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Ephesians 4:7-16 | Blueprint for a Mature Church · Bayside Davis Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the B-Side Davis Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to our current teaching series, Ephesians.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series in the book of Ephesians.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been here, uh, let me just give you a little bit of context.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a church that he helped start, and he's encouraging this church, this body of believers, and he's writing this letter, important context, from prison.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing this letter from prison.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, most of the New Testament, if you just close your eyes and open somewhere in the New Testament, it was probably written by Paul, and he was probably in prison when he wrote it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's important to understand that because if I was in prison and you got a letter from me while I was in prison, since we're all family here, um, it would not sound like the book of Ephesians.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be honest, let's just get that out of the way.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I write you and I'm in prison, it's just gonna say one word, help.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's gonna say, I didn't do it, or it's gonna say, send bail money here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that's not at all what Paul is concerned about.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, at no point is he referencing beyond just explaining to them that the reason that I'm suffering is actually for God's glory.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but at no point is Paul throwing a pity party or is he going, hey, I'm gonna love and encourage on you, why don't you help a brother out and get me out of here?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that doesn't show up anywhere.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually spending a very difficult season of his life building the church up.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you have a relationship with Jesus, it begins to change not always your circumstances, but your character.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are walking with Jesus, you can actually be walking through difficulty, walking through suffering, and still lifting others up.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul models in the book of Ephesians.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians is one of my favorite books in the Bible.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you are newer to church, newer to God, newer to Jesus, or you're just kind of checking this out, and you're like, I don't really know where to start with my Bible.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Ephesians and the Gospel of Mark, two great books to start with.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of Mark is all gas, no breaks, all action.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus do when he was here?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then the book of Ephesians is an incredible book.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's really broken up.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Wesley has probably laid this out to you, but really broken up into two parts.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first three chapters are a lot of doctrine and theology.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can think about it like um what God has done for the church, and then chapters four through six get really into the weeds of like how do we actually live this out?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so if chapters one through three are what God has done for the church, chapters four through six are how do we respond then if this has been done for us.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I love the book of Ephesians.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're going to jump in Ephesians chapter four, starting in verse 11.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Paul writes this So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, so that all of that, so that we would grow to be mature and attain the full measure of the fullness of Christ.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not an exhaustive list that Paul uses.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So when he says he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers, uh, we like to, in today's day and age, approach and read the Bible like it's an Enneagram test.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, which one am I?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Am I a pastor, an apostle, an evangelist?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not at all Paul's heart in writing this.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is not even an exhaustive list.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: All throughout Paul's writings, he uses a ton of lists, and some are big, some are small.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not laying out this is everybody in the church, and everybody falls into one.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't fall into one of these, then you're not doing what God wants you to do.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we cannot read this like an Enneagram test.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a personality test.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is not trying to get you to understand which of these five you are, it's not an exhaustive list.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important uh to understand that because Paul is actually building on a lot of other things that he has already talked about.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we're going to get to in just a few minutes, in verses one through six, he lays out four characteristics of what a Christ follower looks like.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, humble, gentle, patient, and bearing with one another in love.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And even those go back to something he wrote in the book of Galatians, where he lays out in Galatians chapter five the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul is building this theological base for the church in Ephesus.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can't just pick and choose which one we're gonna look at or which one we're gonna build our entire theology off of because they all intersect, they all coincide, but they're all building on one another.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But here is the most important thing to know is that he says that Christ himself gave the apostles for what?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: To equip his people for works.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying is that these five functions, these five offices, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Apostle, evangelist, all of these exist in the church.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Christ gave them to the church to equip the people.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning that you may not be one of these five, but you are certainly part of the people, which means that you need to be equipped because it's on all of us to serve, right?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the beauty of God's church, is that Bayside Davis does not have one pastor.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Wesley Town is not the only pastor at Bayside Davis.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, what Paul is laying out in the book of Ephesians is that Bayside Davis doesn't have one pastor, it has 200 pastors.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in a couple weeks, it's gonna have 400 pastors.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's still crazy to me how late UC Davis starts, but we'll save that for another day.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But like this is Paul's vision of the church, because this is Christ's vision of the church, is that all of us would be equipped.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if your version of church is just showing up, worshiping, receiving the word, like hopefully they make me laugh today, hopefully they make me feel all kind of warm and fuzzy, and then I'm just gonna go home.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not the church that Christ has called you to be a part of.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's even in the way that we talk about church because we'll ask people, what church do you attend?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine somebody comes up to me and I got my kids with me and my wife's right there, and they go, Oh, is this the family that you attend?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, this is the family that I'm a part of because I have a role and I have a function.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't do my role, the family doesn't work.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about like what church do you attend?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not attending the church.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to come in hot and heavy at 1045.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but you have not been called to attend a church.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have been called to be part of the church.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're part of the church, it means that you have a role to play in the church.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Christ has given us these five functions, these five offices, these five people to equip us so that we may serve.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what's really important because even if you go back to Galatians chapter 5, right, the fruit of the spirit, which all of this is kind of built on.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not a big, not a big outdoorsy guy, um, but I can confidently say that I have never seen a tree eat fruit.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like trees grow a lot of fruit, they grow a lot of different kinds of fruit, right?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen a tree eat fruit?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Which means what?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That the tree is growing the fruit for who?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: For everybody else.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen a tree eat an apple.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: The tree is growing the apple for other things to eat it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So as God is is growing this fruit in your life love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, it's not for you.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's for everybody else.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this becomes very apparent as as Paul writes out the letter to the church in Ephesus, is this is not just so that your life is better.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, this is how we approach Scripture.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: We open it in the morning, we're like, I gotta get my 10 minutes of Devo time in, or read this and go, all right, God, what does this do for me?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But everything that you have been given by God is not just for you.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not just to make your life better, it's to make his church stronger.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as Paul is laying this out in Ephesians chapter 4, it's really, it's really important that we understand this that what you've been given isn't just for you.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But then you also have to be careful not to let the pendulum swing to the other side and go, I have to do all of these things to earn what God has given me.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we have all felt that at some level.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you've been going to church your whole life or today is your first day, uh, religious people have probably made you feel that at some point in your life.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh man, God is such a good God, and you're such a disaster that you gotta start like doing good stuff so that He loves you.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We took our kids to Disney World for the first time a couple years ago.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wife is Australian, and so we have family from Australia who met us in Florida, and they've got kids our kids' age, and so they had a blast, like all their cousins that they never get to see.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we all meet in Florida, and there's so many of us, we had to get this massive Airbnb, right?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody pitches in, we get this massive Airbnb, where you hang at the Airbnb, and then we're just gonna go to the parks all weekend long.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was this great time.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we get out there, and our kids thought this was the greatest day of their lives.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we get to this massive house, there's a pool, a hot tub, all of their cousins are there, and they're just playing, they're having a great time.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: We go to bed the next morning.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: We get up and I'm like, All right, everybody in the van.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: My four-year-old son looks at me and he goes, Nope, we're not gonna go, Dad.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, We want to stay here and play.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, your mother and I spent thousands of dollars on this trip, and we will be in debt for the rest of our lives.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You will get in the van, we will go to Disney World, you will have a great time, this is the happiest place on earth, and you will be happy.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so he gets in the van.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what why did he do that though?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because up until that point, he could not imagine something better.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: This incredible house, all of my friends and my cousins are here, like this is great.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so often this is what we do with God.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: We camp out in a season of life, and God's like, no, no, no, right, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The the fullness, the fullness of the measure of God, that's what he wants for you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we go through a season of life and we're like, I'm good, God, I just want to stay here.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is comfortable, this feels good, and he's like, you have no idea what good even is.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because when God says good, it's not your and my good.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's when God says good, it's the ultimate good, it's the best good.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: God wants good things for your life.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to live in the fullness of the goodness of life that he has designed and created for you so often in life.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We go, God, I'm I'm actually good.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll I'll stay here because this feels good.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Having no idea about the magic of Disney World that awaits.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we get in the van and we go to Disney World, and the kids had a great time.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you that at no point over the course of this trip did we sit down at lunch and was I waiting for my four-year-old son when the bill came to say, Don't worry, Dad, I got this one.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: At no point did we hop into an Uber and was I waiting for my three-year-old daughter to go, Dad, I'll get the Uber.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for everything that you've done for us.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I was not waiting for them to pick up the check.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, this is how we view our relationship with God, that like eventually God's waiting for you to pick up the check.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, he's waiting for you to start pulling your own weight.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the message of the gospel isn't just that you don't carry your own weight, it's that you couldn't carry your own weight.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he had to come and die in our place.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: God is not waiting for you to start doing more, being more, knowing more.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we did sit our kids down, and I did say, hey, in light of this trip, there are a couple of expectations that we have.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh love your cousins well, treat each other well, be happy, enjoy yourselves.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, smile, don't be a terrorist.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like the bar is actually very low.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you to do any of those things to earn this trip because it's already yours.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to do it in light of this trip.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've received this gift, I want you to live out some gratitude, right?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul is getting at in the book of Ephesians.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: He mentions grace so many times throughout this book.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing that God wants you to do is to earn what he has already freely given you.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But because you have received this great gift, there should be a measure of gratitude in your life.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: There should be a measure of joy in your life.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't do this very well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who's the first group of people to freak out when something in the world happens?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Christians.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And who's the first group of people that starts judging when somebody falls or make a mistake?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Christians! And all throughout Ephesians, Paul is like, you have been saved and have been given this great gift.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Live like it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like you should have gratitude and joy in your life.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And just know that everything that you've been given should also be given away.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because it hasn't just been given to you, it's been given through you.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing that we have to understand is that we have been gifted, but we've been gifted to serve.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: His church, this body has been gifted to serve.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot take what he is growing in my life and keep it to myself.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever held on to fruit for too long?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We got back from that trip from Florida.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I walked into our house and we had just harvested a bunch of fruit from our garden in the back, and there was just this big black gooey thing on our counter.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, babe, what is that?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I think that's the fruit and veggies that we left on the counter.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you try to keep this to yourself, it goes rotten.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit that God is growing in your life was never meant to be kept to yourself.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was always meant to be given away.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So as Paul says that you've been gifted and you've been equipped, it's not just so that your life is better, it's so that his church would be stronger.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that we have to understand from Ephesians chapter 4 is that we've been gifted to serve.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that we have to understand is that we're grounded in Christ.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 says this, then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is Christ Jesus.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the second time that he's mentioned maturity.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So first three chapters, he goes, This is what God has done for you, grace, grace, grace.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is how he has loved you, grace, grace, grace.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then chapter four, he starts to unpack.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do we do with that?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he starts to speak about maturity.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to grow up.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can no longer act like I did before I was married, now that I'm married.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you're married, you can no longer act like you don't have kids once you start having kids, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Things happen in life and you have to start growing up.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in light of this thing that God has done for us, he wants his church to what?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: To grow up.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he says that Christ is the head of the church, and then in verse 14, he calls us infants so that we would not be infants.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is probably not the metaphor that Paul's trying to get across, but it works.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, here's the thing about infants they have massive heads proportionally to their body, right?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And some of us never grow out of that massive head.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have a huge head.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: My son has a huge head, to my wife's dismay.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: She had to give birth to two of our children.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, babe.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But a young infant, a little kid, proportionately, that's why they can't walk, right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: They can't even hold their heads up at first because their heads are so big in proportion to their body.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Their body has to grow into their head.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says that Christ is the head of the church, and that in your immaturity, we are the body of Christ.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The body has to grow into the head.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the body is farther developed.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to grow into Christ who is the head.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, maturity, maturity, maturity.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about who we are and how we are gathering should lead to more and deeper and better maturity.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I went to uh therapy one time, I was talking to my counselor, and I was just, you know, inventing all of the all of the issues and problems I had in my life.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this person said this, and this person did this, and that they think this, and that they keep doing this.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: He looks at me and I'll never forget this.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said, But Cameron, is it true?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what are you what are you talking about?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, is it true?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not paying you to be on their side, I'm paying you to be on my side.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, unless you can come to terms with the fact that what they do and say might actually be true about you, you're never gonna get away from this.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's maturity.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Coming to realize that maybe you're not who you thought you were, which is why it's so important to understand that I'm not grounded and rooted in me.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not grounded and rooted in my family.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grounded and rooted in Christ.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: My relationship has to be built on Jesus and Jesus alone.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything else can be taken away from me.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, it's just Jesus.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And look what Paul says.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says that speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is at the head.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: That love plus truth equals maturity.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't mature without the truth, and I can't receive the truth without love.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Kevin Thompson put it like this love without truth is a lie.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Truth without love is a weapon.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And man, so many times the church has lied to people because we're too scared to tell the truth, and so many times the church has wielded the truth like a weapon and really wounded people.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, the way that you mature is you need the truth, but you also need love.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna speak the truth in love, and that will be our avenue to growing into more mature believers.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, in verse 2, Paul lays out what does a mature believer look like.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 2, he says it's humble.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta be humble.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in chapter 3, when he starts to pray this beautiful prayer over the church in Ephesus, he begins by telling them, I kneel before the Father.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't just want them to understand what he's praying for them, he wants them to understand how he's praying for them.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I kneel before the Father.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you got on your knees to pray?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's kind of a weird thing, maybe it feels like super old school, but here's what we know in life and through Paul is that posture shapes your perspective.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, I'm not just going to like pray before I eat for you, I'm on my knees before God.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because posture shapes perspective.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was standing in the kitchen with my wife the other day, I had my arms around her, we're talking.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking down on her, and I realized, like, for our entire relationship, I'm I've always been looking, she's several inches shorter than me, so I'm always looking down at her at the same angle.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So while I'm standing there, I just start slowly bending my knees until I was looking up at her the same angle that she normally looks up at me.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, is this how the world looks to you?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then our kids will take our phones and they'll just record videos all over the house.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's of the cat, and the cat will just be like hiding under the bed, and we just got videos of the butt but they'll they'll run around the house and you'll pick up your phone.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's 37 videos on it, and it looks like a hobbit has stolen your phone because they're all the way down here, right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my gosh, everything looks so big to them.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because your posture shapes your perspective.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to see God in a new light, you've got to change your posture so that He can change your perspective.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in chapter three, when when Paul says, I'm praying for you, I'm literally on my knees because your posture shapes your perspective.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I've learned in life is that the world cannot knock you off your feet if you are already on your knees.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I am on my knees praying for you.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Would you let God begin to shape your perspective of him by changing the posture of your body but also your heart and your soul?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, a mature believer is humble, but then he also says gentle.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: All throughout scripture, Jesus is described as gentle, but I think we can all agree that that Jesus.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not weak.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I hear the word gentle, I just assume you're weak.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: No offense.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like that person's so gentle.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like weak.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very weak.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is not weak.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the definition of biblical gentleness isn't weakness, it's power under control.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in the original Greek, the picture that it paints is a wild stallion that has been tamed.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, Jesus, doesn't want his people, doesn't want his body, doesn't want his church to be weak.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: He wants them to be powerful and strong, but under control.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that we could care for people without crushing them.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: A wild stallion that has been tamed.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I told my wife, I said, babe, I am a wild stallion.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he says you have to be humble if you're a mature believer.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be gentle and then you have to be patient.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this one's tough for me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because every time I fly and I get in line at TSA, it's like everybody in front of me is experiencing their first day on earth.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, what do you mean I have to take off my shoes?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean I can't travel with this 64-gallon titanium water bottle?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, can you please just let me on the plane?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to be patient.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody in this room, including me, is in process.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are all in process, so be patient.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: This should be the best place in your world to show up when life is not going well, and you can stumble and you can fall and you can fail, and you got a body of people in here who are going to be patient with you because we all need somebody to be patient with us.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your past may be somebody's present.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: What you went through might be what somebody is going through.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So be patient because we are all in a process.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So he says you have to be humble, you have to be gentle, you have to be patient if you're mature, and he says, bearing with one another in love.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: The term bearing with one another literally means it's a hold up.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in Galatians chapter 6, verse 2, Paul actually says this.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I've learned is that my arms are already full, carrying your burden with you.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard for me to carry resentment for you.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says, carry each other's burdens.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or put it another way, it's hard to hate them if you know what hurt them.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times, the only thing I can I think about is what you've done to me, never once stopping to wonder what's been done to you, what has negatively shaped your heart, your soul, what has wounded you.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard to hate someone when you know what hurt them.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, bear with one another in love.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hold them up, carry each other's burdens.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Again, people should show up to church limited into a group of people waiting to throw their arm around you and help you walk through this season of life.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: A mature believer is humble and gentle and patient and bears with one another in love.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third and final thing that we see from Paul, all of this culminating in this one idea that we are all growing together.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't show up and do my thing at church and then leave, and you don't show up and do your thing at church and then leave.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're all growing together.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Look what he says in verse 16.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot do church by yourself.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot do your walk with God by yourself.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Faith alone doesn't work.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I told you last time I was here, I started doing triathlons.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I had my midlife crisis early.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And on my last race, I started to think, maybe this is it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe this is the next evolution of Cameron.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I am a triathlete.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm on the run, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: You see you do the swim, and then you do the bike, and then you do the run.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm on the run, this woman old enough to be my grandma passes me.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, You got this! I said, Thank you, grandma.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the moment I realized maybe I'm not a triathlete.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not to take anything away from her.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: She was incredible, but I was like, maybe this is not my thing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody there was so uplifting, so encouraging, every single person you talked to made you feel like I can do this.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I came home wondering why church doesn't always feel that way.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized there's one very important difference between a race and church.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is that when you show up for a race, everybody there expects that they will suffer at some point.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we're all going through the same thing, we might as well just build each other up and encourage each other.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that day was the single most encouraging day of my life because everybody that showed up that day understood we are all going to suffer.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: We may as well do it together.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: People show up to church and try to convince everybody else they're not suffering.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good, everything's fine.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what you do is you rob people from being able to speak life into you.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: We should show up to church and go, we're all broken, we're all messed up.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's life in here is going the way they want it to go.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how good you look, it doesn't matter how many notes you've taken, it doesn't matter if you know all the words of the song that we sang and are about to sing.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody in here is walking through brokenness.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: What if we showed up to church and we're like, I'm broken, you're broken, let's walk through this brokenness together.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is what a mature body, a mature believer looks like that you would be humble, gentle, patient, bear with one another in love, and through that we would grow not just more, but we would grow together.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because the church needs the church, the body needs each piece and ligament, he says, as we grow together.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: We need the church.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I needed the church, still need the church.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I've shared pieces of my story with you, Bayside Davis.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know, when I was 15 years old, I grew up in a Christian home, my dad was a worship pastor.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: When I was 15 years old, my parents started to fight a lot.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Chances are, you know, in a room this size, you may have grown up, and that was normal.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was not normal for us, not normal for me.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we didn't really know what to make of it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Mom and dad started to fight a lot, and then uh they ended up starting to get a divorce.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was 15 and a half years old, my dad sat me down and he told me, Hey, your mom and I are getting a divorce, and by the way, all of this is your fault.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, I ran away from home because I could not carry the weight of that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I could not figure out what was so broken in me that I was breaking my family.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it crushed me.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm really honest, that has followed me into every season of my life.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is a voice somewhere in the back of my head, as soon as things don't go well for me.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: See, I told you, Camera, you're not enough.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, it was only a matter of time.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that you're not good enough.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that you're not smart enough to figure this out.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that voice has followed me through every season of life.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I had three different men in three different seasons of my life stand in the gap as the church who loved me, who supported me, who spoke life into me, and I am not standing here today if it's not for the church.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: We need the church, and those men encouraged me, but they also called me into maturity.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Cameron, this happened to you, but this will not be the rest of your life.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta grow, you gotta heal, and you gotta keep growing up.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I needed the church, and I'm never gonna stop needing the church.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that I get to raise my kids in the church.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we were not called to attend church, friends.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're called to be the church.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody needs you to be the church, not just out there.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is also true, but somebody in here.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all grow together.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: What God has given you is not just for you.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it will make your life better, but God also wants to make his church stronger.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the question I like to get back to is not which church am I going to attend?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: But am I willing to be the church?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what he has called me to do.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is what he has called us to do.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can we do that together based on Davis?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what would the city of Davis look like if we actually grew up to become the church?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: What would the city of Davis look like?