Time to Grow Up

I’d like to read two brief passages from Acts, in chapter 19 and then in chapter 20.

From Acts chapter 19, Luke records Paul’s activities. Verse 8:

“And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”

And then in chapter 20, as Luke records Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders before he leaves them. From verse 25:

“And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I[’ve] gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all … who are sanctified.”

Amen.

Now, I read that as background to returning to our studies in Ephesians. It’ll be helpful to us to read again the verses that we began with this morning as we come back to them now. Ephesians 4:11:

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of 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 in 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.”

Father, we bow before your Word, and we seek the help of the Holy Spirit, to speak and hear and understand and believe and live in the light of its truth. Help us, gracious God. We pray to this end. Amen.

You may recall that at the turn of the nineteenth century, into the twentieth century, they asked William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, what his concerns were regarding the church in the century that was before them. And you will perhaps recall—because I’ve quoted this to you before—he said, “In answering your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”[1] Fairly prescient.

The Bible speaks to the world in which we live.

We’ve now lived through the twentieth century, and we are now well into the twenty-first century. We find ourselves at a fascinating point in history—in the history of our nation and in the development of Christianity. We now live in a culture that has embraced, essentially, religion without God, unless you want to call the earth “God”—which, of course, many do. We have structures of religious orthodoxy that are devoid of any convictions concerning the Bible, the divinity of Jesus, and so on. And as a result of that, men and women have decided that if they are to have any kind of spiritual life at all, then it can be of their own contriving and of their own making—a kind of special “designer religion” that includes the bits and pieces that they like and leaves aside anything that they find distasteful to them.

And as a result of that kind of thinking, unless a local church will reinforce that kind of thing, then people will be tempted to stay away. They may go to an environment where there is the visible organization of things, and yet inwardly there’s nothing there at all, just a kind of strange emptiness. And so they are tempted to say, “Well then, the church itself—not religion, now, not spirituality—but the church itself somehow or another is just a mask. There’s nothing inside it. It’s an ancient relic. It’s something lost and long in the past.”

And so, a local congregation such as our own is confronted with that kind of environment. We live in that world. We understand something of that world. And we live also in the world of the Bible. And so, as we turn to the Bible, we discover that the Bible speaks to that world in which we live. It spoke into the world of first-century Ephesus, and it speaks into the world of twenty-first-century Cleveland.

I say all of that because Paul is greatly concerned for this particular church. That’s why he writes to it. He had warned them as he took his leave from them that there would be for them real challenges ahead. He said, “In fact, you will discover that there will be people from actually inside your congregation who will arise, and they will draw people away after them.” And he said, “The thing that will stand you in good stead is if you remember that I did not sell myself to you,” he says, “but I labored tirelessly to disclose to you the entire counsel of God, in order that when the days that will inevitably come come, you will be able to stand.”

And so, in the course of writing to them and establishing for them an understanding of what is taking place in them and among them, he has laid down this section to which we’ve come, these foundational Word ministries—the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists, and then the responsibility of the pastor-teacher. And he, Paul, understood that it was because he had fulfilled that role in Ephesus that the church had been established, and it would be on the basis of that that the church would be sustained. To lose that voice would be to lose not simply the voice of the preacher but to lose the very voice of God.

Now, this, of course, is in keeping with what we read as we follow through those who have been influential in the church. Luther—and we’re thinking much of Luther at the moment because of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation as it comes up—Luther observed, “God … lives in the preacher’s mouth.”[2] “God … lives in the preacher’s mouth.” He described the picture as being “the amazing humility of God,” he said, “that God, although he is everything and everywhere, chooses to hide himself”—that’s the phrase he used—“chooses to hide himself in very human words, so that we may listen to him and learn.” Calvin, along the same lines, remarked on the mystery whereby God “consecrates the mouths of his preachers … so that he can make his voice heard in their words.”[3]

Now, as we said this morning, this clearly means that our understanding and our expectation of the preaching and the teaching of the Bible is far more significant than the notion of simply listening to somebody giving a lecture, or of somebody giving a kind of fireside chat, or somebody to whom we’re invited to come and listen as they have some interesting ideas, or they have an inspirational talk for us or something to set us up for the week. No! We are actually discovering that when the Word of God is faithfully taught, the voice of God is really heard.

Now, I say to you—and I’m not a prophet or the son of a prophet—I do believe there is a crisis in contemporary evangelicalism. It’s not new. It’s been going on for some time. And it is directly related—not exclusively to this—but directly related to a lack of confidence, to a loss of confidence in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. A loss of confidence. A loss of confidence that is first of all in the pulpit and then in the pew. As it goes from the pulpit, so it will go to the pew. If the man in the pulpit loses confidence in God’s authority in his Word, in the absolute sufficiency of all that he has provided for us in Scripture, then in short order, the congregation will follow his lead. If he has decided that it is too hard to say these things, if he is decided that he wants to be liked more than listened to, if he’s concerned that the community around will think wrongly about the church if we say these hard things that Jesus has said, then he will be tempted, and they with him, simply to capitulate to the culture around them.

Paul understood that. There were false teachers in Ephesus in the context to which Paul is writing. And there are false teachers that are present today. Part of the reason for us dealing with these Basics Conferences, and particularly in our desire to have young men come, is because there are a generation of young preachers, young pastors, who are in danger of succumbing to the notion that the key to their usefulness in the next generation lies in making the church less churchy. They know that people think that the church is outdated. They know that people think that it is irrelevant. They know that people think that it is boring. But instead of following the apostolic pattern as it’s given here, a whole generation is buying into all kinds of things, specializing in particular generations—so, subdividing the population in terms of the millennials, or the teens, or sector A, or sector B (“We are a church for these people”), forgetting the fact that the way in which God assembles his people is multigenerational. From the very beginning he does it that way, and purposefully so. You do not live in a family, in a physical family, where everyone is the same age. It would be a strange experience. Indeed, it couldn’t happen—nor in the church family.

And so, along with that, you find that they are interested in adopting and adapting to the tastes and the habits and the dress and the music of the surrounding culture. But I want to say something to you tonight—and you can pass this on to all the young pastors with whom you have any influence at all: if a church is to be truly successful and useful, it must be unlike anything else we find in life. It must be unlike anything else we found in life—so that the notion of a monologue, which people say, “Well, you can’t listen to a monologue”… We’re not listening, ultimately, to a monologue! We’re involved in a dialogue. But the dialogue is not this way. The dialogue is from here to here. It’s actually from here to here, to there, to there—so that the Spirit of God conducts a dialogue in the listeners to the Word of God, which he has decided he’s deigned to use a frail, stammering tongue to convey, thereby declaring, as Luther says, his humility by hiding himself in the voice of a mere man;[4] thereby causing people to say, “Then why do I receive it as I receive it?” Because it’s not just a talk! It is a direct encounter with God himself, through the Word, which he has ordained, inspired, left inscripturated, provided in the apostolic writings, and given to us today to proclaim.

And the reason it is so important in this section is because it has to do with the maturity of the people of God, as we saw this morning. And we ended this morning, and some of you were here to know that my Indian doctor called me a big baby, and I said that I’d been thinking about that. And I don’t hold any animosity towards the man, but it just struck me. And so, in verse [13]: What will maturity be like? It is that we might “attain to the unity of the faith … the knowledge of the Son of God,” go “to mature manhood, … the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

If a church is to be truly successful and useful, it must be unlike anything else we find in life.

Well, three things, as quickly as I can.

No Longer Children

Number one: maturity means that we will no longer be like children. We will no longer be like children: “so … we may no longer be children.” Children are children, all sizes of them. They tend to be wobbly, especially tiny ones. They wobble. Your heart is in your mouth as they begin to totter around the place: “Wait! Don’t go there! Hang on! Don’t do that!” Actually, you know, as Shakespeare says you eventually become wobbly all over again. But we’ll leave that for another evening. For now, we’re thinking of children.

Children are easily distracted. Children respond to what is immediately most appealing to them—things that may not even be in their best interest. You know this. If you take them somewhere, and there is a gigantic lollipop—one of those big, multicolored things like you get at the Popcorn Shop; they’re bigger than the average man’s head on a tiny little stick—and you say to them, “Now, there’s something that’s really, wonderfully… This will be good for you, you will enjoy this, and your mother will be very pleased if you had it.” “No! I want that thing that’s the size of your head!” “No, but you won’t be able to carry that. It’s too heavy.” It doesn’t matter. They’re susceptible to what is immediately available. They have no sense of delayed gratification. Right? “Now, if you just wait for an hour, we’ll be able to do this.” “No! I want to do this right now, and I don’t care about an hour.”

So Paul says, “We don’t want to be like children.” He’s speaking in spiritual terms. He says, “In other words, instead of being wobbly, you need to be marked by doctrinal stability.” That’s why he says it is imperative that you have a solid base.

I was checking this afternoon if these toys still exist. I seem to remember that we had toys. I know they have inflatable ones. But the one I had in mind is not inflatable. It’s actually a solid thing, maybe a little man or a little girl. But it’s built like this: it’s cylindrical, it’s circular on the bottom, there are no right angles in it, and all of the weight is in the bottom third of it. So you can whack it, and it moves, but it comes immediately back up again. You cannot put the thing down. I mean, you could turn it upside down and jam it, I suppose, in a closet. But under normal circumstances, it comes right back up again, no matter what you do. That’s part of the fascination in it. However, without that base, you can blow it away any time you choose.

Paul says, “It’s very, very important that you have a solid doctrinal base, no longer like children, forever changing their minds”—changing your mind about what you believe, changing your mind about the doctrine of Scripture, changing your mind about the doctrine of God, changing your mind about the doctrine of man, changing your mind about the nature of marriage, changing your mind about God’s authority in all things. We’re not to be like children in that way, changing our minds because we’re attracted now by just the latest thing that has come out—like the Kinks, whom I like to mention: “One [day] he’s in polka dots, the next [day] he[’s] in stripes, ’cause he’s a dedicated follower of fashion.”[5]

You meet Christians like this everywhere you go. You meet them one year, and they’re on this great track. You meet them another month or two later; they’ve moved on to another. They read another book. They attended another event. They processed another seminar. And they don’t seem to have anything that will keep them absolutely just coming back to dead center, because they’ve never actually been grounded in the Scriptures.

I mean, it’s a wonderful picture, isn’t it? Because children are—they’re children! They move from one thing to the next with amazing…

“Papa, can we play bricks?” You haven’t finished getting the bricks when they say, “We want to do crayons!”

“No, well, wait a… No. Well, okay, we can get the crayons.”

“Can we do marbles?”

“For goodness’ sake, you know! Let’s just stick with… Can we stick with one thing?”

“No, we can’t. We’re children. We’re already bored with that.”

“Well, you didn’t do it.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m already decided I don’t like it.”

Now, the issue here is far greater though, isn’t it? “No longer … children, tossed to and fro by the waves … carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” So Paul’s concern is not simply that these folks wouldn’t have a settled conviction about things, not simply that they are distracted, but by the underlying deceit which finds its source in the serpent who, in the garden, deceived Eve by his great cunning. And what was his line? “Did God [really] say …?”[6] Constantly undermining the Word.

When Paul writes to Timothy about those who were “[lying] in wait to deceive,”[7] as he says—“you better be aware of the fact that there are those who are lying in wait to deceive”—as the antidote, he turns them to the Word of God itself.

Now, church history—and, indeed, I have to say, sadly, the history of our own fellowship—makes it perfectly clear to us that men and women are initially swept off their feet by misinterpretation, and unless corrected, they end up with a mind deceived. Initially, it comes to you: “Pastor, I am not sure that I agree with that interpretation.” The concern is not whether it’s my interpretation. The concern is: Is this what the Bible says? I understand that you don’t like the interpretation as it relates to the structure within marriage—the headship of the husband and the role of the wife and so on. I get that. You don’t like that, though. That’s okay. We need to look at the Bible and see what it says. Misinterpretation is the starting point, and unless arrested, it’s not too long before deception takes hold and people have gone on their way.

In 1975, Sue and I traveled on a Russian liner. Liner is a kind word. But it was called the Mikhail Lermontov, and it had been built not long before that, I don’t think. Somebody, hearing me mention this in the past, sent me the brochure from that, that was the brochure that was akin to what we did in 1975. And I meant to bring it this evening, and I forgot it. But when I took it, it brought back so many memories. I was able to go down, you know, the top deck, second-top deck, fourth deck, fifth deck, ninth deck, you know, and then where we were. We slept—it was a wonderful sort of honeymoon experience—we slept on separate bunks and resisted all of the Communist propaganda for the entire week, and resisted most of the meals as well. But on the front of the brochure, with a picture of the Mikhail Lermontov, it says on it, “And it is possessed of the new secure stabilizers.” This was a selling point for it: the stabilizers.

Well, mercifully, they had the stabilizers when we got out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And you who are nautical boffins will understand: the stabilizers go out and try and make it possible. Well, they only lasted for so long. Because if you check, you will discover that the aforementioned Mikhail Lermontov sank in 1986 off the coast of New Zealand. Stabilizers and all went down to the bottom of the drink.

Now, you see, the stabilizing influence which is identified in this passage and called for in this verse is that which comes about by the ongoing, persistent, faithful exposition of Scripture rightly understood and applied. It’s God’s Word being taught, believed, meditated upon, and applied which saves us from the immaturity that falls victim to the last seminar or fad or podcast. What Paul is saying is this: we are not to be like those who do not know their own minds, like those who never come to settled convictions. All right?

That’s the first. I spent a long time on that, but I can speed up. We are no longer to be like children.

Growing Up into Christ

Secondly, we are growing up into Christ—verse 15. Instead of going down that road, succumbing to the cunning and the craftiness that’s all around us, we will speak “the truth in love” and “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

Now, Paul is not giving guidance here on human anatomy and physiology. Because the picture is strange, isn’t it? We “grow up … into him,” “grow up … into … the head,” and so on. Clearly, what he’s doing is he’s expecting that we will be able to make sense of this. He’s explaining how the body of the Lord Jesus grows. He’s pointing out that the center, that the object, that the goal of the church is found in our union with Christ. United with Christ, we’re brought into union with one another. To be built up, in terms of the bodybuilding to which we referred this morning, is to grow up into Christlikeness. It is to become increasingly marked by the characteristics of the Lord Jesus. And the process that’s involved is “speaking the truth in love.”

Now, most of us, if we’ve been around any time, know this phrase. In fact, I hear it trotted out quite often. I do it myself, usually out of context. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anybody use this phrase as it is actually used here. Most of the time, people use it as a justification for saying something kind of uncomfortable to a brother or sister. And they will say, “Well, this is what we’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to speak the truth in love,” which is where we have it in this verse—which, of course, it’s always good to speak the truth in love in that context. But the context here is not that!

Truth becomes hard if it’s not softened by love, and love becomes soft if it’s not strengthened by truth.

What has he just been saying? In verse 14 he says, “There are people who are involved in error and deceit. You are involved in truth and love. These folks do not love the people to whom they speak. If they did, they would tell them the truth. They don’t love them. They’re full of error, they’re full of deceit, and their intention is to harm them, not to help them.” So, just as error and deceit sleep, as it were, in the same double bed, so do truth and love. And the balance, of course, is absolutely crucial.

Now, John Stott talks about what he refers to as the truth gang. And he says there are people who are so always concerned about the truth that as soon as they get just the sniff of heresy at all, of any kind, “their nose begins to twitch, their muscles ripple, and the light of battle enters their eyes.”[8] They exist for a fight, you know. They’re everywhere: “I see you didn’t use the King James Version this morning.” “I’m sorry.” “Well, you can be sorry if you like. But…” You know, and before you know it, here we go. And usually they’ll say, “I’m only speaking the truth in love.” Okay. Well, thank you for that. But at the opposite extreme: the people who say, “Well, we’re not really the truth brigade. We’re the loving group. We’re so loving. We’re so loving that we are prepared to just about sacrifice every central truth of biblical revelation that exists in order that everyone might know just how loving we are.” No, it can’t be.

Both of those approaches are unbalanced. Both of those approaches are unbiblical. Truth becomes hard if it’s not softened by love, and love becomes soft if it’s not strengthened by truth. That’s what Paul is saying. It is as the truth of God’s Word, absorbed, as you become immersed in it, in the expressions of the love of God… And that little phrase, “in love,” comes again and again in Ephesians. It comes right at the beginning, in 1:4: “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us.” “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love…” That’s 3:17. Chapter 4: “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.”[9] “In love.” It’s really pretty straightforward.

Doing Our Part Properly

We go to our last point: so that we are not remaining as children; that we instead are growing up into Christ; and that we are doing our part properly. “The whole body [is] joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.” There you have that word again. “When each part is working properly, [it] makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

In other words, each part of the body, in its own particularly God-ordained way, exists to help the other parts. It is from the head that the harmonious functioning of a body takes place. That is true in terms of human physiology, isn’t it? My hand is moving now because of messages sent to it from my head. If it is doing it voluntarily or without any control, then there is a problem in the body. But the harmony of Christ’s body is under his headship. It is held together by all of the joints that he has graciously provided. It grows into a proper functioning reality. It comes to its full maturity in love as each part does its work.

In other words, the effective functioning of the body of Christ—let’s bring it home: the effective functioning of Parkside Church—needs all the moving parts to be united in gospel ministry, if you’re going to make a dent for the next generation as Parkside. If what we want to do is just rest on our laurels and say, “You know, this is it: we have a nice place now, we don’t owe anybody any money, we’ve got this going and that going and the next thing, and we can all just sort of cozy in and settle down,” who has any interest in this? I don’t. I’d rather go somewhere else and start all over again, with nothing and nobody, than ride out, as it were. The churches are doing that all the time. We are in great danger of that, loved ones. We really, really, really, really, really are—you know, ’cause there’s so much behind us. But there’s a whole Cleveland out here that needs Jesus. Are we really committed to seeing unbelieving people become the committed followers of Jesus Christ? Who do you expect to do this? The elders? The pastors? The church leadership? We’re doing our best. No. The effective functioning of Parkside Church needs all of the moving parts to be involved in gospel ministry.

Maybe we can put it in this way as we think of the body: eat up (the food), grow up, show up, step up. Eat up: make sure you have a daily diet of God’s Word. Grow up into Christ. (Don’t be a baby.) Show up when the Word of God is preached, when the people of God gather, when the sacraments are celebrated, when the opportunity to invite friends and neighbors is there for us. And step up. Step up. Take your place, nourished by the Word of God, equipped, enabled.

And let me come full circle and tell you this: none of this—none of this—will ever be accomplished by the online church. None of this. Because if you want to turn church into a cell phone experience, as increasing numbers do… “I mean, why would I want to come? I mean, if I come, I’m going to have to sit next to somebody. I don’t want to sit next to somebody. I want to sit where I want to sit. And plus, I can hear a lot better. I’ve got my earphones in, and I like it that way. And I can have coffee. And you won’t let me have coffee in there. What’s your problem? We love coffee. Hard-nosed, no coffee in the big room. What’s that about?” Okay. Go on your phone. Do it on your phone. You can do it with no involvement, no opportunity for service, no responsibility for discipline, and no pastoral care. Just create for yourself a highly privatized understanding of the Christian faith—and realize that such a notion is an embarrassing travesty of New Testament Christianity.

Our selfishness is such that we’re tempted just to go our own way, to mature on our own. And when we embrace that notion, then a gathering like this— and particularly maybe even a Sunday evening gathering like this, from that perspective—just becomes an optional extra: “Well, I suppose we could. But it doesn’t really matter if we do or we don’t. He’s just going to give a talk—just something inspiring. Hopefully, it won’t be too long. Well, what’s this stuff about ‘The voice of God is hidden in the preacher’s voice’?”

I came across something that I’ve asked to put up on the screen, and we’ll end with this. I’m not going to ask you to read it out, but I want you to see it. I thought it was very helpful, and I thought that it might be something that we could have for ourselves in the privacy of our own homes. Let me read this to you. This we could call a kind of “joining-in prayer”—you know, when we talk about getting connected. Here’s a “getting connected” prayer:

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, by your grace in Jesus Christ and in the power of your Holy Spirit, please help me to be prayerfully holy and joyfully obedient to your word and so, as a member of my church, in submission to its leadership, to:

BELIEVE and PROCLAIM the gospel that Christ is my loving Saviour and living Lord;

ATTEND regularly my Sunday congregation and appropriate midweek small group;

CONTRIBUTE my prayer, time and talents to our church life and outreach; …

GIVE sacrificially for the gospel ministry of our church and its mission partners,

In the name of Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.[10]

And when the people of God, either in that prayer or something like it, take seriously these things, then I think we can say that we’re paying attention to the Bible as we have it and that we have every reason to believe that God will honor his Word and use us as he sees fit. Because the task that is before us is a huge task, and it isn’t finished. It can’t be finished! It can’t be finished till Jesus comes. So…

Father, thank you for the privilege of being together now. Quicken our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, in the truth of your Word. Knit us together afresh in the bonds of the gospel. So, Lord, help us to have a vision that’s as big as what you’ve given us and then to determine that we will, as best we know how, seek to play the part you’ve given us to play, so that as each part is working properly, we will be built up in love. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] Attributed to William Booth in, for instance, Record of Christian Work 22, no. 3 (1903): 145. Paraphrased.

[2] David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Reformation Faith in Today’s World, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 197. The quoted words are Wells’s summary of Luther’s belief, not Luther’s own.

[3] Wells, 197. The quoted words are Wells’s summary of Calvin’s belief, not Calvin’s own.

[4] Wells, 197.

[5] Ray Davies, “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (1966).

[6] Genesis 3:1 (ESV).

[7] Ephesians 4:14 (KJV).

[8] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians: God’s New Society, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1979), 172.

[9] Ephesians 4:2 (ESV).

[10] Richard Coekin, Ephesians for You (The Good Book Company, 2015).