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Here we go. So, I listened to Vans exposition of the second half of Ephesians three on the road. I drove down to Georgia. You know, I worked all day Monday after Easter and then drove to Georgia after that and then I drove back over the past few days and I have been just bursting at the seams with this because there is this doesn't need to have to start working or it's gonna be a real short sermon. I'm clicking away.
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It's not doing. There we go. So, Ephesians four one through 16. I'm excited about it. There's a a book on my shelf.
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The first time I preached through this, I used it pretty heavily. It is a commentary by Clyne Snodgrass. I mentioned his name because it's so great, Clyne Snodgrass. And he says about this passage, Josh, no say, no savvy. Here we go.
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He says that there is no passage that is more descriptive of the capital c church in all of scripture than Ephesians four one through 16. And being a pastor of a local church, this is, I agree with him a 100%. This is great. It's where the rubber hits the road and it's really really good. So, here we go.
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Ephesians one chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three, I told you from the very beginning is inspiration is what it's about is your inspiration. It's not full of imperatives. It's just stating the facts. This is the way it is in the heavenlies already that you are members of the body. It speaks a lot of unity and so there's inspiration that we've been called out of all of our different affiliations and into the body of Christ.
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So, it's inspiration. In Ephesians four through six is application and if you start off the conversation in Ephesians four, five, or six with somebody and they don't get Ephesians one, two, and three, it's going to be chaotic at best. You're gonna be telling somebody to do something that they have no ability to do. Does that make sense? You don't, you shouldn't expect somebody who don't know Jesus to act like they do.
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It's hard enough for those of us who do know Jesus to act like we do. Ephesians one through three is also theological. It gives the theological underpinning for the ethical application that comes in chapters four through six. So, we're just starting for today. We'll go four one through 16 and then, if you look at Ephesians one through three and you see any passages about Jesus, almost exclusively, he is called Christ, the anointed one, Messiah, Jesus.
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But if you see it in the application and ethical section chapters four through six, he's called lord. Think about the ramifications of that. Christ Jesus is indicative like straight up. He is the Christ. He is the one.
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He's the only begotten son of the father that could do what he did. He is it and either he will be your lord or he won't be. He's still the Christ no matter what but this passage and the rest of the Ephesians is written to people who have trusted in Christ. Now, it's making him lord. Does that make sense?
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Are you with me so far? Okay. Here we go. Ephesians four one starts off this way. Therefore, and that's all of the first three chapters.
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Everything theological that he said, everything about Christ that he said. Therefore, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord. Now, if you look back to chapter three, it starts off almost exactly the same way. It says, therefore, for this reason, I guess he says, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, it's still in that first section and he calls him Christ and then when he switches over, he's saying, I'm doing this because of the direction of my lord. Does that make sense?
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You can say, yes, lord or you can say no but you can't say no, lord. Does that make sense? That's a contradiction in terms. So, it starts off the same way and I'm convinced that Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is so excited and I've been there. You get so excited to say all this stuff that you get running around and saying different stuff that you had not planned on saying.
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He does that in chapter three a couple of times and he does it in chapter four. Therefore, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, and he had said earlier, on behalf of you, I'm I'm stuck here and I'm fine with it because now I get to sit down and write some to you. I urge y'all to walk in a manner that's worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Now, if you read that straight up without having chapters one, two, and three, it sounds like it could be a wagging finger. He's going, walk worthy.
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But that's not what he's saying. He's saying, because of all of this stuff, because Christ is actually king and you in humility can be his subjects. I'm going to say, recognize that though you were a child of darkness, he's brought you into the kingdom of light and therefore, walk like it. Walk it out. He's given you his indwelling spirit to direct and to empower you.
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So, be walking it out. Urge you to walk in a manner that's worthy of the calling with which you have been called and this is saying, and you've answered the call. You've you've joined up. Right? You're in.
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And now walk like it. With all human and this is how you're to walk. And it sounds like somebody. If you listen to what it's saying, walking out, walking worthy is walking with all humility and gentleness. Does that bring anybody to mind?
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It's Jesus and who was leaving the glories of heaven and emptying himself of his divine rights. He comes to Earth to be born as a man and to walk it out. Walking worthy of the calling with which he was called in all humility and in all gentleness. He could've called ten, zero angels at any time. Oh.
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And yet he didn't even at the cross. All humility and gentleness with patience. And bearing with one another in love. Oh my goodness. Can you can you imagine being Jesus and teaching those disciples?
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And having them just keep on bumping their heads against the same walls and sticking their foot in their mouth over and over and over again and saying the dumbest things, we do the same thing and so if we love one another, we should be bearing with one another in love and it comes up over and over and over again. If if I were to preach this same passage for two months, I could preach a different sermon on the same passage every time. This week, I'm giving you what it says and I'm reserving the right to come back next week and tell you what else it says. Okay? All humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another in love and being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
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Now, want you to see something here. The diligent to keep the unity of the spirit is not establishing unity. You can't manufacture it. It is true in God. It is true but you can't manufacture it.
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He's saying, let me just say, in some it says, being diligent to maintain the unity or being careful to maintain the unity in some translations. This is saying that you can't establish it because only God can establish that unity that comes from being in the body of Christ but you can ruin it. That's right. Yeah. You can quench the spirit.
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You can ruin it and so, be eager, the translation says, be eager to maintain or be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Now, could say this speaks to them. It spoke to the Ephesians definitely but as Protestant Americans, what do we do well? We divide. That's what we do well.
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We denominate. We're pretty good at that. If you don't believe that's true, take a road trip to Georgia. Take the small roads. Pass the churches and you'll see a church of Christ and you'll see a church of Christ in Yahweh.
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You'll see a church of Christ in God the Messiah. You'll see a Baptist church of this stripe or a Presbyterian church of that stripe and you'll see all kinds of stuff that'll be really upsetting if you're studying Ephesians four or John 17 or anything else in the New Testament. We are not to be dividing. We are to be bringing together and I know some of y'all say, but we can't do that at the expense of truth. Well, then, love one another in such a way that you bring people into the truth.
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Okay? And if you just decide, I'm right, they're wrong, you have already lost the battle. Right? We are both wrong. Do you get that?
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We're both wrong. In any human argument, we're both wrong and the spirit, well, let me just let the scripture say it. Be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit. That's something that comes only from God but it can be ruined by any podunk, anybody. Okay?
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So, be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Now, there is one body. You remember when I say that in italics in the New American Standard means it's not there. It's there to make it make sense in English but the very next sentence after being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, it says, one body and it stomps its foot, really. It emphatic in the Greek.
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One spirit. There's only one Holy Spirit. He does not speak out of both sides of his mouth. Okay? He's not telling you one thing and somebody else something different.
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Now, he might have gifted you in different ways and you see things different. That's fine but I can recognize when I see somebody has a gift that I don't have. I can recognize that that's good or I can be jealous of it or I can say it's bad, you know. There's one body or one body, one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. Your, the hope of your calling is that you, yes, you escape death, hell, and the grave.
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Yes. But also that he would sanctify you and make you righteous. Where there was no righteousness, okay? So, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, it wasn't by anything that you did but you have the hope that God can rescue and he does. It reminds me so much of the second step of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous or any other recovery.
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I've got a problem I can't do anything about, but there is a higher power that can restore me to sanity. The hope of that being the case, the very next step is I'm going to let him. I'm turning over my conscious will to him. That's what this is saying. He's called me out of one thing and into the body of Christ, out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of marvelous light, one body, one spirit, one hope of the calling, one lord, that's Jesus, one faith, that is true.
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One faith and we divide and we denominate. There's one faith. If you have to put anything in front of Christian, get rid of the thing you put in front of Christian. Does that make sense? I'm a, oh, I'm a Calvinist Christian.
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Oh, I'm a Armenian Christian. Oh, I'm a whatever, Baptist Christian, whatever. Just get rid of the of the adjective. Christians good enough. There's one faith.
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He's calling us into unity around his word and there are different interpretations of it but with humility and with love, we can get past that And I believe that it's possible because it is our call, and we have been empowered to do so. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Oh my goodness. How many different ways have people been baptized? There's sprinkling, there's spraying, there's our they used to do naked baptism.
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Thank God. We don't do that anymore. They've done baptisms all kinds of ways. There's one though. There's one baptism.
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Right? There's one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. So if we look at the one one one one one one one, it goes like that. It's about unity, oneness as N. T.
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Wright says in his book about this, this is about humility first, this chapter or this passage. Humility first, oneness is obvious, and then multiplicity, we'll get to that. It's about the diversity of gifts. Unity is not the same thing as uniformity. We are different but we are all useful in the kingdom.
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So, it goes one one one one one and then it goes all all all all all united in Christ. Amen. Here we go. But to each one of us, grace was given. According to the measure of Christ's gift.
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Now, this is an interesting thing. It looks like and it may be. It looks like it's saying that each one of us, we have a specific grace gifting. Gift that has been given and this is according to the measure of Christ's gift. You can look at this two different ways.
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It's either that he has given in the amount that you need and he knows you better than anybody else or it's grammatically possible. That he's saying that there will be some things that some of Christ followers just in one aspect will be just as good at it as Jesus. Oh, is that crazy to think about? He's giving it to the out of the fullness of the riches that are in Christ. Now, you're not gonna be Jesus.
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Don't get me wrong. I'm not not saying that. But he's given you the ability to do exactly what he wants for you to do. And he says that in Ephesians two eight and nine, you know, his grace was saved through faith, all that. But then it gets to, we're his workmanship.
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We're created in Christ Jesus to do good works that he is prepared in advance for us to do. He knows what the community needs. He knows what the church needs. He knows who he needs and where he needs them to do what he needs them to do. Now, this is where the question comes up.
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Would you rather God work through your obedience or in spite of your disobedience? Each one of us has been given a gift. Actually, Peter says exactly the same thing. Just as each one of us has received a special grace gifting. We should be employing it in serving one another as good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God.
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Each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift and therefore, it says, it here is the Old Testament. It's the book of Psalms. It's Psalm sixty eight eighteen in particular. So, he's setting up. He's Paul.
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He's setting up an Old Testament proof even though he's writing a letter to the Ephesians. He's sending it to him and he says, therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive the captives and he gave gifts to the people. So, that's from Psalm sixty eight eighteen and it's an interesting thing because in Psalm sixty eight eighteen, what it says is this, you have ascended on high. It's a messianic Psalm. You have led captivity captive.
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I love the way that puts it. You led captivity captive. You took away the sting of death, hell, and the grave. You led captivity crafty and it says, you have received gifts among men even from the rebellious that the Lord God might dwell there. Now, that does speak of Jesus and how he is and how he acts but this says, he received gifts and then Paul says, he gave gifts.
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So what do you do with the crowns? When faced faced with Jesus in glory. What does it say that he will give us a crown of righteousness and what will we do? We will lay them at his feet. So he gives and receives gifts from among men even from the rebellious that the Lord God might dwell there.
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And then he goes into this, which is a Pauline digression if I've ever seen one. It actually confuses the issue. I wish it weren't there, But it is. So, we're going to cover it. This is what it says.
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Now, the this expression he ascended from Psalm 68. What does it mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is himself. He who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things. It's a it's a glorious little homage to Christ.
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That's wonderful but to me, he he just kind of lost the trail there for a moment and he gets back on right after this closing of the parenthesis. So, there it is. Now, this expression he ascended, it says he ascended but doesn't that mean he also descended? Yes. He left the glories of heaven and he came to Earth and being found just as a man, Philippians two, like I said before.
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He walked it out, humbled himself even to death, death on a cross, and as he is doing that, he leads one of those guys, one of those, the thief on the cross next to him into glory. He ascends and brings captivity captive with him. He who descended is himself also. He who ascended. Far far above all the heavens.
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So, he has returned. So, let's get back to the flow of thought without the parenthesis, okay? Here, let it let it roll. To each one of us, grace was given. It is according to the measure of Christ's gift and therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive the captives and he gave gifts to the people and the gifts and the gifts and the gifts three times sets this up and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers.
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If you have an NIV, it'll give you five categories there. It'll say pastors, comma, teachers but I think this is, honestly, I think this is right. Everybody else thinks it's right. NIV don't think it's right. It's close.
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He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors, and teachers. So, there are four giftings listed. All of these have something in common. Apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors, teachers, all have in common that they are ministers of the word. So, sounds like pastor, it's shepherd.
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So, shepherds and teachers. One of the qualifications for shepherds or elders in Titus and in Timothy is that they will be apt to teach or ready to teach that they know the word and they're able to explain it well. That's part of it. So, apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers are the giftings that are listed and it says that God gave those things to the church. He gave those folks that are to serve as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers.
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So, they are responsible for relaying the word of God. Now, you can look at this a couple of different ways too. You can say, apostles are those that Jesus sent out capital A apostles. There were the original plus Paul, right? Apostles and you can look at the prophets and say, it's a capital P prophet.
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Those are the old testament guys that we studied for months recently, minor prophets, not mentioning the major prophets. You can look at it that way. At this time, they probably saw it as the apostles are the ones that Jesus sent out. What it means is sent out ones. Era Era Pastali, you remember those shirts?
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It's and they always had mail on them. It's about things that are sent out. Okay. To be sent by Jesus. That's what the original apostles were and so, that's a way of understanding it.
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I think a way of understanding in our time is those that we send out missionaries. People who we send out missionaries. When Tanya and I went to the mission field, I've been in I've been in church my whole life. I've been in Sunday school my whole life. I had a theological kind of brain, I think, but I had never been to school for it.
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I had never studied it at great depth. And what I noticed when I got to the field is I I really felt like I needed more training to be able to do that. I I can relay it to the to the thing but we were sent out by our church in Georgia to go and carry what? The word. Now, we carried it to a deaf school.
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There's some steps between them receiving the word. I mean, a deaf school in Mexico. So, yeah. But we were sent out once. Prophets is anybody who foretells or forthtells that this thus saith the Lord.
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They take the scripture and they relay it. Presenting it. The ministry of the word. Thus saith the Lord. This is what God says and we all know of the Old Testament prophets.
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They in the New Testament, Agabus is one example of a guy who was speaking what would happen to Paul for example. He was saying, this is what's going to happen when you go to Jerusalem and it did. So, that's prophets. That's a gift. Evangelist.
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Evangelist are primarily concerned with having the word transmitted to people who do not yet trust in Jesus and they presented it such a way as to bring people into the kingdom and there are some of y'all that are just wired as evangelists and it is the way that you are. I think of a few people in my head. There was a fellow when I was growing up named Rodney Bishop and Rodney would minister to people at a truck stop. Not like that was his normal job. Just he stopped to fill up with gas and at the pump, he's ministering to somebody and in line, he's ministering.
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In the bathroom, he's ministering to somebody and he's presenting Jesus the whole time. He just can't help it. That's who he is. Evangelist. I'm not primarily an evangelist but I will say this, I'm a pastor teacher.
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Timothy, I think is a pastor teacher but Paul says to Timothy, hey, Timothy, starting out, man. Do the work of an evangelist. I have had the overwhelming pleasure of presenting Christ to someone and have him accept it. Buddy in our midst had the pleasure this week of presenting the gospel to his mother who is dying and she accepted Christ. Praise God.
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He was doing the work of an evangelist. Right? Pastors and teachers, shepherding people in the way that they should go by ministering the word, relaying the word of God. How does the word of God come to bear on Yvonne's illness right now or Carolyn's illness right now? How does the word of God how can we encourage one another in that?
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That's the domain of pastors and teachers. And this says, Okay. Is that me? Most likely? Okay.
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So, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors, teachers, and that they are their primary responsibility is ministering the word and actually in Acts, we see the apostles and they had to to decide, are we going to wait tables or are we going to minister the word? And they set up and they had the first deacons ordained to take care of the ministry and actually the next sentence will go right into that. He gave some of his apostles and prophets and evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. I did pass one church that said, pastor, so and so, I don't remember his name and then it said, ministers, the whole congregation and that is true. According to Ephesians four eleven and twelve, the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.
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Ministering the word to the people to be able to carry out the gifts that they have for the kingdom. This is not a new thing in Ephesians. It's a gift. It should be taken as such and know that he has empowered us to do good works and he prepared them ahead of time. For the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, so the church is to be ministering to itself and the community for the building up of the body of Christ and if you're looking at apostles and evangelists particularly, they're about adding to the number, bringing people in.
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Missionaries go out. They spread the word. They're doing the work as an evangelist and they're sharing and then people are coming into the body of Christ. For prophets and for pastors and teachers, I think their primary responsibility is for people who already believe the Bible saying, hey, prophets are going, we don't line up with this, people. What are we going to do about it?
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We need to humble ourselves together and pray and fall into line with this by God's hand and by his spirit and then pastors and teachers are patting them on the back and saying, we can do this together. That's what I see it as. Okay. So, for the building up of the body of Christ. Now, for the building up of the body of Christ, is that quantity or quality?
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Yes. It is both. It's both things. So, until when? Until we all attain to the unity of the faith.
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Are we there yet? Lord, have mercy. We're not close. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God. The knowledge of the son of God is really important.
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In the first three chapters, it mentions it over now. What is he praying for? I'm praying that you'll be filled with the knowledge of God and so, if you get the knowledge part of it, that's great. Then, you're able to apply it with wisdom. Until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of God to a mature man.
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We get to a place of maturity in Christ. There are a lot of different places in scripture where it says, I acted like a child but then, now, I'm acting like a grown up. So, here it is. This is until we all attain to the maturity of a grown up. To the measure and this man could be men and women.
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It's not a it's not qualified to just be we're we're all to be like grown men. It's grown ups. To a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Whatever the gift is that God has given you individually to serve you collectively until we all attain to where we're operating at that fullness that's in Christ. That's how long we're going to be doing this.
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Are we there? I am. No, we're not. Come on. Ephesians four fourteen says this, now, as a result, as a result of this, we're no longer to be children.
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So, maturity, don't act like a child. When you grow up in the faith, sometimes you see this and you get almost inured to it or you get inoculated against it, against how powerful the word of God is, we're no longer to be children just tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, and by craftiness and deceitful scheming. We do have an enemy. We do have a lot that is working against us. But if we will hold on to and be eager to maintain the unity that's in the body, lovingly correcting actually.
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Let me let me let this say it. The next sentence says, but be speaking the truth in love. If you just speak the truth and you're wagging the finger and you're being ugly about it, you're not going to win anybody over. If the person knows that you love them and that you're ministering the word and and the case of the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors, teachers, you're ministering the word because you love. It's not helpful to tell somebody who needs strong medicine that they're not really that sick.
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They need the strong medicine. We need the word. We need for it to point out our sins and we need to be humble about it. Speaking the truth and love, we're to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is Christ. He is our example.
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If we're looking to him as the old premarital session goes, if you're looking to God right here and groom is here and bride is here and you're both seeking to get closer and closer and closer and closer to Christ, then you're going be getting closer and closer and closer to each other. Okay? We're looking to him in all aspects who is the head, Christ. We're growing up. We're maturing in this.
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We're not dividing anymore but we're coming together in love around the Christ, one body, one faith, one lord, one baptism from whom the Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by whatever joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part. Can can we say that we all agree about this? When your body is hurting, one part hurting hurts the rest of the body. You can localize pain kinda, but if you're dragging a leg, it messes with the rest of your body. I've got lots of witnesses out here.
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Lots of witnesses who've been to two times, whatever, orthopedics or whatever. If if one part of your family is hurting, it hurts the whole family. If one of us is not operating at our fullest, it hurts the whole body. So, we want to be growing up and fitted and held together in Christ, the proper working of each individual part. And that causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
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Now the body says, the body will build itself up if people are operating according to this in all humility with gentleness and patience and their bearing with one another in love, then the body will itself build itself up. Amen. It is the body of Christ. It's not a human institution. The unity that is in the body, we cannot establish but we can ruin.
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Okay? So, here's another one of these. For the building up of itself and love, is that quantity or quality? Yes. It's both.
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And I think that's the last slide. That's the last slide. Would you all stand with me? And as you process this, there are a lot of different ways of looking at it. Vaughn Roberts, actually an Oxford scholar but I saw him present on this in 2010 and it still rings in my ears a lot of what he said.
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He said, John Lennon sings about, you know, imagine, all the people living life as one, you know, and he goes, then the world will be as one as the way the song closed and everybody longs for that. How is that gonna happen? Von Roberts says, first of all, by an outworking of the call and second by a proclamation of the word. The word will do the work if we let it. Amen.
