Turn with me, if you will, church, to Ephesians chapter four. And I'm gonna start with a question this morning, and the question is, what is a successful church? How do we define that? Well, if we wanna know what a successful church is, we just have to look at the Bible. We have to ask the questions and then answer them based on what the Bible teaches us. And where the Bible is clear, we just rest. And where the Bible is unclear, we war. And when the Bible is unclear, we war with our minds in our own cells because it's not necessarily unclear. Sometimes it's unclear because what we see and what we feel and what we want are not congruent. Some almost 28 years ago, I stepped foot in the pulpit for the first time as a pastor. And I've done this role and had this role for a very long time, so much so that I lost who I was within it. Because as you know, our identity is not in the roles, responsibilities, recreation, relationships, et cetera. These are just things that we do and they change. Our relationships change, our mindset changes. September of 2011, about 80 people showed up to my house for an informational meeting about what a church would look like. about what a church would be, about what a new plant. Did we need one? Why? We needed a new church plant, why? We've been talking about it for years. Several other people had tried to start something along the persuasion of what we ended up doing, but the question was why, why? Because there was always another why. That why for most people was, well, I'm scared of this, or I don't like this. Well, this guy's a heretic. Well, this guy's an idiot. Well, these guys aren't loving. But the why really was deep down for everyone is we've yet to find unity. We've yet to find peace. We've yet to find a people who could walk together embodying absolute love divinely. And so seven months before I even moved here, established the legal sense of a church, website, documents, I took the culmination of everything I'd experienced and everything that I understood about being a church and I put it into words and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And for those of you, you know I like to write. And the one thing that kept standing out to me is that I wanted to be sure that we were a people. No matter the place, ever, ever, ever, ever, doesn't matter where the church gathers. But that we would be a people. And I was so excited about this mindset of like, and for me and my marketing brain, I said a people for God's glory. by his grace. And I thought, man, that is awesome. I need to, like, copyright that stuff. That's great. But there's thousands of other people who have said the same thing, written it. There's a book from the 1980s that's written by that exact title. There's nothing new under the sun. And by and large, over the last 14 years, yeah, that has been the pressing focus, right? That's been the pressing fire, to be a people. No electricity, that's all right, we're a people. No location, no air condition, that's all right, we're a people. Knuckleheads and nincompoops and nasty grams all around, that's okay, we're a people. Nothing can shake us, we're a people. Nothing can shake us, we're a people. And what I've learned through all the years is that a successful church is gonna be the church that just maintains peace. maintains love, maintains unity, but the problem therein is that we often don't even know what that means to maintain these things because we don't know how to define those things specifically. Now, you can imagine that almost three decades, I've had a lot of people tell me what pastors should do, should be, should look like, should sound like, should be engaged with, should not be doing. And for most of my life, I followed every one of those rules, even when they contradicted one another. But when God showed me the heart of the scripture and helped me realize that you just gotta be who you are and do the role that you've been called to do faithfully, which includes screwing it up, and then you'll be a pastor. And you've heard me say this, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, that when I teach from this stage, when I teach from this platform, I'm teaching from a position of a learner. Now, yeah, I've had my haughty moments. I've said some dogma from here that I have had a change of mind, repentance on, and as far as I can tell, corrected in my teaching. And years later, you know, years from now, I'll realize just like there's one, there's many things that I've just like, I went to delete the essay and I'm going, no, let's just write a recantation underneath it. Don't erase the mistake. The mistake is what makes us. But we as a people have experienced great pain. Yet while some of our brothers and sisters who have planted churches around us and have seen ministry around us seem to be just absolute prospering from a certain measurement. How does that church have enough money to have a staff? How does this church have enough people to go do missions trips in seven countries at the same time? And they're only a year old. Well, God must be with them. That does not mean God is with them. It means God is with them if God is with them, and when God is with them, it doesn't have any outcome except one thing, that they have faithfulness to be a people unified in love. I mean, I've had people tell me in the last six or seven months that, you know, who I have become is just not pastoral. And the frustrating thing about that on the inside is that if I could just touch their heads, their foreheads, they'd go, bing. And they'd go, oh, I see you now. I can see who you really are. I can see the heart of you. Because anybody can act a role, right? Anybody can learn a script and act a role and do the thing that looks like the thing that everybody thinks the thing should look like. Guys, that's not truth. It's called hypocrisy. And so if someone expects of you to live in a manner congruent with what they think you should be living in a certain way, in a certain step, just stand there for a minute and breathe and look into the mirror of yourself and say, is this really who I am? And then if it's not, then be honest about who you are. Because if you're trying to do it to make God happy, God is not happy when you fake it. Friends, we have faked it, and we have not faked it, right? All of us, in life, in ministry, in work, parents. I never felt more like a fraud than as a dad. When all my kids were younger, I knew exactly what I was doing. I was completely right. And then I was like, oh, I wasn't right. I'm right now. And then I was like, oh, I'm not right. I wasn't right. Matter of fact, I did all that wrong. Then they became teenagers and then I became a murderer. At heart. I was only scared of the penitentiary and public opinion is the reason that my children, the ones you know about, are still alive. But we gather week after week and day after day and we come to a place, and I'll tell you one thing that I realize Grace Truth Church has become for a lot of us, is it has become a refuge in the storm. We, as a people, have become a refuge. Because we've had our fair share of storms, right? We've had our fair share of storms. And what I've learned is that we don't need to try to avoid the storms. Being faithful as a people is not to maintain a sense of peace that has no problems. The very definition of peace means that we got a solid ground to stand on in the midst of everything burning around us. That's what peace is all about. We've learned what it means to endure. So I think the success of a church is its faithfulness. And I think the success of that church in perpetuity is its faithfulness. Not to maintain its name, not to maintain its place, not to maintain its property, but to maintain its posture. A lot of people came to be a part of Grace Truth Church because it was the only people that would ever embrace them and their nuances. You didn't have to pretend, you didn't have to posture, you didn't have to put your kids in a straight jacket and a muzzle. You didn't have to like drums or like pipe organs. You didn't have to wear a tie or a tank top. And if somebody didn't like your arms showing, well, they could close their eyes. We became a people that's been a refuge. And so, as much as I want to, in my perfectionist mindset that still lingers very deeply, I'm aware so I can say, you know what, Grace Truth Church as a people is a great success. A great success. And then I look at our elders and I look at our leadership and I look at the coming and the going. And I look at the avoidance in a lot of ways. And I see all the things that have taken place through the years, and I'm thinking, man, if we could have just done this, we could have just done that. And I know my faults. And I'm just not going to change one of them. There's just one that's just not going to change. Unless the Lord just grants me some burning bush mormon with a magic wand and some potions to make it change, I'm never going to be a person who is going to be patient, ever. I'm not going to be patient. But yet I embody patience without my ability. by being willing to wait and look, almost to a fault. And that's been a fault of mine, that I've waited, waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, not trying to jump to conclusions. But the other side of that is being hasty, being too quick, being too fast. And that's why being a people is important. Because there's some of us like me who would watch everything go on fire before I call the fire department. Just wait. It might not be on fire yet. There's nothing standing. Well, just wait. Don't run to conclusions. And somebody else, they hear a firecracker and there's seven trucks pull up shooting water in the building and there's nothing on fire. Together we can find equilibrium. And that's the beauty of the body of Christ. That's what Ephesians, that's what Trey's been teaching for the last few years. And that's what we've been talking about. It's why we come together every week. We come together for the preparation of doing the work of the ministry. I like to say it this way, there's 1%, this service is 1% of what we are as a church. The 99% is when we leave. Got 168 hours a week. 166 of them is spent being the church. Two of those hours is spent learning how to become the church. And yeah, we all have our own ways. Well, I like these. I like to sing. I like to do this. There's things that we like to do, and that's okay. God's gifted us in these areas. But I don't think that we have attached ourselves to the Western idea of doing church. I just don't believe it. But remember, beloved, everywhere you go, you will produce the same outcome if you don't change the core of who you are. And so I'm asking you, no matter what the future brings, Grace Truth Church, whether we meet here or gather as the same people here, is still much alive in you. I taught a lesson last week. I taught a two-part series on learning to crawl, the posture of crawling. And a lot of times we think we're starting over, we're crawling, but we're not crawling. As an infant, we're crawling with awareness. When we have to hit the ground again, it's at a new level of beginnings. And everything that we do, everything that we do as God's people is not a clean slate starting over. It's a new slate beginning with the same foundation, but with a building off of a stronger structure. Because if I lay down on this carpet, not that I'd want to, but if I lay down on this carpet, it puts me in the right posture to know and to be honest about my humility, knowing where I am. But it also allows me to see something that I can only see when I'm down there. If I got on the floor and started crawling today, it wouldn't be because I didn't know how to stand. It would mean that I didn't know how to stand in that specific space. and have to learn that, beloved, learn that. You're not a failure because you have to crawl, because you're crawling from a new foundation. You're crawling with awareness, you're crawling and starting from a new position, but you're not starting over. So what is a successful church? Ephesians chapter one, I therefore, chapter four, sorry, I therefore, A prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one spirit just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all. The grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean that he also descended into the lower ridges of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers in order to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature in manhood. So the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves carried around by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And so Paul then begins to talk to people there at Ephesus and talk about how their minds and the futility of it, because they're darkened from understanding and ignorance. And so there's a thousand things that I want to say here. There's so much, church, that I feel compelled to talk about. But I'd have to have another 28 years to do it. If we take these things one at a time, we take verse one and we say, you know, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. I'll never forget the first time I read that, I was about 13 when I remember reading that, and I remember hearing the explanation. What is this worthiness? And you go out and you ask, you do inquiry, and you find four or five people that you trust, and they tell you almost the same thing. They give you a list of things that you don't do, and a list of things that you must do, and a list of things that you should do. A list of things that you should think, a list of things that you should want, and a list of things that you shouldn't. That's walking Vinayana worthy. And the first pulpiteer that I ever heard preach this text, I was probably a freshman in college, and he all but karate kicked the podium in half with his what looked like absolute anger as he smashed the pulpit and said there we better walk worthy all these heathens not walking worthy and all this you know what I'm talking about it's utter nonsense When we have fear, or rage, or disdain, or sarcasm, or apathy in our spirits, it is not from God, it is not from God, the results are not from God, and the path is not from God. When we have the insistence on investing our eyes into the hearts and lives of others for their correction, it is not from God, except for that correction mean loving discipline or guidance. But a lot of times, people will take this and say, well, you need to walk in a manner worthy. Well, Paul, thank God, tells us. But see, right here, walking in a manner worthy, success begins not in numbers, not in influence, not in anything but alignment. Alignment worthy of the calling. Axios, to walk in balance, to walk in a posture without stumbling. In proportion to what? To grace. gives grace to each one according to the measure Christ gives. So that's the beauty when we see each other, we look at each other and we see either strengths or weaknesses or maturity or lack of growth or areas of need. Because we are also walking in a manner worthy according to grace, we do so with the eyes of grace. And we understand that everything that we are is because of God's patience. And so a church is successful when the activity that she does weighs as much as her identity. Programs will never replace presence. Motion will never be maturity. The measure of a church is not how much it does, but how it truly lives what it already believes. And if we're not living it, we need to go read the book of James, right? Not for a slap in the head, but for a guiding hand. That's another thing, the Bible doesn't slap us. The Bible touches our face to guide us to the truth. With all gentleness and all respect, anytime parents use the Bible to slap their children, they're sinful. Unless it's the family Bible, just give it a good whack. Because a successful church, this thing, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. Number two, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. See, the first evidence of the Holy Spirit in a body is not power. It's posture. I don't even know what the Greek word is there, tapenophilosoune or something like that. It doesn't really matter, but what it means is a mind that bows before the truth, a mind that is subject, that acquiesce, that bows before the truth. And it's not weakness, it's strength that refuses to crush. A successful church is not loud in its confidence, but it's very deep in its compassion. It carries strength with tenderness, conviction without pride or arrogance or hubris, and endurance that keeps loving when it would be easier to leave. And I'm going to say all that because I know some of us came to be a part of this congregation because of abuse, because of abuse of power, because of abuse and people lording over us academically or theologically. We're not called to live under that. in the church, in our marriages, in our workspace. It is not Christian to submit to that kind of stuff. It's also not Christian to retaliate with that stuff. You see what I mean? When I say Christian, in other words, it's not how Jesus would have handled it. What is endurance? By definition, what does it even mean? Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. The idea of bearing means friction. So a successful church in this context is the church that actually is ready for problems and then their posture in the gospel allows them to endure the problems through until the end, until the next problem starts, until the next issue comes. Eager, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. See, that eagerness, that eagerness is something that we need to focus on. What? Peace. We focus on, no, we focus on eagerness. That's the emphasis that Paul puts here. Eager, be eager. to maintain walk in a manner worthy of the calling. You've been called eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Well, why are we all here together? The bond is peace. What is our peace? Jesus is our peace. The gospel, the good story of Jesus is our peace. The manifestation of God's love and revelation through Jesus Christ is our peace. And our peace comes from knowing that we are found in him. Our peace comes from knowing that no matter what we do or how we think or all those things that might not align right inside of us, we are still standing in righteousness as the righteousness of God because of the Christ imputing his perfection to our account. So therefore, we are not the wicked, we are the righteousness. That's the misunderstanding of total depravity for so many centuries. As we walk around like we're worms and we're really the children of God, the brothers of Christ, we will stand with him in glory, not bow to him. He will take off his clothes and serve us at the marriage feast of his own wedding. You see, that's the imagery that John gives us in the apocalypse. So we're eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. To make haste, to guard urgently, that's what that eagerness looks like. I don't think I'm gonna pronounce that Greek word there, I can't remember it. Doesn't matter. But it means to guard urgently, we guard urgently. In other words, everything we do we're eager, we're guarding peace. And guarding peace doesn't mean, get your nastiness out of here. You know that we've not done that as a congregation. But guarding peace also said, hey, your behavior is not congruent with love. Your words are sharp. And what typically happens when we say that kind of stuff? When we say it on the up front, I'm sorry, I didn't, wow, I did not mean to be that way, but I was that way. And then what happens? It doesn't happen again next week. Because then we have to say it again. The same thing true in our relationships, no matter where they are. We have to maintain the peace, the eagerness to maintain peace, the bond that comes there. It's oneness. Genotes. It's something that already exists. It's already who we are in Christ, so we can walk in it. It's not something that we have to create. That's been one of the most big, that's been a huge misunderstanding in Christendom in America, is that we feel like we have to create oneness. We have to create unity. We have to create peace. No, we are standing in peace. We are already one. We are already unified, we have to walk in that. It's already true of us. When we're not walking in that, we're lying about who we are in the walking. When we walk congruent with that, we're proving that's who we are, we're showing. But we'd rather be in the position sometimes as human beings to tell everybody what we believe and what we're gonna do and what we should be doing, rather than just doing and then revealing and showing. I mean, could you imagine if the entirety, I mean, if Jesus never came and we had the prophets and all we lived on for 50 billion years was the story of a Messiah that one day would come and God would keep saying, yeah, I'm gonna send a Messiah one day, I'm gonna send a Messiah one day. That's where the Jews felt like, when's he coming? Oh my gosh, could he get here already? And so God stopped telling them he was coming and he just showed him. Here he is, ta-da! And they hated him. But just show. Show that we're already one. Show that we're already unified. Show that we're already in a position of peace. I mean, I'd love to know how many of us actually thought that we're supposed to be creating this stuff. We're trying to make this true, but it is already true. That's the whole idea of like, I'm back to James for a minute because the instruction there is just so relevant in so many ways, is that James is like, listen, this is who you are. Quit looking at the Bible and acting like you forgot how to live it. Be a doer of the word. This oneness, this peace, we are to guard it urgently. So our job as a successful church is to preserve, not invent. Preserve who we are, not invent who we are. Not become who we want to be, but to show who we already are. And that's the alignment. of being one with Christ, being one with each other. We are already there. This piece that Paul speaks of in this text, this is the ligament. Well, how can we do this? We aren't going to do this. We already are this, so let's get in congruence. Peace is the ligament that holds every joint together. Well, how are we unified? Because Christ is the joint that holds us together. Well, how am I one with this person? Because Christ is the joint that holds us together. Not James, not Trey, not Grace Truth, not anything else, Christ. A successful church guards Unity. But I have to say one of the final things I say on this verse, not through uniformity. And I've preached that before in 1 Peter. Uniformity is not unity. We guard it through humility. What heaven has already knit together, We protect it with runs and trips and moth holes and all. Don't mend that stuff, let that sit. Scars, I have a whole teaching series that I've written recently on scars. I've got one, two, three, four, five, six scars on my hands. Bad, they were bad injuries. They'll always be there. Some of them very fake, some of them very prominent. And I know how I got each one of them. I also know how I felt after each one of them. I have scars on my body. I've got scars in my mind. I've got scars in my heart. Just like I don't walk around thinking of the day when I was like 12 years old, rolling that barbed wire fence, that big roll of barbed wire, and it came loose. Instead of catching my face, it caught my hand and ripped me like that. I thought I'd be maimed for the rest of my life. You can barely see it. How foolish of me to walk around going, I'm just a, I'm a vegetable, I can't, I have a scar. Scars are good reminders of how we've endeared. Beloved, without them, without pain, we have no power. And without power, we have no purpose. Heaven has knit us together in unity through the peace of Christ who is what joins us all together. And because we're joined together, we can't be separated. And because we can't be separated, we might as well live out the unity that we've been given. There's one body, verse four, and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to you, called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and one Father of all. It is seven. Who was over all and through all and in all. These few verses right here. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, baptism, God and Father of all, seven unbreakable anchors. Seven unbreakable anchors. See, the church is not successful because it innovates. The church is not successful because it acclimates and comes into a place of providing something for others. The church is successful because it remembers. It remembers who it is. It remembers It remembers the unity of all of these things are found in all of these things. Because Christ is our peace. It's everywhere, but I think of 1 Corinthians 1 and our wisdom. We have it all. What does division start with? Forgetting. You take a relationship, when somebody forgets their vows, forgets their love, forgets their promises, forgets the good and starts focusing on all the other things, it's over. It's over. When we start focusing on who we're not and who we wish we were and how we had not wished it, it's over. We lose ourselves. We divorce our own minds from the truth of us because we begin to forget. When the church forgets its oneness, it loses its breath. And it begins to look to others or to circumstances or to try to fix things to try to make itself palatable and peaceful again. What do we do now? Where do we go now? How do we get rid of this issue or what are we going to fix? We can't fix, we just need to be. When we forget one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father, we're one in Him. That is our peace. We lose our oxygen, we lose our breath. And true success is found in the unshakable awareness that all who are in Christ are already one, whether they feel it or know it or not. And this is where we've had so many come to be a part of our fellowship, of our assembly, but not part of our family. Oh, James will guard the truth. Trey will guard the truth. These guys not only can do it, they have the mind to prove. And so, oh, we'll come here with the right doctrine, and then we'll build a monument out of doctrinal purity. Oh, surprise, surprise, folks. To quote the great Randall Tippins, that dog don't hunt around here. And what has it done? It caused us great pain. Is teaching important? Yes. Is theology important? Yes. But only as far as it produces love. Only as far as it produces the awareness of oneness. Only as far as it produces the church to stick together. I mean, it should be the eagerness. You want me to pull your fingers off with a pair of pliers? No, and I don't want you to pull yourself out of my life either. That's the eagerness. Just like we don't want somebody pulling our body parts off because they're joined together, they're joined to us. We don't want people pulling themselves away. And we don't want anything happening without answer that would cause someone to cut themselves away. There's a lot of people that feel like, well, here's the measure then if someone is truly in the faith, that they understand these doctrines, that they understand these truths. That is not, I'm going to say this very emphatically, that is not taught in this. We know what a false gospel is. It's a false hope and a false peace. But what did Paul and Peter and John do with the false gospels? They guided people back to the truth of the unity, told them to love one another, and then what did the Spirit of God do in that context? Healed the wound and showed the truth. If what we know is true is true, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks they know. I just don't believe in oxygen. Well, you're breathing, so... Verse 7, but grace was given to each one according to the measure of Christ's gift. Metron, the measurement. It's precise, it's intentional, and it's a divine proportion. The success of the church does not exalt one role above the other. It recognizes that grace flows evenly, that every member carries a fragment of divine intention. Because comparison kills unity, but honor multiplies it. How many times have we sat in the assembly before and wondered, what do I do here? I just don't have anything to do here. That's why we put too much emphasis on the assembly as the point. And put such little emphasis on what the assembly is to prepare us for. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone has that power. Why? Because we're here to not be entertained or to even be instructed just for the sake of instruction. I say it this way. So what? So what? This theology is there. There's got to be an outcome. So what? What difference does it make that this is true? They will know that you are my disciples because you have love for one another. And love is easy. to understand. You want to understand what love really looks like? Just go into a preschool room. And let some 30 kids be standing there and one of their moms walk in. One of the dads walk in. Or you put a bluey video on. Or you throw some candy on the floor. Or you tell a child to share a toy that they don't want to share. You'll see what love looks like. It's not that hard to recognize. It's just hard to embody because we've given so many conditions to what love should, when love should be employed that We qualify our hatred, and quite honestly, I think it's projection of our own self-loathing. I think the theological watchdogs and everything else that goes on in our churches, they just hate themselves. Because they don't know who Christ is in love. You know what John says in his first epistle? If you don't have love, you don't know God. Hey, you're not born again. Is that what you said? That is not what John's talking. He's talking to a born again people. Hey, when y'all act this way, you're not loving. You don't know the love of God. How dare you say you know the love of God if you don't love one another? Because if you know the love of God and it is preeminent in your mind, it's going to filter everything. So when you want to punch your brother, you hug your brother. When you want to give him a knuckle sandwich instead of a piece of meat to eat, you give him the piece of meat anyway. And you don't beat yourself up because you want to give your brother a knuckle sandwich. You go, he's lucky. Lucky I had some baloney. Laugh it off. It's not who you are to be punching people. If you're trying to get away from these thoughts and ideas, then good luck. You're never going to make it. You're going to be a failure for every breath you breathe. But if you just embody the reality of who you are in Christ right now, you're a success every breath. no matter what brings, what life may bring. Because we're here as a church so that we may equip you. He gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, not to perform ministry, but to equip. To equip, to teach, to instruct, to prepare the saints. And a better definition of that word is to make right, to mend. A successful church in the work of the ministry heals fractures and restores motion. It teaches truth. It builds skill and releases calling. Academics and entertainment don't do that. It just draws crowds, equips. A kingdom mindset or a nation's mindset but not the kingdom of Christ. But equipping the church builds people. Success is not how full the room is. Success is how whole the people are. I wish somebody had taught me that when I was 25. So what, where is the measure then? The measure is Jesus, verse 13, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children. tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way unto him who is the head, that is, into Christ. Builds itself up in love. The goal is not growth in size, but in stature, until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. See, growth that does not end in the likeness to Christ is mutation, not maturity. What Paul writes here in the original language is, alethunetes anagate, truthing in love. That's how the body grows. Truth and love are not opposites, they are the lungs of the church. And the church that is successful breathes both of these deeply. Truth of the teaching, the truth of the theology, the truth of the understanding, the truth of the expectation, all filtered with love. I mean, you look at what Paul talks about to Timothy, right? Timothy is this young elder who's thrown into this incredibly diverse situation in Ephesus. And he tells Timothy straight up, the whole mindset is, bro, if they don't listen to what we're writing to you, then don't consider them a brother. But he also says, don't be harsh, just love them, be patient. See the teaching of Thessalonica the same way. Titus, the same thing, just be patient. Watch what God will do, just be patient, it's okay. Correct the intrusive behavior. Stop slapping each other, stop being mean, stop gossiping. Hey, stop! That's not loving. Just like you would with a preschool class. Stop, don't hit Johnny. Share the toy. Because here, One doesn't exist without the other. To say we have truth but no love is a lie. To say we have love but no truth is a lie. So we speak the truth in love. And we do that well here. Sometimes I think we speak the truth a little too late. But speaking the truth is required. The truth of how we feel, the truth of what we need, the truth that we're fearful, the truth that we're angry. The truth or lie, I don't agree with that doctrine. The death of every relationship is going to be not being able to say the truth. Because withholding the truth to make peace is a lie. Withholding the truth to keep a sense of calmness doesn't mean peace, it's absolute death. And the only time you hesitate in truth is out of wisdom going, not yet. Because there's too many people here. Not yet is not the right moment or place, but tomorrow I'm going to deal with this. Tomorrow, not 20 years from now. Never withhold the truth because you're fearful of the outcome. Because the outcome of truth is always true. And I won't get into how I know that lesson so deeply. But the successful church, verse 16, I've already read it. It builds itself, no, from the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. In love. From him, the whole body is supplied. It grows, it builds, and love is the fuel. Every ligament supplies something. Every voice matters. I want you to hear that, church. Your voice, your thoughts, your beliefs matter. Your disagreements matter. But we have to do it in love. The successful church is self-building, not pastor-built. Because it builds itself up, because it is Christ-sourced, not man-sourced. It does not depend on charisma, strategy, or leadership. but on the invisible architecture of love that is the fullness of Christ that holds every human heart in rhythm with heaven. If I'd had time, I would have gone into Acts chapter two and Acts chapter four, but I would give you these words today. where in those spaces, two or three things are prominent in the application. Here, we see the understanding and the instruction to be applied to the church, and in Acts, we see history unfolding as it started. We see the embodiment of these things, and you tell me what church in Acts had it right. None of them. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and prayer. They were of one heart and one soul. Cardiac. One heart and one soul. One heart, one breath is really how that actually, the pneuma. The spirit's success is visible, not in attendance. I've already said this, but in alignment, not in looking uniform, but in unity. What does it look like? shared life, generous giving, and most importantly, unbroken joy. Success looks like love multiplied and truth embodied. It looks like a people who live as one people. So the success of Grace Truth Church is measured by resonance with heaven. And that's it. Are we being a people that reflects what God has put together? Even when it might not be forever. It walks worthy, it breathes humbly, it endures patiently, it guards unity and honors every gift, equips saints, matures in love, and lives as one body. See, when a people like that gather together, it doesn't have to chase anything. It becomes the living definition of success. And so with that said, I ask you, who are you, church? Who are each of you? You are grace truth. This isn't grace truth. And in the seasons of life that I am in, as you know, as Trey has said, I do not feel spiritually qualified at this present place to shepherd because I am going through Something I've never been through in every scope of my life. And so in that, what does that mean for you? It means for you, you don't need me. You don't need Trey. You have everything you need unified. If I am not pastor, am I still brother? Still part of the flock? Still part of the church? If I'm not pastor tomorrow, am I pastor a year from now? We don't know these things, but these things are not necessary to know in the context of what God is doing. And so no matter what tomorrow brings for you, for us, Know that wherever you are, you've got to walk into the new season of life. Even when you feel like you're crawling, you've got to walk into that new season of life with everything you've learned and everything you've become. For you will be grace truth no matter where you are. That name was not selected arbitrarily. There is no death of a church. It's just transition. And I want to talk about it. I want to look at it. I want to answer every question. I want to hear every possibility. We don't know what the future looks like. But I can tell you one thing, you shouldn't fear it. You should not fear it. Feel it. Oh, God, feel it. Don't fear it. And speak the truth of love. Only there with a resolution to whatever you feel will be found. Without that, you'll carry whatever baggage you have now everywhere you go, and it will be in the way of your joy. It will tear apart the fabric of your joy, but you cannot tear apart the fabric of Christ. So even when you feel torn, He has never let you go. Father, please, please give us peace in the midst of these things. We thank you for being faithful. Even when we are not faithful, you remain faithful, for you cannot deny yourself. Father, teach us that truth. and then show us that in our faithfulness we are not denying ourselves. It's when we try to fix, when we try to escape, when we try to run, when we try to make everything feel normal is when we're faithless. But even then, you are faithful, so we are not ashamed and guilt-ridden. We're just children, Father. We're just children. And we don't know what to do half the time. And even when we practice and follow what is clear, we still don't understand it with the right intention and we fear. So, Lord, I just pray over these next months as we see your hand at work that you would give us what is necessary. That you give us power. And that our pain will become a place of growth. and will become the seeds of joy for tomorrow. And I thank you for this place. But I thank you so much for these people. In Christ's name.