Outfitting the Church for Growth - Ephesians 4:14-16

3:29We have to keep in mind who Paul is writing this letter to, and we can see that in chapter 1, verse 1. He's writing to faithful saints. He's writing more particularly to Jews and Gentiles who are believers in Jesus Christ. He's writing to Christians who have been saved by grace through faith. That's who he's writing to. So as we remember from last week in verse 7, Paul demonstrates to us, if you glance back at verse 7, you'll see a few words there that says, each one of us. Paul demonstrates that each one of us, or you, that's you and me, have been gifted by God's grace. We saw in verse 8 that God gives gifts. And then in verse 11, he gives us a list of four or five particular gifts that he wants to focus on in his letter to the church of Ephesus. If you want to learn more about the various kinds of gifts, you would then go to Romans or you could go to 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. In this particular passage, he's talking about specific gifts that he gave. So, if you glance at verse 11, this is by way of reminder from last week, you'll notice that these lists, there's different kinds of gifted people, and he lists them out. Some of them that he gave are apostles, some are prophets, some are evangelists, others are pastors and teachers.

4:55All of these four or five gifts are gifts that he's given to the church. He's given to the church. And like I said last week, while you may not see your particular gift here, it doesn't mean that you're discluded from God's gift or God's gifts. May I remind you that according to verse 7 and verse 16, Jesus gives each one of us gifts. And he's very clear about that. He's just focused on these four or five in the text. So here's what I believe the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us this morning, or is teaching us this morning from verses 14 through 16. There's really two things that he's trying to teach us here. Number one, God gives you gifts. Those are the gifts mentioned in verse 11 for a reason. So that you're not deceived by false teachers. And so that each one of us will use our gifts for the building up of the body of Christ. So that each one of us will use our gifts for the building up of Immanuel Baptist Church. That's what this particular whole message is all about. In fact, the title of the message is Outfitting the Church for Growth. So in this Text, we really find three expectations that the Holy Spirit reveals to us that he wants Immanuel Baptist Church to know how to grow. Here they are, if you're taking notes. In verse 14, we see that we are called to evade false teachers. We're called to evade false teachers. Number two, in verse 15, we must grow through love. The emphasis is on love. We must grow through love. And in verse 16, number three, each one of us must utilize the gift that God has given us. Why would we not utilize a gift that God has given us? Why would we walk away from such a thing? So let's look at verse 14 and we'll deal with evading false teachers. I'll read it again. You can follow along. Paul uses these words.

6:47As a result of what he's just said, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. Immanuel Baptist Church is to recognize false teachers. That's our call. We must recognize false teachers because we embrace the gifts that God has given to the church. And those gifts, as I said repeatedly, are found in verse 11. He gave us those gifts to help us to recognize false teachers. And in fact, in Revelation 2, Paul, excuse me, Jesus, through the Apostle John, he compliments the church of Ephesus for recognizing false teachers. So that is something that we want to be about. We trust in God's wisdom to give us apostles and prophets in the New Testament who were moved by the Holy Spirit to write Scripture. That's why we can trust God's Word. Their writings, Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17, are breathed into existence by God Himself. Just as God breathed life into Adam and Eve, so he also breathes life into the languages of the Bible.

8:01Two particular passages that show us that proof are 1 Thessalonians 2.13 and 1 Corinthians 2.13. You'll recognize the same address there, only different books. 1 Thessalonians 2.13 and 1 Corinthians 2.13 tell us the Bible is God's objective propositional revelation. Every single word penned by the apostles and prophets are verbally inspired by God, which, by the way, includes the actual language form. There are kinds of language forms that are used there, and they're inspired by God too. Every literary device brought to bear on God's communication is a gift to each one of us. So, therefore, you can evade false teachers. Why? Because you need to understand this, and this is very important, so that you can evade false teachers. This is what God tells us to do. The apostles and prophets, they penned the scripture.

9:01Which are absolutely inerrant. And you say, what is an inerrant belief? What does it mean? Inerrant simply means not liable to prove false or mistaken. It's inerrant. In the original documents, which are infallible, which is incapable of teaching deception, they're God-breathed. So we can evade false teachers because God has given us apostles and prophets in verse 11. We can evade them because we can read what they wrote in the New Testament. They are gifts to us as well.

9:33Let's take a look at verse 14 again. Just glance down on it and we'll pick up on a few nuances there that Paul wants us to know about. Verse 14 tells us the result, or we could say the purpose of verses 11 through 13 that we went through last week. And the purpose is so that believers won't be like infants, they won't be like children who are characterized as those who have their propensity to be. And you can see it right there in the text in verse 14: infants have their propensity to be tossed here and there by waves, who can be blown about by every wind of doctrine. My childhood years, I remember them clearly. I grew up in the South Bay area and in Los Angeles area and Redondo Beach. And just as a little guy, I loved to go to the beach. We were only walking distance from the ocean. And I remember in the ocean, and I would have nightmares about this later in life, maybe I still do, but those were big waves. And I remember the Crashing down, and I wasn't sure whether or not I was right side up or upside down. Maybe you've been there. And it was fun, but it was a little bit scary. But that's the idea of a child. I was just a little guy being tossed and there by the waves. And wanting to share the same experience with my son David when he was a little one, maybe three or four years old. I remember taking him down to Santa Monica Beach. Maybe you've been there. Only this time I was with him and I held his arm. And I remember I'm either going to sever his arm from his body or he is going to get twisted and tossed in these waves. It was scary. That's the idea that Paul is trying to communicate here. There are false teachers who would toss us around like waves or wind. And it's not just infants that are tossed about by winds and waves. It's adults who can be carried around by false teachers, carried around from being dissuaded from looking at God's inerrant word. And so he uses this word picture, waves and winds. We must remember that God gives us in this passage with pastors and teachers. These are our lifeguards. They are gifted and trained to protect believers from every wind of doctrine that Paul writes about here. Glance down again at 13, verse 13. You recall last week we talked about there's a goal that Paul has, and the goal is to attain what?

12:00The unity of the faith of the Son of God. It's to believe what's right about the Son of God, not to listen to every wind of doctrine, not to be tossed here and there by waves. And it's not just any kind of knowledge. It's not just any, there's a special kind of knowledge. It's a triple dog, dare you kind of knowledge. Do you remember that from last week? It's a super-knowledge where we spend time with the Lord in prayer, and we spend time with the Lord understanding his word, and we spend time maturing as we sit under biblical expository preaching. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11, he uses this whole idea of maturity, and he says, This, when I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, he did what? He says, I did away with childish things. He's moving on to the deep things of God as written in his word. One who is childish, Paul is saying, lacks discernment and is described as those who are tossed by winds and tossed by waves, blown about.

13:09Jesus' brother, James, he paints quite a word picture that gives clarity to this whole idea in James 1:6. Notice what he says. Here's what James says: he says, quote, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea and is driven and tossed by the wind. Again, that whole idea of the ocean and the wind driving people who doubt. God's word. It would be interested to know that the Greek word for tossed by waves, as you see it in the text there, is only used two times in the entire Bible, and it's only used once in the New Testament in Ephesians 4, 14.

13:47In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, as we would like to put it, in Isaiah, he used the same word that we translate into Greek in Isaiah 57, 20. And here's what he says. He defines what the wicked are like. He says, But the wicked are like the tossing sea. There it is. They are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuge and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. So the wicked are tossed here and there by the sea. The wicked are those who don't know Christ, who don't know God. Would you turn in your Bibles to the book of Jude? The book of Jude precedes the book of Revelation, so it's near the end of your Bible.

14:36As you're turning there, I want to mention that Christ is your stability. He's the one that gifts you with apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and teachers who anchor you when tempestuous teachings void of biblical authority tempt you to walk away from the Lord or to drift. When Paul writes the phrase, carried about by winds, he intends for us to understand. Something, that we are passively blown by winds, as if to say, when you succumb to the wiles of unbiblical teachers, you're blown like a leaf in whatever direction their teaching would carry you. So, Jude, he paints a very graphic word picture about false teachers and winds and turbulent waves on the ocean. There's only one chapter in Jude, so let's read out of verse 12 and 13.

15:28Notice how he paints this picture. Talking of false teachers, he says, These are men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts. When they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead and uprooted, wild waves of the sea, there it is, casting up to their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. Winds and waves of false teachers are deadly. Look at that word there. I want to point out a particular word. We talked about this last week, carry, carrying themselves in verse 12. We define pastor, the word pastor last week from the New Testament, it simply means sheepherder. That word carrying is the same word for pastor that James uses. He says, these false teachers are shepherding themselves. They're pastoring themselves, and they are blowing around God's people like winds. And tossing them like waves.

16:35Paul helps us to see that false teachers capture the infant-minded people and they blow them around with every wind of doctrine. Let's go back to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14. Every wind of doctrine, those words that he uses, literally, every wind of the teaching. He's being very specific here. Every wind of the teaching, Paul is pointing to the content of their teaching that is blowing people around. This is an expression of how the diabolical false teachers really are. They purposely counteract the teachings that pastors and teachers bring from the apostles and the prophets that they've written. More specifically, they seek disunity of the faith. They don't want us to know who Christ is, the Son of God is.

17:31They seek disunity of the faith as it relates to this intensified deep knowledge of God in verse 13, which really comes as a result of a close relationship of, as I said, spending time with the Lord in prayer, spending time in his word, spending time in church with God's people, listening to expository preaching, delivering messages as we would believe that the original audiences would have read and understood. Look at the second part of verse 14. Second part. Verse 14.

18:02Notice that false teachers use two particular tactics to blow their people around. First one is trickery. Trickery. It's in verse 14. And second is by craftiness and strategic deception. Trickery. I was talking to some of you about this yesterday. Boy, I'm going to get in trouble here, Elder. Did you know that dice are discussed in the Bible? That word trickery. When the Greeks heard this in the first century, what they heard was playing with loaded dice. That's what that word trickery means. It implies fraud. I did a brief study on loading dice this week. I'm not going to go into all the nuances of it because you'll walk out of here going, what'd the pastor talk about? I learned how to load dice. But let's just talk about it because it's not the dice that are being loaded. It's the trickery that we're talking about. Don't take me wrong here. So you load dice by drilling a hole in one of the little black holes. I learned it this week.

19:01June 1st will be my first anniversary here, but I may not make it after this. Okay, so you drill a hole in one of the black dots. You put some weight in there and you douse it with a little bit of glue. And then you fill up the hole and you take a marks a lot and you make it black again so nobody can see. And so they trick people with it. So presto, you've got dice and you can trick people. And it's the idea, it's the word picture that he's giving them back in the first century that this is how. Trickery takes place so that the other dice players are deceived into losing their money.

19:40There's a word picture going on here. People lose loads of money to hear speakers throw their loaded ideas like dice all the time. We hear tricky speakers all the time. I'm not saying just preachers in churches or religious arenas. We hear tricky speeches all the time, like trickery dice and politics, in universities, and religious institutions. And he's warning us about false teachers. Don't give in to them. I said there were two tactics. Here's the second one. False teachers use another tactic, a second tactic to blow people around in verse 14. Glance down at it. You might see it. They use craftiness. Literally, craftiness via, through, strategic deception.

20:32The word craftiness there, Greek word for craftiness, indicates that false teachers were using shrewdness and every unscrupulous tactic to capture the hearts and the minds and souls of people to take them away what's true about the knowledge of the Son of God that we saw there just a couple of verses up the most classic example of this kind of craftiness is found in Genesis 3.1 you might remember it this is where Moses Moses writes these words, quote, Now the serpent was more, there it is, crafty than the beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said to you, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? He was very crafty about it. And Paul uses this crafty illustration, this illustration of this serpent in the New Testament, to help us understand how unsuspecting minds are led astray. In 2 Corinthians 11, 3.

21:322 Corinthians 11.3, it's about Eve. Paul looks back several thousand years in time and he says this, quote, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. That's what false teachers do. They act like Satan in the garden, like a snake that he is. Satan, by means of a serpent in the garden, was strategically deceptive with Eve. And here in Ephesians 4:14, Paul uses the words deceitful scheming. It's right there in your text, deceitful scheming, which literally means strategic deception. Ever been in a conversation, you feel like, man, this guy's really strategic in the way he's talking to me and trying to get me to believe a certain way. It's strategic, well-thought-out ideas. It implies a malice of forethought. It implies a plan to lay in trap to capture the minds of people.

22:43Paul commands each one of us, this command in Ephesians 5:6. He says, do not be deceived. It's an imperative, it's a command. In other words, you have control, or not, you're going to be deceived. Don't do it. The implication is that if you're tricked, or led astray, or otherwise find your life blown by the winds or by the seas of false thinking, then you have no one to blame but yourself for disobedience to God's word, craftiness, deceitfulness.

23:17We must be bold in our efforts to not be deceived. Our goal, according to this text, is unity of the faith, or the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. In my studies this week, I really appreciated what the late Dr. Adrian Rogers said about this particular passage about unity and about speaking the truth in unity, or of unity, or of the faith. Here's what Adrian Rogers says: He says, Quote, It is better to be divided by truth than to be united with error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts then heals, than falsehood that confronts then kills. He says, Let me tell you something, friend. It is not love. And it is not friendship if we fail to declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who has or was powerful for God who did not have enemies and was hated. It's better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It's better ultimately to succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one gospel, and Paul said: if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed. End quote. Dr. Rogers was right. But even if we refuse the temptation of unity at any cost, we must remember, we must keep these words in mind. We must remember that our stance on biblical doctrine must be driven by love, because he says that right here in the text. Must be driven by love, which really brings us to the second way to meet God's expectations for growth here at Emmanuel or any other church for that matter. It's found in verse 15. Take a look at it. Let's read it again.

25:12But speaking the truth and love, we're to grow in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. So, point number two: growing through love. Just as a reminder, we've seen already that we have God's expectations in verse 14. Have to evade false teachers, but they are those who strategically seek to deceive us, but we must not be deceived by means of trickery and craftiness. So in verse 14, it shows us the cause of instability in the truth, but verse 15 reveals the positive motivation for the unity of the faith to maturity, to the fullness of Christ. The word but there in verse 15 is critical for us to understand this. It's really better rendered from the original language to but rather. But rather. The word but points us back to no longer in verse 14. In other words, don't be tossed by waves and winds of false teaching through the cunning deceit, but rather, here it is, speak the truth in love.

26:19Theologians, they've struggled with this wording, speak the truth of love in love, for a long time, because while the Greek word itself could indicate speaking the truth in love, it indicates more than just speaking. You could also translate the phrase truthing in love. Use the word truth as a verb. It could be truthing in love. So it's more than just speaking. Paul is doing a comparison between false teachers and believers. You see, rather than being deceitfully tricky as a saint, as a believer in Christ, through craftiness and strategic deception, Christians must conduct their lives biblically. Yes, and everything they say, but how they act. They must. Articulate the truth motivated by love, so that we, as Paul puts it in verse 15, grow up in Christ. Now, there's this tension between truth, speaking the truth, and love that exists in our world.

27:15Through my studies again, I found that there was another author who could put it much better than I could here, so I want to quote him. He deals with this tension about speaking the truth and doing it in love. His name is John Stott. He says this: Thank God, there are those in the contemporary church who are determined at all costs to defend and uphold God's revealed truth. But sometimes they are conspicuously lacking love when they think they smell heresy, their nose twitches. I wish I could make my nose twitch. Don't know how to do that. Their muscles ripple, and the light of the battle enters their eyes. They seem to enjoy nothing more than a fight. Others make the opposite mistake. They are determined at all costs to maintain and exhibit brotherly love, but in order to do so, they are prepared even to sacrifice the central truths of revelation. Both these tendencies are unbalanced and unbiblical. Yes, we must fight for the unity of the faith of the Son of God.

28:21But there's a tact that Paul says to take. It's through love. Paul tells us in verse 15 that our goal is not to craftily beat people down with our theological practice. With truth, but rather, but rather, out of a spirit of love, to grow them in Christ. Notice that Paul identifies Christ as the head. He uses throughout the book of Ephesians this whole idea of the body. The church is the body. Well, he's the head. This is important for us to understand because he continually refers to the body, as I said. Christ is the head, and it's our goal to move towards him. We would say, why? Why is that our goal? Well, because he's the one who's the head of the body. The church is held together by him, by gifts that he gives to each believer. We've seen four or five of them here in the text. And that's the reason that you and I are called into the body of Christ so that we can be a part of the cause that makes the church grow. God has gifted you to cause the church to grow, even here at EBC. So the gift that God gives you really brings us to the third point. Where do I factor into all of this about how the Holy Spirit uses you to cause the church to grow? You say, wait a minute, I thought Jesus is the one who causes the church to grow. Hold on tight. So the third point is utilizing the gift that God gave you. Utilizing the gift that God gave you. Let's look at verse 16, Ephesians chapter 4. From whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each. Each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. In our quest to fulfill God's expectation for growth at our church or any other church, we've seen that in verse 13 that we must first evade false teachers who strategically seek out to deceive us by trickery and craftiness, but rather than act like them, we must bring about church growth by truth, motivated by love. So, in this third way, to bring about church growth, Paul wants you and me to fully understand that each one of us, that's you and that's me, verses 7 and 16, each one of us uses the gifts that God has given us as individuals. The first two words that you see in verse 16 are from whom? What does he mean by that? They tell us the source of the gift of growth in the church. The source of our growth is found in the last word of verse 15. What's the last word in verse 15? The source is Christ. More specifically, the Christ or the Messiah, the anointed one, is the source of our growth. We must never forget this one thing: that God gave us some apostles, he gave us some prophets, he gave us some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for a reason.

31:28They are not the source. Of church growth. Like everyone else, those gifted individuals are a part of the body. I want you to look at verses 9 and 10. Just by way of reminder here, the resurrected Christ, the ascended Christ, in these two verses, is the source of our growth as a church in verse 16. He's the source of our growth. But verse 16 is a nuance. He switches gears here. It informs us that Christ, as the source of our growth, but he fits the church together. He holds the body together in that verse. We'll see there in verse 16, you see the words being fitted. The original readers, they really would have loved this word picture. It's a word picture for them. Being fitted, their minds would have immediately thought about stone masonry. Back in the first century, the way that walls and paths and buildings were built, they took stones, big, small, and they fashioned them to fit one another. They used chisels. They used all kinds of tools to get them to work. We use mortar to hold them together, but they had to get these rocks to fit together. One misplaced pebble could bring a whole building down if they didn't do it right. Today, we see ancient structures that are held together with all sizes of rocks and pebbles and small stones, and they're still doing their job. He's painting a word picture. The church is held together by the Lord as we use the gifts that he's given us. Paul creatively used a word to describe how fitting rocks together illustrates how the gift God gives you is necessary for growth in the church. That's his point. From your perspective, you might be thinking, well, I don't have an upfront gift. Nobody sees me doing the things I do. You think your gift is a pebble. You think your gift is a small stone. And you think it's not important. You may decide one day that you're just not going to use it. You're going to toss it away. You're not going to serve. Or you're never going to serve in the church. And if that happens, the whole growth of the body is stunted.

33:43We realize that Jesus is the source of our growth, and he supplies each one of us with the gift that each one of us is equipped to cause the growth of the church. Once again, look at verse 16. Jesus not only fits these stones together, but he also holds them together. And you say, but I prefer not to work with so-and-so in the church. I'm going to go find another gift in the church. I'm going to toss my stone away. Recognize that Paul is writing to two former warring parties, Jews and Gentiles, who hated one another. I say two former warring parties. Parties. They were racist to the core.

34:34The entire second chapter of Ephesians is all about Jesus bringing believers from these warring parties, former warring parties, and making them one group, one body called the church. You say, I don't like so-and-so. I don't want to work with them. Think about the New Testament. They hated each other before they knew Christ. Now they're working together. They love one another. They serve one another. In Ephesians 2:16, we see that Jesus killed racism with the cross that killed him. It's pretty clear in the text. Jesus not only fits us together, but he holds us together.

35:13Ladies and gentlemen, we got to work together is his message. That brings about church growth. Now, watch how he fits and holds us together. Look at the text. The way he does this is found in the words by what every joint supplies. Right there in the text. The word joint, the word joint can be taken as contact or connection point. The NIV translates it as ligament. Ligaments are connecting points for bones, are they not? Bones and muscles. If ligaments are severed from the bone, from the muscle, they won't function properly. I know this. When I was a teenager, I dislocated my knee and severed one of my ligaments and just about severed the other three.

36:00My body didn't work properly. Everything else was healthy. And it took me a year and a half to walk properly. And my parents, well, it affected them. They had to take care of me, and they remind me about the bill. Very expensive. We work together as a body. And when the ligaments, when the joints don't work, we have a problem. They're connecting points. As functioning members of the body of Christ, each one of us are these connecting points, are these ligaments in the church. If one member of the church refuses to use the spiritual gift that God has given them for the benefit of other members within the church, then the whole church experiences stunted growth. And we have to carry more load than we would normally carry. This is why the reason Paul uses these three particular words in verse 16. Each individual part, more precisely, each individual part or person is responsible for something in the church, not just apostles and prophets and pastors and teachers. Every individual person is responsible, as Paul puts it in verse 16, to cause the growth of the body of itself in love, the building up in love.

37:16I love words. Glance down at verse 16, you're going to see the word cause. I want you to circle that word cause. And when you're done circling it, I want you to hold your finger there and turn over to 2 Peter 3, verse 9. Circle the word cause and turn over to 2 Peter 3, verse 9. I'm having you go there, not because this verse has anything to do with a particular text, but I want you to understand how this word is used, this word cause.

37:44Let me read the text 3.9. He says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. God does not want people to perish. That's what he's saying here. Second, God wants people to repent and come to repentance and faith in Christ. That word perish there. Focus on it for a second. It's used like the word cause, and it's a word that's used in what's called in the Greek language, the middle voice. You would say in the English language, it's reflexive.

38:31Here's what it means. Get all the technicalities behind us. It means God doesn't want people to perish themselves. Isn't that interesting? The word cause here, back in Ephesians, God wants everybody to cause the church to grow. Cause the church to grow. God doesn't want people to perish themselves. That's reflexive. And the same way he wants the church to grow. So we'll flip back and over to Ephesians 4, 16. As I said, the word cause is a middle voice. It's reflexive in the same way that God doesn't want people to perish themselves. Paul wants the body to cause itself to grow. Each individual applies their spiritual gift, and the body is strengthened. It grows. When people use the gift that God has given them, or simply don't use the gift that God has given them, the body declines and it shrinks. So we ask the question: How did it work out for the church of Ephesus? Did they grow?

39:36Were they unified in the faith that Paul talks about here to a mature church, or were they tossed by the sea like winds, or turned about by winds and tossed by the sea by craftiness and strategic deception? Did they speak the truth in love? Is that what they did? Did every member of this church cause the church to grow? And we would have to turn to Revelation chapter 2. In fact, we could do that. Revelation chapter 2, we see what happens to this church 30 years, some 30 years after this message is written.

40:10Jesus sends a message to this church of Ephesus through the pen of the Apostle John. And we see what he says to this church. He compliments them, and then he warns them. He compliments them first. He says this: To the angel of the church of Ephesus, that's, by the way, pastor, to the one who Holds the seven stars in his right hand, that's the seven churches. The one who walks among the seven lampstands, that's Jesus walking amongst the churches. Verse 2. He says, I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance, that you cannot tolerate evil men. You cannot tolerate those who would be deceptive. You cannot tolerate evil men. You put them to the test. Those who call themselves apostles and they are not, and you found them to be false. You have perseverance for my namesake. You have endured for my namesake, and you have not grown weary. But let's just stop there for a second. They were a church that had really good doctrine. They knew what they believed. They could sing it forwards and backwards. But Jesus says, I have this against you, that you left your first love. What did he tell them to do in Ephesians chapter 4? He speaks about love. And so they were really good at their doctrine, but they weren't very good at loving each other. And he warns them, verse 5, but remember from where you've fallen, repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I am coming, and I will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. I'll take your church away from you if you don't go back and love your first love. Love people, love God. That's his point. So that's what happened to the church of Ephesus. We need to recognize that each one of us are an integral part of the church. Each one of us are integral and that we are the ones who cause the growth. Of the church with the Lord.

42:05So back in Ephesians 4, 16, we see that the church is reflexive. The church is responsible to grow itself. Each individual person, that's you and that's me, connecting our spiritual gifts, metering out our service together to the extent that Christ has gifted us. And on a personal note, I would have to say here at Emmanuel, boy, I have seen some great, gifted people here serving tirelessly as unto the Lord. And I see a body of Christ that is built up, and it's a wonderful thing to see. And I think that's why this church, I know that's why this church is growing, not just physically, not just numerically, but as a gift of Christ, we genuinely love each other. We've got a long way to go, but we genuinely love each other. I'm built up, and Christ is glorified. The body grows. And perhaps you're scratching your head and you're thinking, I'm really not serving to the capacity that God has given me. And you sense that the Holy Spirit is maybe gnawing on your heart. I want to serve. But you're not quite sure how to get there. And I mentioned last week, we have dozens of ministries, and this is in your bulletin. If you'll come, just look at this. Where is the Holy Spirit gnawing on your heart to serve? Look and join us Wednesday nights.

43:26Pick one out. Pick two out. I don't advise all of them. Makes you very busy. But come and serve Christ. Figure out where you can serve in the body to build up others in the knowledge of Christ. Kick the ministry tires, they might say, and be a part of all this. But please carefully consider the ministries that God would have you serve in here to build up the body of Christ because He's gifted you in a particular way to do just that. The question is: what's the gift and where do I serve? Where do you serve?

43:58Well, that was a lot. Why don't we close in a word of prayer? Father, we thank you for equipping us, for outfitting the church for growth. It doesn't require modern technology. It requires hearts of people who recognize the giftedness that you've brought into their lives and that we serve not for our own glory, not for our own sake, but for your glory. You've warned us, Father, to evade false teachers. You've told us that we must grow through love.

44:38It's so clear in the text. And yet we see that each one of us must utilize the gifts that we've been given. And so we thank you for those gifts, Lord, and we ask you to help us to be more attentive and understanding exactly how you've equipped us as individuals to serve in a way that brings honor to your name. Lord, I mentioned a text this morning that may strike a question in the hearts of some. God, you're not willing for people to perish themselves.

45:10Here's what you're willing for them to do. You're willing for them to come to repentance and to trust in you. Lord, maybe that's the passage that struck the heart of one or more this morning. Maybe there are some there that are perishing themselves out there right now. It's your will, your want for them to repent and to come to know you. And I pray that that would even take place today, Father, for the first time. And that as you gift them with a gift to cause the body to grow, that you would make them a part of this body or another body of believers who embrace the truth of your word and use them to help us grow for your glory.

45:50And we thank you for these things in Christ's name.