I therefore, a prisoner for the
Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which
you have 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 is one body and
one spirit, just as you were called to the 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. But 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 but that he also descended into the lower regions, 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, the
prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip
the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up 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 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 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. There are two phrases, specifically
in verse 15 and 16, are the verses that we're in today. And so verse
15 says, Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow
up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. And
verse 16, 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. I want you to see two phrases.
speak the truth in love and we ought to build ourselves in love. Now, there's a problem already
in your minds, because when I say we ought to build ourselves in
love, each one of us in this room, unless we have truly studied
Ephesians in the last few hours, probably automatically went to
a personal reflective place and said, I do need to be building
myself up in love. And in no way is Paul talking
about the individual in this circumstance. He's talking about
the body as a whole. That we, as we grow individually,
we are to be growing so that the church may grow corporately,
or we are sinning. So, this idea of personal spirituality
and personal maturity, if you're growing by yourself in Christ,
which I recommend highly, but you're not growing with the
body, you're useless. Now, that's a harsh word, but
it's true. And it's what Paul's teaching
us here. And that's why I wanted to build this tension before
I get started so that it doesn't sort of land and you go, oh,
no, I got to leave and figure this out. I want to just maybe
plant some thoughts in your minds as we go through this. Now, when
we say building the church, we're going to talk about how we build
the church today. When we think of building the
church, We often come to the conclusion that we know how to
build the church. We come to the idea that, oh,
oh, I've been part of a church for a long time or I've been
part of several church plants. And see, this will be the third
church plant that I've been a part of. But that doesn't make me
an expert on building the church. See, by the way, we're in that
sphere of thinking. We're already wrong. We're wrong
in the context that building the church has nothing to do
with establishing the gathering. It has nothing to do with establishing
the building, or the service, or the order of service, or the
liturgy. It has nothing to do with establishing the membership,
or the documents, or anything of that nature. It's everything
in dealing with growing in our knowledge of the truth, and in
our knowledge of Jesus Christ, and growing in the unity of the
Spirit, in the bonds of peace by the power of God that is at
work within us. And then building the church
then is a corporate, corporate issue in which we all work together
to build one body, not individual bodies. It's like taking very
good care of all of your bones and all of your muscles, except
on your left arm, you just tape it to your body and every day
you inject it with some type of poisonous substance because
you really don't think that that arm is useful. Well, after a
while, if the muscle doesn't die, it will decay and have to
be amputated. That's absurd. But that's exactly
what we do when we think that building a church has to do with
the structure or the administration or the programs of the church.
None of this is prescribed in Scripture. All of the things
that we see today in the American church, and I use that very lightly,
but I want you to understand that those of you who come into
church history on Tuesday nights, you know exactly what I'm talking
about. But the prescriptions that we see and the model that
we see in the American church is so unbiblical, it's anti-biblical. It's against Christ. It's anti-Christ. It's in the spirit of the enemy.
It is the one who says that Jesus is not the God of creation. And
the Bible is not the authority of all things. But we as human
beings must do what we need to do. And this is the culture in
which we live. So we'll grow the church the way we want to
grow it. And then we'll sprinkle a little Jesus here, and we'll
dab a little gospel there, and we'll spray a spritz of some
truth over here, and we'll have the aroma of the church, but
we'll be a rotting corpse. Because we're all individual
units doing our own thing. One of the most horrific things
that God had to show me in ministry is as we as I was on staff and
teaching pastor and an elder at a large church and we started
as a small church and we grew as a large church, grew into
a large church as far as numbers. And I say grew and I'm not talking
about spiritual growth. I'm talking about numerically.
I saw that what we had become was a federation of small ministries
and we had numerous heads overseeing different things that we called
the church. And we thought that collectively,
as we put everything on paper, look at our church and all the
ministries. But it was nothing. It was nothing but taking a spider
and telling each of his legs to walk in a different direction
at the same time. It doesn't work. It does not work. And so when we Think of building
the church. What happens is that we actually
drastically misunderstand this endeavor. We misunderstand it
to the point that we think the church is grown in our minds
by the hands of men, by the ideals and the philosophies of our day.
We think that it's grown by strategies of strategies of high academics
or successful business acumen that help equip people to do
the same type thing that they are doing so that they may have
the same results that they had. The church is to grow into Christ.
The church is to grow into Christ. And it has no other goal. Period.
If there is another goal, then we have sorely mistaken what
the scripture is teaching very clearly and explicitly. We understand
that it is not possible for the natural man. When I say the natural
man, the man who is unregenerate, the man who has not been born
again, and I mean men, women, children, the human being who
has not been born again cannot approach a holy method of living.
We must mature as individuals in holiness. And we who are in
Christ have been equipped and are a gift to equip each other
that we might grow in sanctification with the power of God that is
already at work within us through the teaching of His Word. We
know this, but oftentimes we don't practice it. My question
is this. How are you growing as part of
the body? And how are you a gift to others
in the body? When we consider what we've learned
over the last few months, when we actually look at. At the teaching
of what Paul has shown us in Ephesians, several things should
come to our mind. For some of us, these things
are frustrating. Some of us find our place in
our minds and frustration, we get through with service and
we go, I'm frustrated. I don't I don't get this or or
I'm tired of hearing this. That's something that I do hear
a lot. And then there are some who say, well, this is enlightening,
this is empowering, this is exhilarating. Now, there may be a third group
of people who would just go, well, whatever, I don't feel
anything. Well, I pray that's not you.
But if it is, that's OK, because no matter what land, no matter
what hole you've landed in, whether you're frustrated by it, whether
you're enlightened by it or whether you're just indifferent to it,
the truth is, is that those things is how God is working in you.
Because God's word does not return void. It always accomplishes
that for which it was sent. And so God knows and God says,
and we should know rather, that when his word goes out, whatever
response happens in the hearts of any human being is the heart
is the response he intended to happen. That's what happens. So wherever you are today, if
you're indifferent, my challenge to you is now that I'm preaching
that you might be indifferent and bringing it to your attention
in reality. Maybe you would say, God, I don't want to be indifferent.
I'm fearful of being indifferent. Why am I indifferent to the gospel?
Why am I indifferent to the word? And maybe just maybe it is that
indifference that you now see by God's grace and you may repent,
believe the gospel. And maybe you're frustrated and
you think that you just can't get it and you're trying too
hard. And it's because God is wanting to show you something,
probably humility, probably breaking you to help you realize that
unless He helps you, it's not going to come to fruition for
you. And don't get off the hook for anybody who thinks that they're
enlightened, because God will take that enlightenment and let
you fall on your face with it as you decide, I got it now.
And you run straight to the finish line in the wrong direction.
We must always recognize our inability to walk in the gospel
and the gospel command to be holy. We must always recognize
our inability in the natural state and even in our flesh to
do anything that is pleasing to God. And if he does not give
us the grace, as Brother Brooks is sharing today, if he did not
give us the grace today to walk in him, we will not walk in him.
And so with that, let's continue here. God is working. I believe
preaching that causes frustration is healthy preaching. I believe
that it ought to be frustrating for us when we hear the preached
word of God. And it shouldn't be so relaxed
when the Scriptures are given to us that we feel like we just
sort of, yeah, I know that. As I studied through Proverbs
several years ago, I only studied through this first portion of
Proverbs. But there's one thing that I
came to conclude as a way of summarizing my journey in Proverbs
is that the fool says, I know. And God and the wise person says,
I know nothing, but God knows it all. And so the fool says,
I know, and I want to caution you that don't say, oh, I know
this. Well, you may have heard it. It may be familiar. But friends,
as someone who studies this often, I don't know it. I'm learning
just like you. So be amazed at what you may
learn in the context of what you already know. Frustration
in preaching is healthy as long as it resolves to worship. worship,
as long as it resolves to understanding, as long as it resolves to wisdom.
After all, this is the method of growth, according to Paul,
that we ought to teach each other. And in times of frustration,
it can become laborious to even study the scripture. You may
say, well, I don't even want to be in the word today. I don't
even want to come to church. It is in these times that we
must strive to hold on to God's grace, that we must say His grace
is sufficient, that we must understand that it is in these days that
God's strength is most powerful when we are in our weakness.
We need to drive, we need to push, we need to strive to stay
in His grace. And the glorious thing is no
matter how hard we strive or no matter how poorly we fail,
God is faithful and His grace will never fail. Two of the key
phrases, the specific things that I want us to see in light
and more of a reduction type thing here. Let me see, get my
thoughts together. I want us to look at two smaller pieces.
The speaking the truth in love and the building up in love.
The speaking the truth in love and the building up in love.
We have seen last week that God builds His church and grows His
church through the gifts that He gives to the church, whom
all center around the Word of God, the teaching and the giving
of the Word of God. The apostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers, and all of these
people are giving the Word of God and ministering the Word
of God. It is the learning and the teaching
of the Word that grows the church, that matures the church, that
unifies the church, that brings holy affections to the church,
that brings love for one another in the church, that brings ministry
to the church. This is what brings unity. This
is what brings a unity of the faith and a continued knowledge
of Jesus Christ. Those are things that we've already
read and we've already seen in this text. I don't have to revisit
them. And so if we are not doing these things, then we as a church
are not growing. We may think we're growing and
our numbers may spread out to the highways, but we're nothing
but larger ignorant children who are not giving glory to God.
if we are not growing in the Word. I'm going to look at a
couple of things in the next few minutes. The first thing
I want you to look for, listen for, because I don't do real
outlines, so I'm going to give you the three points that I want
you to see in the next few minutes, then I'll give you a few more
points if I get to them. The first point I want you to see
is that the action and attitude of love is greatly abused and
misunderstood. The action and the attitude of
love is greatly abused and misunderstood. That means that when we hear
the word love, we abuse it and we misunderstand it. When we
think we're loving, we misunderstand it and we abuse it. The second
is that the building of the church is done through loving speech.
That's a point that Paul makes in his text today. The building
and the growing and the maturing of the church comes through loving
speech. And third and finally, loving
speech is actually the truth of Jesus Christ. teaching the
truth of Jesus Christ, which is teaching the gospel, which
is teaching the Word of God. That's true loving speech. And
so as I go through this, listen for those things, you may catch
them, you may not. But at least you have the points.
Love. Love is one of those terms that
is so used in our vernacular today, socially, economically,
with food, within relationships. We say we love everything. Oh, I just love that car. Oh,
I love that food. I love that breeze. I just love
that bird. I love the sun. I love that sound. I love that feel. I love this.
I love that. We love everything. We say we
love everything. And yes, we know that there are different
variations of love and we can work through those and define
those. But I'll be straight with you.
We use the term so much. And we think that it is such
a thing that we've come to conclude that love is a feeling. It's
a feeling that we feel. Friends, there is nowhere in
any definition of love that has anything to do with how one feels.
Now, one may feel lovingly towards someone else, but if that loving
feeling doesn't execute itself into loving action, it wasn't
love at all, but maybe gas. Maybe the pizza we had for supper
last night, whatever we might have eaten for breakfast today.
It's not love. Love is always expressed in an
action. Always expressed in an action.
We have seen that love can be damaging the way it's misunderstood. We see people say, well, we need
the right to love today. Homosexuals think they have the
right to love one another and they call their intimacy and
their union love. Husbands and wives say, oh, we
love one another. Therefore, we will marry because
we love one another so much. Well, more than half of the marriages
in the body of Christ evangelically end in divorce today in America.
So where is this love? Love says when you hurt me, I
stay. Love says when you don't love me, I love you anyway. Love
is completely misunderstood. Without preaching an entire series
on this topic, It would be absolutely impossible for me to introduce
the reality of true love. I think it would take us probably
months and months, if not years, to look at it from this perspective.
So for the sake of today's argument and understanding what Paul is
trying to teach us, let me give you some things just quickly
that John teaches us about love. In John's first epistle, he tells
us in the very introduction that this is the message we have heard
from him, that God is light and in him there is no darkness.
So what that means is that God's foundational worth is His holiness. I would say that, and some of
you have heard me talk about some doctrinal things and theological
things, God's foundational attribute is His immutability, which is
His unchangingness. But His foundational worthiness
is displayed through His holiness. His intrinsic worth is displayed
in His holiness. That's the essence of His character, of His nature.
And so He's unchangeably holy all the time. But John also says
that God is love. He doesn't say God is loving,
though he is. He doesn't say that God is sort
of loving. God is sometimes loving. He says
that God is holy and that God is love, which teaches us that
if we want to know love, we must look perfectly at the face of
God. Wait a minute. No one can see God. But John
also says in his gospel, in the very prologue, that no one has
seen God who sits at His side has made Him known. We have seen
God's glory. Glory is of the only Son from
the Father, full of grace and truth. And from this fullness,
we all receive grace upon grace. So we've seen the fullness of
God. The God that created all things is fully seen in the person
of Jesus Christ. We have seen His glory. We have
beheld the beauty. How do we see Christ when we
don't see Him today, as it says in 1 Peter? We love Him, but
we don't see Him. But we don't see Him now. We
still love Him. And we are filled with a joy that is inexpressible.
So we know that Christ is there. We can see what love is by looking
at the text of Scripture. The full counsel of God's grace
is what I like to say. The full counsel of God's Word.
The full counsel of the Gospel. We must preach and understand
and teach and learn continually always the fullness of who God
is in the face of Jesus Christ so that we may continually grow
together as one person One body with Christ as our head. And
so we mess up when we think that love is the superficial expression
of some affection or some adoration that we call it in our day. John
says that God is love. And John says that God is holy,
which causes us to actually fear Him, for we are not holy. But
then God is love. And then John says that perfect
love drives out fear. And so God's perfect love toward
us is seen, not felt. It's seen and it's effectual.
How do we see it in John 3, where it says, God loved the world
in this way, in verse 16, it doesn't say God loved the world
so much, it doesn't say that even in the English. Even if
your Bible says, for God so loved the world, the word so is in
the manner in which He loved, not in the greatness or the magnitude
of the measuring. But God so loved the world that
He gave His only Son, the only one that He had, that all who
are believing in Him should not perish, but will have eternal
life. But what else does it say? All who are not believing in
Him are condemned already, for they are failing to believe in
the Son of God. And so I want you to understand.
that we who profess Christ, then if God is in us, and love is
God, God is love, and God is light, then we in turn, John
also in his first epistle especially, says we ought to have love for
one another. And if we do not, John calls
us a liar. Here's the problem. You see how
love can be misconstrued. Well, I do love each other. I
do love all these people. I do love my neighbors. I do
love the church. I do. But see, that's not what
love says. Love doesn't say, but love doesn't
say, well, I can't get along with them. Love doesn't say I
love them, but I don't like them. That's not love. Love says I
love them. And in my flesh, they kill me
and I die anyway because I love them. Because Jesus says in John
14, excuse me, John 15, verse 13, what does it say there? So
there's no greater love than this. The man should lay down
his life for his brother. So put that into context as to
what Paul is talking about here when it says we should speak
the truth and love and build ourself up in love. Love then is best understood
by this. Listen to these words. By doing
what is best when it hurts the most for the good of the greatest
good for all involved, which is for the glory of God. In other
words, it is best to understand that love does difficult things
for the ultimate good, which is the glory of God and his worth.
And in turn, it brings the fullness of joy and good for everyone
involved. True love hurts. It costs. But even in the deepest of pain,
it's joy. It makes no sense. So therefore,
the trueness of love in the church is done through the growing of
the church. So if you really want to love each other, you
must grow each other at the cost of your own growth, because if
you're giving to grow into the maturity of Christ for yourself
and not for someone else, then you are selfish. We'll talk about that. Let's
look at the growing of the church. Loving speech. The first thing,
the action, the attitude of love is misunderstood and greatly
abused. The building of the church is done through loving speech.
This is the second point. Loving speech. Here we know and
we've seen that we are to speak the truth in love. Well, what
is he talking about there? A lot of times we think that
that means, well, we got to tell it like it is, but we got to
be loving. You ever heard somebody say that? Well, I just keep it
real. Well, let me tell you what you do when you keep it real.
You sin. Nowhere in Scripture are we prescribed to tell people
how they ought to be doing and how they're awful and how this.
Well, I'm going to help this person. I'm going to be loving.
You know what? You're the most ugly and hateful person I've ever
met, but I love you. That's not discipleship. Now, sometimes
it may come to the point where you have to say that. But I've
never had to say it. I've never had to call anybody
ugly or stupid or belittle them. I have had to say from all observation,
I do believe you are indeed a child of the devil. That's about the
harshest I've ever said. Well, why would you say that?
Because I've been working with you for two years and all you
do is cause division and you hate Christ. You hate the word
of God. And by your own admission, you will not submit to what it
says. So where do you stand? And that's loving because that's
teaching people the truth of the gospel. But turn with me to another portion
of Scripture, First Corinthians, Chapter three. 1 Corinthians
chapter 3 teaches us that in order to truly love, we must
proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying here in
Ephesians chapter 4 that speak the truth in love. That is how
we grow into maturity. So listen to chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians
verse 9. For we are God's fellow workers,
you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace given
to me like a skilled master builder, I'll lay the foundation and someone
else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he
builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation
other than the one is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And if anyone
builds on the foundation with gold or silver or precious stones
or wood or hay or straw, each one's work will become the word
manifest. In other words, it'll be seen
for what it really is. For the day, capital D, the day of judgment
will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire
will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that
anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he
himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know
that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?
If anyone destroys the temple, God will destroy him. For God's
temple is holy and you are that temple. Now, listen, Paul's not
talking to me. He's not talking to you. He's
talking to us. That singular you is actually a collective
you. No, quit putting your name in there when you see instruction
to the church. That's a terrible thing to do,
church. That's an American thing. Only in America do we do that.
We put my name, I'll put my name for God so loved me. No, that's
wrong. And I was called to do that as
a young child. Don't do it. God so loved his church. God
so loved his people. God so loved the body of Christ. We are one bride, not many brides
coming to Him, but we are individuals who will stand before Him and
receive our just reward, except that by grace we have been saved
through Jesus Christ, who took our sin on Himself, willingly
going to the cross, that the judgment of God and the wrath
of God might be put down upon Him. And by faith we receive
that pronouncement, that God has saved us by His grace. And neither grace nor salvation
nor faith is something that man can Concoct, but it is all a
gift of God, Ephesians two, eight and nine. And so now we see if
you want to go now to another. Go down to another place. Second Corinthians four, flip
over one more book, go to second Corinthians four, there's a point
in all this, I promise. Second Corinthians four, starting
in verse one, my favorite text, the entire word of God right
now. It has been for some years. Therefore, having this ministry
by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced
disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God's Word, but by open statement of the
truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the
sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled
only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this
world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God. For what we proclaim is not of ourselves,
but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your slaves for
Jesus' sake. For God who said, Let light shine
out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give us the light
of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so
when you couple these things together, you realize that what
Paul is saying in Ephesians 4, verse 15, to speak rather, speak
the truth in love. Speaking the truth in love, we
are to grow up in every way into the head who is Jesus Christ.
We must proclaim the truth which is loving. The truth is Jesus. Why? So that we may no longer
be tossed to and fro like children in the waves. We may no longer
be by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, craftiness
and deceitful schemes, but rather speaking the truth in love. How
is it that the church protects itself from false teaching, from
deceitful schemes? We speak the truth in love. We
say, hey brother, I heard you talking about this or I've been
sharing life with you and I noticed that you're distressed. Let me
share with you the power of God to overcome that. Let me share
with you the Gospel. Let me show with you the glory
of God. Let me express to you the power of what God is doing
in your life right now through these circumstances. Oh, wait
a minute, you don't believe that, and what you just said out of
your mouth is unbelievable. It is not biblical, brother.
Let me sit down with you and show you exactly how the Scripture
teaches you about how you were saved, about who Christ is, about
what God has done in you through Jesus Christ. Oh, you don't believe
that? Well, why do you deny what the
Scripture teaches? Oh, you don't believe the Scripture?
Wow, then we probably aren't brothers. Now, that doesn't all
happen in one conversation. But we must speak the truth in
love. Speaking the truth in love has nothing to do with anything
personal. It has everything to do with
everything biblical, doctrinal. It has everything to do with
the Word of God being taught to one another from our mouths,
or our emails, or our text messages, or however we communicate. It
is absolutely unbelievable how weak and powerless the church
is, and we want to see God's power in our lives, but we do
not take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
God, Ephesians 6. I'm skipping a few months past.
And eat it, and meditate on it, and become like the man in Psalm
1, who is fruitful in all that he does. It's like a tree planted
deep next to the water. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus
is the way and the truth and the life. Thus, when we learn
Christ, we are learning the life of Christ. We are learning the
new life in Christ. We are learning the way, who
is Christ. And we are learning the truth, who is Christ. Speaking
the truth in love is teaching the gospel. It's teaching the
Word and all that Christ has commanded us to teach one another.
The ministry of the Word of God is to the children of God. Loving
speech is therefore not what people think it is. It's the
teaching of truth. And friends, the teaching of
the truth, the speaking of the truth in love is essential for
growth, which is essential to worship of God. Look at verse 15. The word rather
there gives a contrast. This contrast is regarding the
false teaching, the false learning, the false reaching and the bad
doctrine. So if we want to overcome that, the antidote to bad doctrine
is loving speech. You know what the result of bad
doctrine is? Evil worship. When you worship God based on
the bad doctrine that you believe, you're worshiping a false god,
which is idolatry, which is wicked. Now, I want you to put that into
your mind. And I want you to understand
that those who profess the name of Christ and refute the truth
of the gospel. And refuse to believe in a God
of the Bible because it doesn't fit with the American style of
free will. When then they're corrected on
it and they continue to push that away, they're worshiping
a false God and no child of God worship worships a false God. No child of God worships idols. Be careful. The speech is teaching. The speech
is expression. The speech is proclaiming. It's
explicit. It's the Word of God, the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, at all times and all circumstances, as much
as we can stand, as often as we can stand. To all peoples,
with love. From love, with love, with humility. What does Peter say? With gentleness
and respect. What does Paul say to Timothy?
With long-suffering and patience. Patiently enduring evil. See,
we don't bust them out. We don't pound them into the
pavement. We don't choke them and throw them in a fire. We
just proclaim the Gospel. Jesus hung on the cross and said,
it is finished. He didn't follow it up with,
sucker, you can't believe it. To say that it's finished. It's
finished. Therefore, if we are truly to
worship, if we're going to worship, we must know that which we worship
in spirit and truth, the word is learned in our hearts, worship
or a lie is learned and we become idolaters. We worship not the
God of Scripture, but the God of the design of man. And then
we have been designing gods for years. Speaking the truth also
means to defend the truth. It is to stand up, but it must
be done in love. For those laying down their lives
for the sake of truth, this is joy. Our attitude of affection
is what I want to say. Our love, our attitude of affection,
our expression of affection, and then our action of affection
is something that is often missing when we try to speak the truth.
Very few people have the problem speaking the truth, but it's
the affection. It's with affection. Are you speaking the truth because
you love that person more than you love yourself and the fact
that you're right and they're wrong? Or are you speaking the
truth so that you can get one up? And I can't tell you. You know
your heart. How do you speak in love? How do you speak in
love? Do you tell hard stuff about
who God is and how He's revealed it to us? And do you expect Do
you expect others to listen? Do you expect and anticipate
repentance and worship? Or do you go in by saying, I
know I'm going to say this, this person is going to thumb his nose at
me, he's going to tell me to get away. Expect God to work when you speak the truth in love.
Expect God to bring people to faith. And it may not be right
before your eyes, but don't give up until the Spirit of God tells
you to quit. And keep in mind that you're
not going to convince them. God is. See, we're off the hook. So how do you speak in love?
Is what you speak love or is it humanitarianism? Is it selfish
pet peeves? Do we teach the truth of the
gospel? Do we share our faith with others? Do we even care? We are to proclaim
the truth without I mean, excuse me, with our mouth, with our
pen, as I said, with our text, with our emails, nothing else.
All other arguments apart from the gospel are wasted breaths.
Paul tells Timothy, do not get entangled in civilian affairs
for a good soldier doesn't do that. He doesn't waste his breath
trying to defend. He says, do not argue with frivolous
discussions and arguments. Be mindful of how many frivolous
arguments and discussions that don't have the gospel intertwined
in them. We do every day. We are really overwhelmingly
debating much. What do we tweet? What do we
post on Facebook? What do we proclaim? What do
we evangelize? What do we share? What are we really doing with
all the time that we've been given? We need to really evaluate
that constantly. And sometimes it'll cause you
to be so grumpy. Because you realize just how frustrating
your life is, how what a waste. Look at the day. I've wasted
the day. Well, let's just let's take it from Brother Brooks this
morning and let's realize that God will give us the grace to
be a better day tomorrow. When we skip meals because we're
so busy, we don't just go, well, I can't ever eat again until
I make up all those meals. No, we just sit down. We eat. And when we're hungry again,
we eat. We need to approach the word of God this way. We need
to realize that the mercy of God is forever refreshing and
forever new. Beautiful truth this morning.
Speaking the truth and love, let me give you some closing
thoughts as we move from this. Speaking the truth and love results
in growth for the whole body, not the individual. Anytime that
any Christian considers his own growth above the body at large,
he or she is revealing something about their heart, a selfish
ambition that is apart from the purpose of the church. The purpose
of the church only glorifies God together. That's why some
people, there are some theologians from antiquity that sort of took
some hiatus and took some sabbaticals for years away from the fellowship
of believers. And I've actually had brothers
in the Lord say that those people were heretics because they departed. I'm not going to call them that.
I think for what God did through them to bring the writing that
He brought, I'd say praise God. But we need to be growing for
the whole of the body. If you learn, it should always
be that you are walking with others to help them see humbly,
lovingly and patiently, remembering that you are not right, but that
God is right. Arrogance is not in the heart
of those who are led by the Spirit of God. Arrogance is not the
mantra and the banner of the Spirit filled, spiritual minded
person. Though it may hang around and
though it may be hiding behind every crevice of our heart, it
is not there constantly. The idea of we see arrogance,
we need to repent, believe the gospel, turn from our pride and
turn from our own worth and our own wisdom and trust in the person
of Christ who is the image of God. When we speak the truth
in love, we do so, listen, against the natural mind of man. It makes no sense to the unbeliever. It makes no sense to those who
are not in the faith. We speak the truth in love, we
do so against the culture and the traditions of man. We do
so against the American church. and the American dream. When
we speak the truth and love, we do so against the doctrines
of lies and the false teachings. We do so, when we speak it, we
do it against the plots and the arrogant deceptions of men who
call themselves shepherds and who care not about their flock,
but only their own prestige and their own glory and their own
face in the paper and their own YouTube account and their own
sermon audio numbers and everything around them. May we pray that we would not
become those people. God have mercy on us sinners.
He has and he will. Not all people, though, who are
wrong are wicked. Not all people who are wrong
are not wicked in their intentions, not all who follow or hold a
false doctrine or an erroneous truth are deceivers. But rather
their infants who have not been loved by their pastors and by
their brothers and by their sisters. How many years have I driven
home from church and said to myself, man, I wish so and so
would just really see the truth that not once had I shared it
with them. People in the state of ignorance
and people in the state of infancy are really are really there because
their pastors themselves are infants or ignorant. Or unregenerate. I think that's the state of the
church as at large is unregenerate, it's not saved, it's full of
unregenerate people who call themselves Christians who are
so confident that they have eternal life that they don't even want
to be questioned about it. When God's children see this
as a reality, they need to humbly and lovingly confront such things.
And if repentance takes place and growth comes, then praise
God. If not, then part gracefully. And church, do not stay under
false teaching. Do not sit under weak teaching.
Do not sit under refuted teaching. It will cost you dearly. It will
cost you the joy of your salvation. You will not lose your salvation,
but you will lose your joy. And you will become cold and
you will be fruitless. And it will take you generation
after generation after generation. It may take generation for your
joy to return to your home and to your family. Do not sit under
bad teaching. But you must also confront it.
You must tell the man humbly and patiently and very, very
graciously that your spirit does not agree with the spirit of
his teaching. And if they receive it, praise God, walk together
and grow. If they don't, praise God and pray. Move on. Speaking the truth in love is
the only means to unity, the only means to growth, the only
means to glory, the only means to worship. Teaching the truth
in love is the only means to spiritual maturity. Teaching
the truth in love is the only means to salvation, to the unregenerate.
Romans 10, 17. Teaching the truth in love is
the only means to glorifying God. The only means to display
His manifold wisdom. Ephesians 3, 10. Teaching the
truth in love is displays the wisdom of God and God is not
glorified and pacified false unity. Let's just get along. That's not glorifying. That's
wicked. It's lazy opportunity, as we
saw. The parable of the talents, an
opportunity to serve. We need to multiply that. We
don't need to hide it away and keep it to ourselves. Believers
don't do that. They share truth because they
love people and they're willing to cry. And I'm not here. I can't
really see it, but I see it, but I don't see it. I've never
been put in this position, but Paul prays in Romans chapter
nine. He says, I pray that I myself might be cut off from Christ
in a curse that my brothers in the flesh, the Jews, might come
to faith. God is not glorified in stagnation. He's not glorified when a church
just deals with status quo. He's not glorified in ignorant
Christians. He is never glorified in the
mind of ignorance. He's never glorified if the church
doesn't have mutual, supernatural, spontaneous affection. So let's close our time today
in the essence of this text with two phrases. Those same two phrases,
speaking and teaching in love, building up in love. First, we
know and we see that Christ is the creator and the connector
of His body in verse 16, 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. You see these phrases? Punch
it out. That's how you ought to read your Bible with a pen.
A piece of paper. You see the whole body? And it's
joined and held together, equipped. Each part working properly makes
the body grow in love. You know the whole point of that?
Is that Christ at work in His children individually equips
them and puts them together that they become one body and each
person is a joint making the other work effectively and efficiently
and supernaturally. And if one joint pops out or
one joint isn't really a part of the body, but it's a piece
of cancer, that it must be removed before the body can continue
to grow in unity and the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of
faith and the worship of Christ. You cannot grow if you're not
a body working together. So where's the application today?
The question is, are you growing as a body? Are you growing as
a person? Are you growing in mutual affection,
mutual love, which is what? Teaching, admonishing, exhorting,
rebuking, encouraging. Mutual love, supernatural affection
is what I call it, includes several things. It includes a supernatural
desire to serve each other. A supernatural desire to serve
one another. It includes a supernatural desire to teach and speak to
each other. To speak life. I'm not talking about the word
of faith garbage. I'm talking about speaking life.
The Lord says this. The Word says this. The Gospel
teaches this. The Father is this. The Son is
this. You in Christ are this. You no
longer walk in the futility of the mind like the Gentiles did.
That's what's next week. See, Paul not only says, do it,
then he does it. What a beautiful thing. Therefore,
don't walk in the futility of your mind as you once did, as
the Gentiles do. Walk. Walk in the knowledge of
Christ. Walk in the learning that you
have. Each member, when we walk and love mutually in supernatural
affection, it includes each member connecting and serving with the
measure of grace given to them by Christ, giving to each other,
So that the whole body is working to the praise of His glorious
grace as we saw all through the first chapter. And when we're not in mutual
love and we're not in mutual service, we're not in mutual
learning, we're not in mutual teaching, we're not in mutual
unity, we're not in mutual faith, we're not there and there's no
way possible for us to ever be healthy. I want to see you, us,
we need to be healthy. Why? For it displays the gospel
powerfully and explicitly as we live to worship and serve and teach. Growing
up means to edify, to mature. And I look at it this way, this
is how God helped me see it. It's either edification or eradication. That's what's happening. The
body is edifying itself and building itself up in love, or it is being
eradicated one joint at a time. Have you ever been part of a
body that was eradicated? It's a horrible thing. John Calvin says it this way. No increase is advantageous,
which does not bear a just proportion to the whole body. No increase is advantageous. No knowledge, no learning, no
worship, no sharing, no ministry, no serving, no teaching is advantageous,
which does not bear a just proportion to the whole body if it's not
shared amongst the church. I'm not talking about stuff.
I'm talking about you. Your walk being supernaturally
intertwined with everybody else in the body. no matter what church
they're in. If you're driving across country
and you've got 3,000 miles to go and you're halfway there,
and you stop at a steakhouse, and you have an opportunity to
share with a brother in the Lord, then do it. Either the body is growing
for the whole or it's dying piece by piece. All that we are, all
that we have, all that we do is for the purpose of the whole
of the church. So the problem comes when we esteem the plans
of men over the plan of God. Scripture teaches that this plan
is foolish and ridiculous for those who are in the world, but for those who are in Christ,
we know that our lives are not our own. The Enrans of the world
don't understand the gospel. These people do not understand.
People who live for hedonism don't understand how it's hedonistic,
how it can be the fullness of individual joy to be pouring
oneself out for the benefit of others. Paul says, I'm being poured out
like a love offering, like a drink offering. Come to me. He says at the Church of Philippi,
I desire to go. I desire to stay. I'm hard pressed
between the two. What shall I do? If I go, it's
glory for me. Hallelujah. For I'll be with
Christ that I desire most. But if I stay, it's glory for
you. So I'll stay. I'll stay. I'm glad Paul stayed. I wouldn't be here. Neither would
you. I'm glad Jesus walked out of glory so that he could become
like us. Did he have to? No. It's the most unjust thing
that's ever happened in the world that Christ died on the cross. The church is not for the building
up of the family, but the family for the church. The church is
not for the purpose of growing or moralizing the nation, but
we are a nation of priests. The church is not for the individual
and to meet the needs of the one, but to grow and meet the
needs of the whole. The church is for the glory of
Jesus Christ. How are we to accomplish these things? Because Christ
is our Head. He's perfectly in charge. He's
perfectly giving us a mind. He's given us understanding.
He's given us camaraderie. He's given us fellowship. He
has given us everything we need. His divine power is all we need
for godly living. When each part of the body works
properly, we are uniquely unified to equip and edify the whole
for the glory of God and to the praise of His glorious grace.
Where are you in the body of Christ? Are you a small personal
kingdom? Or a vital piece to the whole? Who Christ created with the shedding
of his blood. Let's pray. Father, we are beyond grateful. We cannot express gratitude with
the immeasurable grace that's been given us through Jesus Christ. Father, the children who hear
these words settle in their hearts and ears, whether they realize
it or not, bring it to fruition. Bring a heart to good soil that
it may take root and bear fruit. Lord, bring conviction and celebration
at the same hour. Bring frustration and worship
at the same moment. Bring it in our lives. Bring
revival to our midst that the world may look and be perplexed. And say, what foolishness is
this? And we say it is the wisdom of
Christ, who is the God who created all that is. or bring your sheep
home and lift them up that you might be seen. Thank you for
promising to prepare us and continue to hold us and to sanctify us
and to make us holy and blameless before you. It is in Christ's
name we pray. Amen.