========================================================================
  (EPHESIANS) GROWING IN THE LORD
  by Brian Brodersen
========================================================================

Summary: The sermon emphasizes the importance of individual growth in
Christ and the role of the pastor and teacher in equipping the saints to
build up the body of Christ and to defend against false teaching.

Duration: 49:21 Topics: "Christian Fellowship", "Spiritual Growth"
Scripture References: Psalm 1:2, Acts 2:42, Ephesians 4:11

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of Christ being at
the center of Christian gatherings and fellowship. He highlights the
commitment and steadfastness of the early Christians in their devotion
to the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.
The speaker contrasts this with the tendency of modern Christians to
prioritize other activities and interests over Christ-centered
fellowship. He encourages believers to immerse themselves in the Word of
God and engage in these foundational practices in order to grow in
Christ.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's turn this evening to verse 11 of Ephesians chapter 4. As we
continue to make our way through this great epistle of Paul to the
church in Ephesus, verse 11 reads, And he himself gave some to be
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and
teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of
the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no
longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of
deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth and love may grow up in all
things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined
and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect
of working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body
for the edifying of itself in love. In our last study, we looked at
verse 11 in detail, and we talked about the ministry of the apostles and
prophets and the evangelist and pastors and teachers and how these are
gifted men. Gifted by Christ and given to the church for the purpose of
equipping the saints so the saints can carry out the work of the
ministry so the body of Christ can be built up so that we would
ultimately come to that mature state that the Lord is wanting to bring
us to, that we would grow up in Christ.

That's really the ultimate goal. And to that end, we minister, we use
the gifts that God has given us to the end that all of us collectively
together might be growing up in Christ and becoming mature as a body of
people, not just us here tonight or us who belong to this particular
congregation. But Paul is looking at the church in its entirety, and
he's envisioning a full grown Christian church, a church that is in all
things like its head, like the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so in our last study, we looked at the different things that pertain
to equipping and building up the body and so forth. But tonight we want
to concentrate on verse 14. At least that's where we want to pick up and
point out some things about.

False teaching, if we allow ourselves to be tossed to and fro. And to be
carried about with every wind of doctrine. Then we condemn ourselves to
perpetual immaturity.

You see, false teaching of whatever sort will prohibit a person from
growing up in Christ. And one of the things that is the responsibility
of the pastor, teacher, evangelist is to equip the saints to be able to
avoid. Being tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
doctrine.

And, you know, it's a fact that where the Bible is faithfully taught
under the direction of the Holy Spirit, people generally grow up and
aberrant doctrine never really has an opportunity to invade that kind of
a fellowship where the word of God is given preeminence, where the
exposition of the scriptures is a high priority. You don't really find
winds of doctrine being able to sweep through and and affect the people
that are under God gifted ministries. But you do find in those places
where the word is neglected or the word is set aside for experience or
something like that, you do find Christians in a perpetual state of
immaturity.

They're not growing up. They're not becoming the people that God wants
them to be in the people that they need to be to impact their world. And
so Paul tells us here in verse 14 that we should no longer be children.

And the word could literally be translated babies or infants. The word
is literally those who cannot yet speak. And so it's referring to a baby
or an infant that we should no longer be infants tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine.

And notice by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful
plotting. Now, it is a fact that there are men today and there always
have been throughout the long history of the church, men whose motives
are self-centered, men who are not really serving the Lord Jesus Christ,
but they are imposters. Now, no one likes to hear that, and whenever you
make those kinds of statements, people, you know, will accuse you of
being harsh or divisive or something like that.

But the fact of the matter is there always have been and there still are
presently people who are. Self-proclaimed servants of God, but they are
not serving the Lord at all, they're really just serving themselves. And
we've got to be aware of that, and we can't just pretend like that sort
of thing doesn't happen.

It does happen, and we've got to be on our guard lest we be carried
about with every wind of doctrine and come under some sort of deception.
It's out there, but if we stick close to the word of God, if we're in a
ministry where God's word is being faithfully expounded, then we are to
a large degree immune from that danger. You know, when I was pastoring.

Calvary Chapel in Vista, California, just down the road, about 60 miles
or so. The only way our congregation ever heard anything about false
doctrine was when I told him about it. And I would sometimes tell him,
you know, in the course of a message about various doctrines that had
come through.

And yet, apart from me informing them on occasion, they had never really
heard of those things. Because what happens when you have a ministry
that is based in the word, it sort of builds a protective hedge around
the fellowship. And that sort of thing just can't make its way in.

And that is certainly the case here as well. You know, many, many
churches have suffered as a result of false teaching. Many churches that
had a glorious beginning have not survived.

Many have divided and split and been torn apart over false teaching. And
yet you look at a ministry like this one, for example, and you see that
in the more than 30 years of the existence of this fellowship, that sort
of thing has not occurred. And I attribute that to the fact that the
word of God has been faithfully taught.

And as the word of God is being faithfully proclaimed and received, it
builds up in a sense an immunity to false teaching. Now, when it comes
to false doctrine, there are times when it's important to maybe point
out various doctrines that are aberrant and maybe even at times, you
know, make reference to those who are promoting them. And there are
occasions when I would do something like that.

I tended to do it a lot more in the past than I do nowadays. And there
is a place to do that. But, you know, the best way to really protect
ourselves against that is just to have a firm foundation in the word
itself.

Rather than going out and trying to, you know, understand all of the
bizarre teaching out there and all of the intricacies of weird doctrinal
ideas. If we just saturate ourselves in the truth. If we just immerse
ourselves in the word of God, we will be immune, we'll be protected.

You know, it is a fact that when they are training a person to detect
counterfeit currency, they train them by allowing them to only handle
real currency. And they become so familiar with the real currency, the
very instant they touch a counterfeit bill, they know it's counterfeit
because they've become so familiar with the way that the true currency
feels and our best defense really is a good offense. Our best way to
defend against false teaching is to know the truth.

And so when you're rooted and grounded in the truth, when something that
is not true comes along, you just know it. You might not even know all
of the details of why, but, you know, it just doesn't have that ring of
truth to it. And so part of the ministry of the evangelist and the
pastors and teachers, as we pointed out in a previous study, is to take
the foundational ministry of the apostles and prophets, which is our New
Testament, and to communicate it to us in such a way as to equip us to
do the work of the ministry and to inoculate us against the various
winds of doctrine that can blow through and toss us up and down and back
and forth and prohibit us from really coming to a state of maturity.

You know, this is sort of a difficult subject to even communicate to
this congregation because it's something that is really foreign to us.
We don't have that kind of experience. And it's almost a thing that, you
know, in some sense is just unheard of.

But if you get outside of good, sound biblical teaching ministries, you
find that, oh, just, you know, people have been swept up in so many
different things. And there are ministries that are marked by winds of
doctrine, you know, ministries have, you know, sort of a signature about
them, sort of a stamp. And you look at a certain ministry and and it's,
you know, there's a certain emphasis there.

And so the ministry becomes identified with that emphasis. Well, I
think, you know, when you think of the Calvary Chapel ministry and
especially this one here, the emphasis, of course, has been the word of
God, the exposition of the word of God. And that's what you think of in
connection.

But there are other ministries that you can think of and you would find
other emphasis. Some ministries you think of, oh, you know, the gifts of
the spirit or some you think of, you know, an emphasis on whatever, you
know, just some other particular doctrine, some baptism or something
like that. But then there are ministries that have been affected by what
you could say would be really every wind of doctrine and you can't
really pinpoint any one thing that they stand for because they stand for
something different every few months, you know, whenever something new
blows into town, that's what they grab on to.

And I can think of one particular ministry that I won't mention by name
that. Over its history as a ministry. Whatever new doctrine was sort of
blowing through town was what they picked up and made their emphasis,
and back in the early days, the emphasis was signs and wonders.

And that emphasis has remained always. But then it was sort of
overlapped by the inner healing doctrine for a while. And that was the
big emphasis.

And that's what everybody was talking about and experiencing. And then
that sort of passed. And then there was an emphasis on prophets and
everybody was wanting to prophesy and they were looking for the next
prophet to get up and give a word from the Lord.

And then there was the blessing that came and they were looking for the
holy laughter and those kinds of things. I'll never forget one night
many years ago, we were having our Sunday evening Bible study at Calvary
Chapel Vista, and I wasn't aware at the time that this new laughter
movement was sweeping through the area. And, you know, I hadn't heard
about it yet.

But one night a lady came into the church and she sat right in the front
row. And as I began teaching, she would start laughing. And, you know,
it's very rare that people laugh when I'm teaching because I'm not I'm
not the most humorous guy in the world.

And she was laughing about everything. And, you know, I was, you know, I
was kind of looking at her and thinking, what is she doing? You know,
and I'd say something else. And she started.

And then she got to a place where she was just, you know, bending over
in laughter. And finally, I just stopped. I said, what are you doing?
And she looked at me and she said, the spirit's moving.

And I said, well, I'm sorry, but we don't laugh here. This is not the
Holy Spirit. This is some other spirit.

Perhaps it's moving, but we're going to stop the move right now. Either
you stop laughing or we'll show you the door. And that was my first
encounter with holy laughter, as they called it.

And we made it clear to her afterwards that we don't laugh here. And so
she never came back. And but, you know, that whole thing swept through
and impacted so many people.

And that was a big emphasis. And then that sort of died down. And then
not too long ago, there was the phenomena of people being sprinkled with
gold dust and having their amalgam fillings turned to gold fillings.

And, you know, these kinds of things. And, you know, who knows what's
happening now? I don't know. But there are ministries.

But here's the thing that, of course, there's the healing and all of
that. But here's the thing, a ministry that's marked by. A change of
emphasis every few months or every couple of years is a ministry that
inevitably will leave people in a state of spiritual immaturity.

It prevents people from growing up, people can't grow up in the Lord
under those things, because the thing that God has designated to produce
growth in our lives is his word. And without the faithful exposition of
the word, there isn't going to be any growth taking place. And that's a
sad thing, because you find Christians that have gone after one thing or
another.

And then, of course, you've got the prosperity kind of a doctrine
involved in that area as well of churches. And, you know, you just see
blatant immaturity in the lives of so many people. When we were living
in London, a good friend of mine worked at the Royal Albert Hall and the
Royal Albert Hall is a place where many things go on.

One of the things that happened there is some of the faith healers and
all, you know, will pass through London and that's where they'll hold
their meetings. And he was working at the Royal Albert Hall during the
time that Benny Hinn came through London and had one of his healing
services there. And the interesting thing was the response from the
staff of Royal Albert Hall.

He was one of the employees and he would tell me how the other employees
would respond. First of all, they thought it was hilarious. The antics
of Benny Hinn, they thought it was absolutely ludicrous, really, that
anyone would take this guy seriously.

That was their number one response. And their second response was that
they were disgusted by the behavior and the rudeness of the people that
came to these events. And they actually would say that the people coming
to these events were more difficult to deal with than people coming to
any other event.

Now, what kind of events do they have at the Royal Albert Hall? They
have everything from ballet to Paul McCartney concert to whoever, you
know, it's one of those venues where you could have any number of things
going on. But hands down across the board, everyone agreed that the
worst events, the ones that nobody wanted to work. Were the ones when
the healing preachers would come through town because they couldn't
handle the obnoxious attitude of the people.

So what does that tell you right there? It tells you just exactly what
we're talking about, that false teaching will stunt your growth
spiritually. It'll keep you from becoming a full grown person in Christ.
And so thank God that we have the privilege of being brought up under
the pure milk of the word.

Thank God that we have ministries that emphasize the right thing, the
exposition of the scriptures. And so verse 15. He says, but speaking the
truth and love now, the word speaking here.

Is something that the translators put in to try to communicate what's
being expressed here in the original language, if you translated this
literally, it would read but truthing in love. Now, that doesn't make
any sense. That's why they didn't translate it literally.

So they said speaking and speaking, of course, is part of it, but
speaking isn't a totally accurate translation here. A better translation
would probably be but manifesting the truth and love because it's not
just through speaking, but it's through our lifestyle. That's what the
apostle is emphasizing.

So here's what he's saying as we connect it all together, that Christ
has given to his church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and
teachers to equip the saints to do works of service so the body of
Christ can be built up so that we can become mature so that we're not
carried away with every wind of doctrine so that we're not tossed to and
fro and left in a state of perpetual immaturity, but rather that we can
manifest the truth and love to one another and thus build one another up
in the faith, building one another up in the faith. That's the emphasis
of the text here, that we may grow up in all things into him who is the
head Christ. You see, that's what God is wanting to work in our lives.

He's wanting us to grow up into him in all things. In other words, the
ideal that God is seeking with the church is that the church would be a
living demonstration of Christ. That we collectively, as the church,
would be a living demonstration of Christ, that's the ideal that God
longs to bring about through his church, that his church would be a
picture to the world of the ongoing ministry of Christ.

You see, Jesus came to the earth. He lived here for approximately 33
years. He carried on ministry for three to four years publicly.

And then, of course, he gave his life for our sins. He died on the
cross. He was resurrected and he ascended back to heaven.

But the Lord wants to carry on the ministry of Jesus and he wants to
continue to manifest Jesus Christ to each successive generation through
the church. That's what the church is supposed to be supposed to be an
ongoing picture of Christ and his ministry in the world. Now, that's the
church collectively, but of course, we realize that the church
collectively is made up of individual parts.

And so the only way for the church collectively to grow up in all things
in Christ is for us as individuals to be growing up in Christ. You see,
if we're not growing up, then the overall witness of the church is not
going to be what God wants it to be. So I have the personal
responsibility as an individual Christian to make sure I'm growing, to
make sure I am doing the things that promote growth and development and
progress toward Christ likeness, because if I'm doing my part, then
there's a greater possibility that the overall witness of the church is
going to be what the Lord wants it to be.

So you see, we have got to individually give effort to make sure that we
are putting ourselves in a place so that we can grow up in all things in
Christ. We're talking about Christian growth and Christian growth is
something that. Is a cooperative effort, God is the one who brings the
increase.

But there are certain things that I must do in cooperation with God for
that increase to come about. Just like with our physical. Bodies.

Our bodies are developed in such a way that they grow. There's a natural
growth process that takes place, but I do have a role to play, I do have
a contribution to make. I have got to nourish my body, I've got to put
into my body the things that are going to help it to grow.

I've got to avoid things that are going to damage my body and prevent
growth and so forth. And you know that you understand that you see that
on a physical level, but it's also the case on a spiritual level.
Ultimately, God is the one who is going to cause the growth, but yet he
causes the growth as we cooperate with him and as we function together.

And so look again at verse 16, from whom the whole body joined and knit
together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of
working by which every part does it share causes growth of the body for
the edifying of itself and love. You see, it's a picture of every part,
every individual part. Functioning to its capacity and then.

Ministering to the various other parts so that the whole is becoming all
that it can be. And so what we have to ask ourselves tonight as
individuals is, are we cooperating with God in this growth process so
that we can make our contribution to the body so that the body can
become all that the Lord desires it to be? Are we doing that? Are we
doing all that we can to grow in the faith? Are we perhaps doing things
that will stunt our growth, that will hinder growth in our lives? Are we
spending more time with the things of this world and with the things of
the spirit? Are we catering more to our own fleshly desires than we are
to? The spirit aspect of our lives, those are things that we have to
take into consideration. There is an effort that must be put forth if
we're going to continue to grow.

I have to put forth some effort. I can't just sit back and think that,
you know, it's just going to happen, you know, without me giving any
thought to it or any action upon it. It's all just what God is going to
do.

And I'm just going to go about my merry way and trust in him to get it
accomplished. That's an imbalance. And we've got to come back to the
understanding that it's a cooperative effort.

It's a joint effort, as Paul said in writing to the Philippians, work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That's your part, for it
is God who works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. That's
his part.

So we're to work out our own salvation because God's working in us. So
we've got God's part and then we've got our part. And so let's talk just
for a few minutes about the things that lend themselves to.

Developing us spiritually. The things that we need to be involved in as
Christians to be growing and to be becoming the people that God wants us
to be, they're simple things, you know, God has made it really simple.
He hasn't made it complicated.

There's just a few things that we need to be doing, and if we're doing
those things, then we're going to be growing in the second chapter of
Acts. We find there that. The early Christians continued steadfastly in
the apostles doctrine, in fellowship, in breaking of bread and in
prayer.

And as you look at those things, those are really the foundational
things that as Christian people, we need to be involved in, and if we're
immersing ourselves in those things, then we're going to be growing up
in all things in Christ. So he said, first of all, that they continued
in the apostles doctrine. They were people who were in the word.

Now, on the one hand, I know that this seems like a why bother subject,
we're all here tonight, we're studying the Bible, you brought your
Bibles with you. Hey, we're in the word. Yes, we're in the word, but.

Are we in the word tomorrow morning? Are we in the word tomorrow night,
are we in the word Monday morning, Monday night, are we delighting
ourself in the law of the Lord and meditating in it day and night as the
psalmist told us that we should. If we wanted to know the blessed life.
You see, we've got to become people of the word to the extent that not
just when I'm at a Bible study, but wherever I am, I'm meditating on the
word of God.

I've got the word of God with me and I'm just waiting for those.
Opportunities to ponder it, to think on it, I've hidden it in my heart
and I'm mulling it over in my mind. And I think that we've lost that a
little bit, you know, there was a time when all over Orange County you
would find people carrying their Bibles everywhere they went.

You couldn't go to a restaurant without finding a bunch of people with
Bibles there. And it was one of the marks of the revival that was taking
place in this area 25 years ago, one of the features of that revival was
such a commitment to the word that people just took their Bibles with
them wherever they went and would frequently open the Bible and be
sharing the word with one another and with anybody else that happened to
come by and, you know, be curious about what was going on. And, you
know, I look around today and I see that things have changed as time has
passed and, you know, there are churches now today in the Orange County
area, big churches, lots of people coming.

But if you brought your Bible even to church, they would look at you
like a weirdo. You know, in a lot of churches today, you don't need to
bring your Bible because they do it all for you. They have a large
screen TV sort of a set up and they just flash the scriptures up on the
screen or they give you a little handout when you come in that has the
verses that the pastor is going to be talking about.

And don't bother to bring your Bible, you know, these churches, they
want to make it easy as possible. They realize the Bible can be a little
bit heavy to lug around. So, hey, you know, you don't even have to bring
a Bible.

We'll do it for you. We'll hand you a little handout and you can just,
you know, tear it up and throw it away afterward if you want to. And I
think, you know, we've lost something.

We've lost that fervency for the word that once existed. That fervency
for the word that was manifest by the fact that, you know, people were
just they had the word with them all the time, they just were so into
the word that they didn't want to be without it because at any given
moment they knew that they could maybe have an opportunity to open it
and share it with somebody else and that sort of thing. And I pray to
God that we could.

Have a reoccurrence of that kind of an attitude and that sort of a thing
happen, I think that'd be a great thing if we could see that happening
and people just taking their Bibles wherever they went, not like a bunch
of Pharisees, you know, walking around, you know, Bible thumping people
and that sort of thing that wasn't going on back then. But just because
we're committed to the word, we love the word of God. And so we just
want to have it with us wherever we are.

One guy, I just I greatly admire him in so many different areas of his
life is John Corson. One of the things that really blesses me every time
I see John, he has his Bible with him and he carries it wherever he
goes. And he's that sort of a guy who, you know, the word is just you
listen to him on the radio and, you know, the guy's full of the word.

And you wonder, well, how did he get that way? I wish I was like that.
Well, tell you one thing, he carries his Bible wherever he goes and he
doesn't just carry it. He reads it as often as he can.

And we need to be people, if we're going to grow up in all things in
Christ, we need to be people who are immersed in the word, because
remember, Christ is the word. He's the living word. And if we're going
to grow up to be like him, then we've got to be, you know, having the
word become a part of us as well.

And there's nothing more beautiful than a person who's just immersed in
the word and their whole life and conversation, it just revolves around
the word. Have you met somebody like that who not in again, not in a
prideful way, but just, you know, it's just who they are. But as they
talk to you, they just talk scripture.

And, you know, even in just normal conversation, something will remind
them of a biblical illustration and they'll bring that into the
conversation. That's beautiful. That's powerful.

And God, help us to have a restoration of that in our lives. And so they
continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. They were in the word
and the word was in them.

And they were growing up and becoming like Christ in that area. And then
it says that they fellowshiped. They fellowship, they would come
together often and commune with one another.

With Jesus Christ being. The center of their lives and conversation,
that's what fellowship really is. Fellowship is to come together with
other believers anywhere, doesn't matter where, and to commune with each
other, with Christ being the center of your life and conversation.

And it says that they were steadfast in fellowship, it was something
that they did. Frequently. It wasn't something that they left to just,
you know, once a week or so, but as you get the picture of the early
church, you find that it seems that the free moment that they had,
that's.

What they gravitated toward. Toward that communion with the saints being
together with the people of God, and that's a beautiful thing, and we
grow. As we fellowship with one another, because God uses the various
experiences that each of us have to touch and to encourage and to
challenge and to rebuke one another.

And I can think of numerous benefits that I've derived from having
fellowship with other Christians conversation, just hearing what God's
doing in their life, just sometimes just a word or two, they'll say, and
God will use what they said to speak to me about something. It's a
beautiful thing. And then prayer, they continued in prayer.

Prayer. We need to become people of prayer today, Jesus spent much time
in prayer, so if we're going to grow up in all things like the head,
then we're going to be growing in prayer and getting together and
praying with each other. And it seems to me I could I could be wrong on
this, but it seems to me that these things that were once very much a
part of.

The experience of many Christians, it seems that many of these things
have sort of died down. And again, we don't have that devotedness to the
word like we used to have, we, you know, make time occasionally, but
there's other things that we're interested in, there's other priorities,
there's, you know, this TV program that I enjoy watching and there's
this, you know, this website that I really dig going to because I'm
getting some great information or, you know, I'm downloading some great
music and getting into a nostalgic thing and, you know, remembering my
teen years and, you know, the kinds of things that we get caught up in
and fellowship. It's not, you know, that we're getting together like we
used to and really things are centering around Christ.

We're still getting together. But now, you know, it's centered around
the barbecue and, you know. We do more eating and fellowshipping and,
you know, we talk about the whatever sport is in season at the time, and
of course, the big talk right now is the Super Bowl tomorrow and all of
that, you know, and all of those things.

You know, I'm not saying that we can't talk about those things, but the
question is, what happened to the focus upon Christ? And have we moved
away from that? And when we get together with Christian friends, is
there that atmosphere of the spirit and is Christ at the center of what
we're doing? And then are we. Getting together and praying with each
other. You know, let's get together this Friday night, what do you want
to do? I don't know.

I'll pick up a video and we'll come over. What about the days when I'll
come over Friday night and we'll pray together, how's that sound? You
see, these are things that these lend to growth in Christ, and then let
me remind you that there it says that they continued steadfastly in
these things. They were committed to this lifestyle.

You see, the Church of Jesus Christ. Is not like a club. That you join
and then just visit occasionally.

The Church of Jesus Christ is the greatest reality in the universe
because it's the only society that's going to remain forever. Everything
else is perishing, everything else is vanishing. And as I look at this
passage, another thing that stands out to me is how Paul is putting the
emphasis on what Christians are really to be occupied with doing is
building up the church.

Building up the church because the church is the permanent society and
we're to be building up the church, our relationship to the world is to
be such that we're just seeking to draw people out of the world into the
church. But, you know, as I looked at this passage today, I was thinking
how so often Christians spend so much of their time trying to reform the
world, trying to patch it up, trying to make it a better place, trying
to keep it limping along for as long as possible, because it's a pretty
cool place, you know, in a lot of ways and. We've got to keep it going,
and yet I don't see that emphasis in Scripture when you look at the
apostle Paul.

You know, Paul did not go to Rome to talk to Caesar about a lot of the
legislation that had come down recently that was really sort of, you
know, anti-Christian. He didn't go to the Senate in Rome and try to get
them to, you know, change the laws about, you know, this, that or the
other thing. And what these guys did is their approach to the world was
to see it as something that was under the judgment of God.

And inevitably going to be destroyed. But a place where precious souls
were held captive. And Paul's task was to see if he could bring souls
out of that captivity into the kingdom of God.

And his emphasis was upon the church. And I was thinking the other day,
you know, the apostle, he made an interesting statement. And again,
because a lot of times I think as Christians, you know, and especially
today, because we do see so much going on in our society that's wrong,
we start, you know, we're preaching to them, but the problem is they're
not listening.

And we're trying to get the sinners to live like saints when they're
sinners, they can't live like saints. But Paul said an interesting
thing. He was writing to the Corinthians and he said, I wrote you an
epistle not to keep company with fornicators and embezzlers and enlisted
a number of things, he said, but I wasn't referring to the people in the
world, I was referring to the people who claim to be Christians who are
like this.

He said, I'm telling you not to associate with them. You can associate
with the people in the world like that because you want to be a light to
them and you want to bring them out of darkness. But then as he was
finishing up that whole thing there, he said to them, he said, don't you
judge among yourselves? And then he said this, he said, what have I to
do with judging the world? God will judge the world.

But we need to judge. Among ourselves in our own midst, and as I was
thinking about that, you know, I was thinking of Paul's attitude toward
the world. And the point is this Paul's great concern was with the
church, not with the world, he wasn't concerned to try to reform the
world.

He was concerned to try to build up the church because he knew, again,
that the church is the only everlasting society and that's where the
emphasis should be put. But he also knew that the world would be most
impacted if the church was strong. And you see, that's the key.

So the emphasis here is on us individually as believers discovering that
place that we have in the body and functioning the way God intends us to
function. So the overall collective body of Christ can become that
strong manifestation of Jesus in the world and shine forth to attract
people to come in to this everlasting society. Out from the temporal one
that's perishing and under God's wrath.

And so we want to put the emphasis where the Bible puts it, and it's on
the things of the spirit. And so as we. Finish things up.

Growing up in all things into him. Are you growing up in Christ, are you
in the word, is the word in you? Are you immersing yourself in it,
saturating in it, yourself in it, are you in fellowship, not just coming
to church and listening to the word being taught, but are you connecting
with other Christians and sharing the gifts that God has given you with
one another? Are you praying? Are you coming together with other members
of the family of God and praying? Are we seeking to reach those who
don't know Christ? Are we reaching out to the loss? These are the things
that we need to occupy ourselves with. And as we put forth the effort,
God meets us.

Right there, and he does his part and he causes growth and he causes us
to become strong and he causes us to prosper in the spirit and the body
edifies itself in love. And that's what the Lord desires. So my
encouragement to you is to give yourself to the things that will help
you grow up in all things into him who is the head.

Give yourself to those things and refrain from the things that are going
to stifle that the things that are going to. Hinder that from really
coming to fruition, stay away from those things, just move away from
them, not as a legalistic, you know, the pastor said, I can't do this
anymore. It's not a matter of can I do this or can't I do this? It's
really a matter of why should I do this? It's not a matter of how much
can I live in a worldly manner and still get to heaven.

Somebody called us yesterday on the radio program and asked a question
kind of like that, and Chuck's response was wrong question. It is it's
the wrong question. It's not how worldly can I be and still be saved.

It's how close to Christ can I get while I'm living here on Earth?
That's the question we need to be asking, and that's the goal that we
need to be pursuing. And that's the desire that God has for us, that we
would grow up in all things to him who is the head, even Christ. Let's
pray.

Lord, we thank you. For the gifted servants of yours that you've granted
to us that have helped us, Lord, to grow in you. And Lord, we know that
they have their part and you, of course, have the part that you're
performing on our behalf.

And then we realize, too, Lord, that we have our part to play. And so
help us, Lord. To be doing those things that will bring about growth in
our own lives personally.

And beyond us that will bring about growth in the body so the body can
be built up in love. Working us to that end, we pray in Jesus name,
amen.

========================================================================
Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11664.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brian-brodersen/ephesians-growing-in-the-lord/
========================================================================