It's so good to see everybody.
If you will, be kind with me to Ephesians chapter 4. The brethren
in New Jersey told me to give you their greetings and tell
you hello. My wife and children said to
tell you hello. They wish they could be here,
but school just started for us. And I've been in it about a month,
I think, but we just started, so they had to stay back. So good to be with you. I never knew how much a pastor
loves his congregation until the Lord made me a pastor. And
it's a love unlike anything else, really. I love the folks that
the Lord's given me to pastor. They are just a delightful, I
mean, giving, loving, they're believers, saved by God's
grace. And it's just wonderful. And
as I was thinking about that, I was thinking of how the Lord
said, Scripture says, He pleased God to save through the foolishness
of preaching. From the first hour that he calls
his child until the hour he calls his child home, he saves us through
the foolishness of preaching. Have you ever thought about why
God does that? Why did God choose to save through
this means of preaching the gospel, of having a body of believers
assembled to hear the gospel preached? Why did God choose
to do it that way? Well, it tells us here in Ephesians
4. It says in Ephesians 4 and verse 15, speaking the truth
in love, that we may grow up into Him in all things which
is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,
maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."
Now, the first thing he tells us here is that this work is
done by speaking the truth in love. The truest love, the truest
love is to speak the truth. If the truth is not being spoken,
it's not love. Whenever Christ finished accomplishing
the redemption of his people, the text drawn up in the chapter,
it says he ascended. He went to the right hand of
the father. And when he ascended, he began giving gifts unto men.
He sends forth his preachers to preach the gospel. Now, it
says we speak the truth. We speak the truth in love. Christ
is the truth. He's the truth. He said that
I am the truth. God is truth. That's who God
is. And the Holy Spirit is truth.
He said when the Holy Spirit of truth is come, he will guide
you into all truth. God saves with truth. He's not
saving with lies. He's saving us from lies. And
he's saving with truth. He sends forth the message that
we need to hear, the message that we like to hear. Paul's
been speaking of it all through the book. He began in Ephesians
1, and he spoke about how God blessed us, God our Father blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. He did it
according as He chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love. And He predestinated us to the adoption of children.
He predestinated the time whenever He would call out His child and
give us the Holy Spirit of adoption and make us to cry out, Abba,
Father. And He did it to bring us to
see that it's in Christ alone that we have redemption. It's
through His blood that we have redemption. And from the day
He calls us, He continues to teach us this message, and He
continues to instruct us in righteousness, in His righteousness. We need
to know we come into this world thinking that we can obtain a
righteousness. We come into this world thinking
that by what we do, we can obtain a righteousness. But he has to
instruct us that the righteousness of God is that righteousness
which God provides. It's the righteousness that God
has provided in his son by sending his son who laid down his life
for his people. Now, that's the truth. We have
to hear the truth. And he keeps us by this truth.
And then he tells us here the reason he does that. He says
there in verse 15 is that we might grow up into him in all
things. Everything that is alive grows. And when God regenerated us and
made us alive, he created a new man in us that wasn't there.
And when he did that, he began instructing us, teaching us,
and he began to grow us. What do we pray when we sit down
at our tables and we eat? We pray, Father, bless this food,
that it might nourish our bodies, make us to grow. If He doesn't
bless our physical food, our natural food, He's the one that
makes it nourish our bodies and makes us grow. Well, it's true
spiritually. He's the only one that can bless
the Word and make us to grow spiritually. He's the one that
makes us grow spiritually. He does that. And when He makes
us holy, you know, a child, when a child's born, this child, when
he's born, he's a human. He's born. He's a human. And
he's not going to get to be more of a human. He's just going to
grow as a human. Well, when He brings us out of
darkness into light and He brings us out of the the kingdom of
this world and under the power of the Prince of Darkness, He
translates us into the kingdom of His dear Son. And He makes
us holy. And when He makes us holy, He
grows us in that state of holiness. Just like a child is a human,
He grows as a human being, but He doesn't become more of a human.
He's always going to be a human. And we're holy. When He makes
us holy, we're holy. And we grow. in holiness. And growth is growth in grace. It's growth in grace and in the
knowledge of the Son of God. And it's sort of like this. John,
and you'll get this, I used it last week at Danville, a few
weeks ago at Danville. Whenever the Lord turns the light
on, He makes us see that we're living in a condemned house.
This house is condemned. But when the light comes on at
first, we see Christ, we know Christ, and we know something
about our sin. We know something about us. But
as He grows us, He turns that light on some more, and He makes
us see. Then we can see into this room
a little better, and we can see, oh, the furniture's all upside
down, and the walls look like they're beginning to have some
waviness in them, and it doesn't look stable. And we see we need
to trust Christ more, not ourselves. And he turns the light on a little
more and you see a little more of the room. And then you begin
to see the house, the foundation is broken and you see the ceiling
tiles are falling down and this place is broken down. And the
more light he gives you, the more you see yourself and the
more you see this is a condemned, run down shack that I'm living
in and he can't be trusted. And He makes you to trust Him
more and more and more, showing you more and more of Him. Now,
that's growth. That's growth in grace. All right? He tells us here this growth
is into Him, and He says that He's the head. Christ is the
head. We grow up into Him who is the
head. And then He says here, And it's
from Him, from whom? From Christ, the whole body.
That body is His body. That body is the church. That
body is you and me who He's loved everlastingly. Those that He's
called and brought in to faith in Him, this is His body. His
body. And He brings us into His body,
His church. And it says, and He fitly joins
us together. He fitly joins us together. Back up there in verse 12, he
said that he sent forth his preachers for the perfecting of the saints. That word perfecting right there
means the resetting of dislocated bones. You remember the Valley of Dry
Bones? In the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37, the Lord took
his preacher up and he said, look at this valley and there's
all those bones. scattered in the valley, and
they're dry. They're dead. Those bones are
us. We died in Adam, and we became
dead, dry bones. You've seen them, those old white,
parched bones you see out in the field somewhere, where an
old cow died. They're old, just dry bones.
And he told his preacher, what did he say to him? He said, preach
the Word. He said, say to these bones,
live. And he speaks, you preach the
word. Only God could command his preacher to go forth and
preach the gospel, telling sinners they're dead, they're dry, they
can't do anything, they can't save themselves, they can do
nothing, and that it's God that does everything through his Son,
Christ Jesus. You think, well, why would you
preach that message to them? They're dead. If they can do
nothing, why preach it? You're preaching that message
to them, telling them to live. And he said, you just preach
that message. Only God could send forth a message like that.
And he says, and then while you do it, you pray for the spirit
to come and bless the bones. And he said, and the Lord come
forth and the Lord, he brought the bones together. And He brought
them together, just like He did in our human body. When God put
our human body together, He fitly joined every member together.
He put the joints right where they needed to go so that they
operate the way they operate. And He fitly joins each member
of His body right where they belong, in His body. Because
He knows where they belong. He puts them there. Sometimes
we get moved around from one place to another, from one church
to another. And it's sad sometimes the way
it comes to pass. But we can rejoice in this. Every
member that's in the body. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12,
they're set right where God would set them. He puts them there
as it pleases Him. As it pleases Him. And then he
says there, we're compacted We're compacted. That word means cemented. It means we're cemented together.
What's the bond that cements believers together in this body?
Look back up there in verse 3. Verse 3, he says, Endeavor to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We're compacted by the bond of
peace, by the Holy Spirit. Peace made by Christ. Peace made
by our God. Peace made between us and God
by Christ, the Prince of Peace. And it's brought to us by the
Holy Spirit. You have the same Spirit in you
that I have in me. You who believe. You're born
of the same Spirit that I have. Taught of the same Spirit I am.
Saved by the same grace I am. Given the same faith I have.
And if you look here, he says, there's one body. There's just
one body. Then he says, and there's one
Spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling.
There's a bond that compacts us together, our hope. We've
got one hope, don't we? We're going to see God and see
our Redeemer and be perfectly conformed to His image one day.
And we're trusting He'll bring us there. He says that we're
kept by the power of God unto salvation, and it's ready to
be revealed. He made it ready. And he says
there, there's one Lord. That's how we're compacted. One
Lord is bound us together. One faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all who's above all and through all and in you
all. This is how we're compacted.
Look over back at Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2. This was our case. He says in verse 12, he said,
you were without Christ. You were aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. You were strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope without God in the world. But now in
Christ Jesus, there's our bond. There's how we're compacted in
Christ Jesus. You who were sometimes far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. There's no cement like
the blood of Christ. compacting us together, for He
is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the
middle wall of partition between us, and has abolished in His
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in
ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making
peace." He has brought us into one body, and that body is His
body. And He's the head, and there's
one new man in this body. And we're in this one body together. And look down at the end of the
verse down there. He says in verse 22, "...in whom
ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit." God dwelling in His people. Let me read this
to you. You don't have to turn, but over in John 17. Remember
when the Lord prayed to the Father? And this is what He said. He
said, "...the glory which thou hast given Me." This is the glory
of the gospel. This is the glory of this gospel
I've been sitting here telling you. He said, the glory you've
given to me, I have given to them. Does this gospel compact
us together? Does this gospel fitly join us
together and compact us so that we're inseparably joined to God
and to one another? Does it? Listen to this. He said
that. I did it for this reason, that.
They may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me,
that they may be made perfect in one. That they may be joined
together in one. That's what it means. Joined
together in one. That's how we're compacted. That's
how we're compacted. Let me give this to you over
1 Corinthians. Let me see, 1 Corinthians chapter
12. He says there, 1 Corinthians 12. Verse 12, he says, as the body
is one, as our human body is one and has many members in it,
And all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ. Now, that's how we are. We're
members of His bones, of His flesh, of His blood. We're united
to Him and united to one another in Him. And as you see there
in Ephesians 2, I didn't read the part about He came and preached
this message to us and brought us together. You know, this is
an amazing thing. All God's elect, all of our brethren,
we were reconciled to God before we knew it. And we were reconciled
to each other before we knew it, before we ever knew anything
about it. Paul was a Jew and he wouldn't
have anything to do with Stephen. He held the coat while they stoned
Stephen. And at that time, he didn't even
know he was one with Stephen. He had no idea. But God comes
and preaches the gospel to us and saves us both by the Spirit
and shows us we're one. We're one. Now, here's what's
amazing to me. This is what is amazing to me.
Here's the wisdom of God in saving us through this preaching of
the gospel. Look at look at Ephesians 4 and look at verse 16. He says
that he compacts us by that which every joint supplies. Now, a
joint is a member of the body. That means he's talking about
you and me. He compacts us together by that
which you supply and what I supply. How can that be? How can that
be? Look at this. He says, according
to the effectual working in the measure of every part. That's
Christ's effectual working. According to Christ's effectual
working in the measure of every part, in every member, in every
joint. He said back up there in Ephesians
4 and verse 7, unto every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ. He gives this. in every
part. And he says, and by doing that
in our text, he says he makes increase of the body. Just think
about this, brethren. You know, our body, our human
body, where does the food come from? It comes from our head.
It goes right in here and it goes to the rest of our bodies
from our head. I'm convinced of this. I know
this is so. Scripture says he created all
things for him. all things for Him, and everything
that He created glorifies Him. And this body is created to glorify
Him. Now, it's an amazing body, but
it's nothing in comparison to how amazing Christ and His body
is. But just like our human body,
we get all our nourishment in our body from our head. We get
all our nourishment from Christ our head. Everything comes into
the body from Christ our head. And then when the nourishment
goes into our body, It nourishes the various members of our body. And the only way... This is the
furthest member out here from the rest of my body, this little
finger. How's that little finger going to get nourishment to it?
It's going to have to have the hand. It's going to have to have
this part of the arm. It's going to have to have the
organs. It's going to have to... Everything
that's working to get nourishment to that box, that finger, it's
got to have all that. Well, what he's saying here is
he puts us together. And he uses every one of us,
working effectually in every one of us, so that he's nourishing
to every one of us using each other. Like, for an example,
your pastor, he goes home and he studies the Word, and God,
our head, gives him the Word. And he comes here and he distributes
it to the other members. And you have it. And Christ makes
it effectual in him, and he makes it effectual in you, and he nourishes
the body that way. Another way is, after you hear
the message, you start talking to each other about the message.
And he, from the head, you're ministering, distributing it
to the other members, and other members are being increased,
and he's working that in you. You'll go home, you'll study
the gospel. In your private time, you'll see something, and you'll
be with one of your brethren, and you'll start talking about
it. There, the head has given you the nourishment, the gospel,
the food, and you've spoken it to somebody else, and he's nourishing
that other member of the body. Now, he said, Because one's not
the foot, and the other one's not the eye, and the other one's
not the hand. We can't go, well, I'm not part
of the body. We all have different parts in the body. Not every
member of the body does the same thing. But every part of the
body is needful. What part of your body would
you say, well, I just don't need that part. I'll just cut it off.
We need them. We need members of our body,
don't we? And that's how he does. And just think about this now,
when he does this, what he does as he teaches us and as he grows
us, he teaches us the gospel. He teaches us then what grace
is experimentally. We learn it because we live together
and we learn what patience is. We learn what longsuffering is.
We learn what love is. We learn all these things. A
person don't know what love is until they've had those arms
wrapped around them and loved them. They know love. And so
by doing this, he makes us see, I need to support the gospel
because I need it and my brethren need it. And then that makes
us, because chiefly above everything else, we need Christ. We need
him. We need the gospel because that's
how he's saving us. That's how he has, he is, and
he shall save us is through this gospel. So we need the word preached. It makes us look over our differences
with one another. What is important enough to be
separated from the body? What's important enough to be
separated from the head? Nothing. Nothing. And so it makes
us overlook one another's faults and just have our eyes focused
on Christ. I think that is amazing wisdom,
don't you? And as he does it, look, this
is what he does, verse 16, and he increases the body. He adds
to it daily such as should be saved and continues to grow it
and increase it. And he's going to keep doing
that. He's going to keep doing that. Look back up there in verse
13. He says, till we all come in
the unity of the faith, the faith, to the unity of the faith, till
we all come to the unity of the faith, And of the knowledge of
the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ. What's that mean? Remember in
Ephesians 1, he said the church is his body. It's the fullness
of him that filleth all in all. And when every one of these members
have all been called to the unity of the faith and his body has
been increased to where there's not another member left off,
there'll be a perfect man. There will be a perfect man created
by Christ. His body. Him the head and His
members the body. His fullness. His body will be
full. And that's what He's going to
do. And not want to be left. I've got one more thing I'm doing.
Look at the last thing in verse 16. He says that He does this
in love. In love. We've been going through
Ephesians, and as we go through Ephesians, You go sometime and
read it. See how many times the Apostle
Paul uses the word love and how many times he encourages the
Ephesians to love, to love, to love over and over and over. Do you remember what their problem
was whenever the Lord sent the letter to the Ephesian church?
He said, you've left your first love. You've left your first
love. I think the Spirit was teaching
Paul to write this letter. Ephesians, was already warning
them about it, already teaching them to don't leave that first
love. Remember when Christ first saved
you? Remember when He first called you and you saw that He had put
away all your sin? You saw that He made you complete
in Him? Your perfect righteousness is
Christ. How delighted, how in love you
were with Him. and how in love you were with
your brethren. Remember that? I remember the first time I went
to a conference and saw, where I grew up, nobody around us believed
the gospel. I didn't think anybody believed
the gospel. And when I went to a conference
and I saw this many believers together, my heart was just overflowing. I just couldn't believe there
was that many believers. And that's just a little bitty.
There's a bunch of believers. A bunch of believers. Well, my
point is this, brethren. Like the Lord said, don't forget
that first love. He said, repent and do the first
works. Remember how when you first fell
in love with your wife, men, you'd drive clear across town
just to spend just a little bit of time with her. Just you had
five or ten minutes. And you'd go through whatever
trouble you had to go through. Just go over and just sit with
her just for about five or ten minutes. We do that with Christ. In the beginning, he says, continue. Don't ever stop that. Don't ever
stop. Don't let anything come between
you and the Lord. And that's how he keeps his body
together. Isn't that beautiful? I just think, and this is what's
astounding, he says in 1 Corinthians that the foolishness of God,
he calls this just the foolishness of God. This is the foolishness
of preaching. He said, and that's wiser than
men. I can't wait. I see Christ the
wisdom of God. I can't wait to truly know how
wise our God is. Can you? Because to me, this
just looks like overflowing, abounding wisdom to me. Alright,
brethren. Let's stand together and we'll
close in prayer. Our great God and our Father,
we thank You for making Christ our Head from eternity. We thank
You for entrusting the whole work into His hand and leaving
nothing to us. Lord, how wise and how prudent
You've dealt with us to join us like this and to bring us
together and to keep us through the Word that exalts Christ and
Him alone. Lord, we thank You. We really
thank You. Thank You for Your preachers.
Thank You for our brethren. Thank You for this gospel. Thank
you for our unspeakable gift, Christ our Lord. It's in His
precious name we pray. Amen.