuses to repent, that's the issue, no matter how bad the sin is.

22:01Then tell the church, if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. I think that, you know, what does that sound like to you? What? Right. Right. In other words, we're to assume the first of that point. Right. Did you say out? Right. They're out of the fellowship. You know, there's some traditions, Christian-like traditions, that believe in kind of an extreme shunning. You can't ever even look at the person or acknowledge they exist or something like that. You know, I think what he's saying is you start to treat that person like an unbeliever.

23:01That person, whether he is wheat or a weed, he is acting like wheat. He is not repenting of the sin that he has committed. No. He's acting like a weed. Okay, and so you treat that person like a weed. You treat them like an unbeliever. And so maybe that's saying, you know, you're not invited to our fellowship meals. Those are for our church. Or maybe that's, you know, you're not going to participate in our Lord's Supper. Or you're going to lose your church membership. Unbelievers can't be members in this church. That doesn't mean that you can't talk to that person, right? That doesn't mean you can't treat them like an unbeliever and share the gospel with them.

23:47But you're treating them like a Gentile and a tax collector, not to punish them for the pain that they've caused you. But why? What's the reason? Yeah, for repentance. They're acting like they're not part of the body, and so you're going to treat them like that. And if they are wheat, then they are going to repent. They're going to experience that church discipline that was done in love. You know, I've heard before several times that church discipline, that's such an unloving thing. Why would Jesus want us to do that? We are not going to do that in our church.

24:24Well, it's because the goal is not to just let the weeds feel comfortable. If they know they're weeds, if they know they're unbelievers, if they're not acting like that, the loving thing to do is to say, no, you need to repent of your sin. There's something wrong here. You don't understand. You need to repent and be restored to the church. And if they're a believer, they're going to start to long for that. They are going to repent.

24:52Yes. Right. I think so. And let's, on that note, let's turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. There's a man in Corinth that seems to be living in unrepentant sin, and they seem to be celebrating it as the church in Corinth. Maybe something like, look how loving we are. You know, we're putting up with this. You know, something like that. But it says in chapter 5, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1: It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. And so, if we're putting those passages together, it seems like this man is unrepentant. He has his father's wife, so either his stepmother, hopefully not his mother. But verse 3: for though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. So, again, you see the motivation behind it: that yes, you are delivering this man to Satan. Yes, you are as an assembly, though Paul's not there, he's with them in spirit, and he's saying, I'm with you when you do this, though it's hard, though it's painful. You make it very clear that that man is acting like an unbeliever, and so he is not part of your body. You deliver him to Satan. Why?

26:56So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. The goal is this restoration. The goal is for that man to wake up and get the picture and repent and be gathered back into the church again. Let's turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 2. We don't know if this is the same guy, but it seems likely. This is a letter from Paul to the same church. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 5. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you.

27:44For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him, for this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. Okay, you can tell Satan has made an appearance in several of these passages that Satan is acting against the church. He's putting the weeds in the church, but also when this man, let's say for a moment, That it was the same man. They turned him over to Satan, and he repented, either him or someone like him, somebody else that they put out of the assembly. This man repented, and it seems like they're saying something like, you know, no, you caused us too much pain. This was too hard for our church to deal with. And it is hard for a church to deal with. It does cause pain for the church. And so maybe they're saying something like, you know, this caused us pain. Or they're saying, this caused Paul pain. You cannot come back to this church. Paul is an apostle. He loves this church. He told us that he is with us when we send you out.

29:15You cause Paul pain. You can't come back. But Paul is writing to them to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So maybe they voted or something like that, this punishment by the majority, the majority of the body sent him out. So, verse 7, you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

29:45I think you have the picture here of somebody who was put out from the assembly that then repents and comes back and asks for forgiveness. And at first, there's a little bit of a pause saying, no, you cause pain to us. You cause pain to Paul, and Paul is saying, No, though it's painful, though it was painful when this person was living in unrepentant sin, though it was painful to put him out, you take him back if he repents. Just because somebody goes through church discipline, that doesn't mean they can never be part of the church again. They just come back and repent, and then you bring them all the way in, and you love them, and you don't let them be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

30:32Again, verse 10: Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. So, just like Paul was saying, He was with them when they sent this person out, he's saying, I'm with you, and you forgive him. If he comes back and repents, then I'm with you, you forgive him. We don't want to be outwitted by Satan, we don't want this scheme to work backwards to where we've kicked out somebody who now is so truly repentant that it's very clear they're a believer, but we are not letting them be part of the body because we've been outwitted by Satan. Any other thoughts on church discipline or these passages?

31:23Yeah. Yeah. Right. Obedience to Christ, right, in love. You know, the obedience of love. Again, the most common objection, because it's so plainly in the scriptures that we're supposed to do this, the most common objection is that, well, that's just too unloving. That's too harsh. But it's very clear in the text that, no, that is obedience, and it is love. That's what the loving thing is, because you want that person to repent. You want them to long to be back in the fellowships, back at the Lord's table, back in membership of the church, forgiven.

32:10Pardon me for that is that the surety to be a mid sense in our midst, not trying to give the parts and our testimony to the continuing. Yeah, I agree. There seems to be the opposite in 1 Corinthians when we first read that. It's like they're bragging about this. They think it gives the church some kind of credibility or something, that they're outwardly arrogant about the fact that they have this person among their midst. I think the opposite is true. Desire to be a pure church. You should desire to, out of love, do these kinds of things. Before you know it, and maybe you've been a church, been part of a church like this. If you're part of a church that either intentionally refuses to do church discipline or just doesn't really want to go there, you know, doesn't want to think about it, before you know it, that church is going to be full of more weeds, right? You know, you start to have more and more people that are like unbelievers in that church because, well, you didn't discipline that guy and you didn't discipline her. And, you know, all of a sudden, the church just fills up with members who don't even really love the Lord with their lives. They're living in unrepentant sand.

33:52Did you have something, James? Yeah. Yeah. Confrontation is hard, but I would say righteous if it's done in the right way. Not confronting is always easier, but not always the right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't be fun, but I might manage. At some point, hopefully, I'll come around to. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good parallel. Well, I think with these field pictures, these agricultural pictures, I think you get the picture number one of what he said in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 that we're growing together, so there's not to be these factions among us. We're just the field. God's giving the growth. There are different workers in our lives, but we're not to start choosing factions or something like that or choosing sides. Instead, we're just grateful to the Lord for providing the growth. We also see that in this field, and maybe he's connecting with the same picture or not, but either way, in God's field, there is wheat and weeds, but they grow together. And on the outside, just by visible profession, you don't always know who it is. And so what that means, practically, for us sometimes, is that there is some painful situations where suddenly someone starts living in unrepentant sin.

35:45Or there are other, and that would be when church discipline, like we just read about, or there are other times where they just start teaching heresy. And in those cases, it's just have nothing to do with that person, right? They're against the message. They've denied the faith. Those things are painful. But as he says in 1 John, they went out from us because they were not of us. All right, one more passage on this is Ephesians chapter 4.

36:24Last time we looked at Ephesians chapter 3. No, excuse me. Ephesians chapter 2, we talked about how we are the building together that God brings us, though we're all different, and he builds us up in the church. In chapter 3, Paul talks about how this special message, this mystery was given to him, and how he's praying for the Ephesian church. Well, in chapter 4, he'll start to speak about the church. How does it function? How does it build itself up?

36:59As we think about the church growing together, as we think about how there's not supposed to be these different factions, but instead the church is supposed to grow together, I think of Ephesians chapter 4. Next time, Lord willing, next week we'll look at Ephesians chapter 5. There's more about the church, but look at Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

37:28Sounds daunting, right? We Been called with a high calling. So, walk in a manner worthy of that calling. Well, how do we do that? Verse 2: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Again, we mentioned that before. Paul is very frank with us, he's not pretending like this is all just going to be rosy in the church. Yes, we love each other a lot, but sometimes we have to bear with one another, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

38:03Verse 3 again, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit. Not at the cost of truth, of course. That's something that we would all confess, that no, we're not going to accept the heresy just because we want to be unified with somebody. That's not what he's saying. But he's saying you are eager. You're working towards this. You know, if you are at odds with somebody in the church, you should be eager to maintain that unity. You should go to them as soon as you can, apologize for what you've done. Eager to maintain that unity in the spirit. Not just saying, okay, you know, I'm not really going to talk to that person anymore.

38:44No, you chase after, you get back to unity, you get back to love. Verse 4: There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. All. What's he emphasizing there? Right, all. We're all one, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We have all these things in common. So there's to be this unity. Verse 7. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts. Therefore, it says, When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does he mean? But that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all things, above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. So he just puts a side note in there saying, you know, he had to descend first before he could ascend. But he's saying he gave gifts to men. And so he's saying, yes, we have this unity. We have one Lord, one faith. This is true. We strive after this unity, but there's also this diversity that he's given different gifts. And the gifts, look at verse 11. The gifts are certain people. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So he's saying he gave these people to the church to equip the saints. That, yes, we are all unified, but that doesn't mean we're all exactly the same. We have different roles, we have different functions in the church. He'll make that clear in other passages. And here he says, There's even men in their generation that are apostles and prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. Maybe those are ordinary pastors and teachers. But he's saying that their job is not to do the work of the ministry. Did you catch that? I'm sure they do some of the work of the ministry. Their job is not to do all the work of the ministry. Their job is to verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. That's what teachers are supposed to do. To equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity, again, unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together, keep listening, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

41:55It kind of just kept going there. But it's such a rich passage there. What are some of the things you Notice in that passage. Right. The goal here of a mature, sound church is that we're building each other up. The goal is not to come on Sunday so the pastors can build us up. That does happen. But in addition to that, there is this equipping so that we are building each other up in love. So he says that in verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. So who is doing the building up? It's the saints, equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Again, later, verse 16, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

43:06It's that picture. He's using the picture. Normally in the New Testament, the picture of the body for the church is speaking about kind of the different various gifts that we have, the way that the hand can't say to the eye, whatever the hand says to the eye in that passage, that there's not this, you can't despise the different parts of the body. But here, what he's saying, he's using this body metaphor to say that just like in your body, okay, when it's functioning well, it is building itself up. Your different body parts are providing the different nutrients so that your whole body grows. And that should be what is true in a healthy, mature church: that the whole church is doing the work of the ministry. We're encouraging one another, we're spending time in fellowship with one another so that we are building ourselves up in love. That's what a healthy church looks like until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. So he's giving you this picture of a man and a child, and the child is in rough water, and when the waves come, he's tossed around, right? Because he's just a child. Instead, you want to be that man who could stand in those waves and not be tossed around. You want to grow to mature manhood. That's the picture he's using. And so the church, he's saying that what that looks like for the church is that if we are not building each other up, if we're not becoming stronger because of the ministry among the saints, Well, then we're going to be like a doctrinal child that, whenever we hear these different teachings, we're going to be tossed, oh, it's this, oh, it's this, oh, it's this, and that was heresy. You know, we're tossed back and forth, we don't know how to come to certainty on doctrines. Instead, he's saying, no, you build each other up so that you can be firm and solid and rooted as a church, not tossed to and fro anymore.

45:28We are as a body, verse 15, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. So, any other thoughts on that passage? One of the things, as we were remembering last night at my family's house, some of the things that they used to say at that church that we laughed at earlier.

46:14One of the things that used to drive my mom crazy was that they would have events throughout the whole week, you know, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and almost every other night of the week. And the pastor would every single Sunday say, If you are not here every single time the door is open, you are not here. God's will. And of course, my mom is, you know, family with five kids. Really hard to, you know, be there every single time the door opens. And so just a lot of conviction there. And it used to drive my parents crazy. But though we wouldn't say that, there is at least a small, there is a reality behind that: we should seek to be together. How can we be a body that builds each other up? How can we be a body that, having been equipped by the apostles and by teachers, that works together to build itself up in love, how can it do that if there's no time together? And now maybe it's not like that church where it's every single day of the week or you're not in God's will, but I think that there at least should be at least an eagerness to chase after that unity, you know, to chase after healing relationships when you get crossways with somebody in the church, but also chasing after opportunities to talk about what you're studying in the scriptures, to ask others what they're studying in the scriptures, to teach each other. That's what the body should be doing if we're healthy. That's how we're going to grow into that strong, mature man versus a child that's tossed by the waves.

47:58So we. We are God's field. We're growing together, and it's God that gives the growth. And so we praise him for the growth that's there. But we know that in that field there is wheat and weeds. We know that that reality is there, so there's going to be some painful moments. You know, we hear the theme all the time of people who have been hurt as a young person or something, and so they just clam up for the rest of their lives. They never go and love people because they don't want to be hurt again. In a sense, there's a temptation for that to happen in the church. That if we know those weeds are there and we know that there someday might be a painful process, well, it'd be easier to just kind of keep our distance from the church. I'm just going to attend that church. Or maybe I'll apply for membership. I'll be a member, but I'm not going to actually spend time, a lot of time with the people forming these love relationships because it could lead to pain. Well, it could lead to pain. It probably will, at some point, lead to some pain, but it also leads to so much joy and unity and growth. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And so we're willing to put up with that potential of pain. And we're willing to reconcile with each other, build up those relationships, because that's what God wants for us. He doesn't want his church to be a church that is tossed back and forth, you know, never knows what to believe.

49:31He wants us to grow into maturity. Any other closing thoughts or maybe especially applications, practical thoughts? Right. That's right. That's right. That's such a good point. You know, what's going to drive this, what's going to make this possible, is the continual reminder of our identity of Christ, of what Christ has done for us. It's going to help in so many ways. If we are constantly astounded by the ways that God has forgiven us, well, then it's going to make it a lot easier to forgive those in our church body. But also, that's going to make us more secure. You know, we're going to lose some of our insecurities that prevent us from fellowshipping with one another, from forming those true, deep bonds in the church. Because we have that security, we know that forever we have the greatest gift of all, eternal life, with God himself. It's a good point. Dustin?

51:01Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. We can be grateful for our church. Any other closing thoughts? I believe that follows a way from within the church what's happening in the time outside the church. Something kind of understand, we're just still stronger in our faith about who we are in our ideas. Yeah. Thank you. Well, let's close in prayer. Father, we're so grateful for our church. As Dustin said, we're so thankful that we have a place to come and be equipped. And I just pray that you'd help all of us to excel still more, to work as hard as we can.

52:30To be eager to maintain the unity among us, but also be eager and working hard to build each other up in love, to treat this as a corporate responsibility and therefore an individual responsibility for each one of us to intentionally build each other up in love with the truth, speaking the truth in love to one another. We thank you so much, Father, for our church body. We cherish our church body. You've been so kind to us to give us so many brothers and sisters in our fellowship.

53:17Pray that you would continue to watch over this church. Help us more and more and more become mature, strong, and sound, filled with your word, full of love and unity. We're thankful, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.