Ephesians 4 : 14-16

God’s Purpose for God’s Church.

Before looking at this passage, spend a couple of minutes discussing this question; what would you say is God’s purpose for the church?

Now, some of you may have said evangelism and mission, remembering Jesus’ instruction to his disciples to “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Since this command is repeated in all four Gospels and in the book of Acts is it obviously of great importance and is neglected at the church’s peril. Is this the purpose of the church?

Others may think of the Church in the terms of its social concern. They remember that Jesus spoke of helping others, we are instructed to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, look after the sick and visit those in prison. (Matt. 25:31-46). Is this the purpose of the church?

Still others may regard the church as a retreat from the world, and their image of it is a fortress. In the world there is conflict, we are attacked by those who do not know Christ’s lordship and are opposed to the church and Christ’s rule. The Church is a safe place to go where we can nurse our wounds with other Christians, we can be fired up up by a good sermon and be ready to fight another week. Is this the purpose of the church?

No doubt, Paul would have very little argument with any of the above, but these are simply instructions on how the church is to function. The purpose is a more embracing concept, and when Paul writes about it as he does here, he is thinking of God developing wholeness or maturity in his people. His image is that of of Christ’s body, and his concern is that it be built up. See how Paul writes it, God gave “some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s 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” (vv.11-13).

Then, after speaking of the opposite of maturity, namely the church remaining spiritually immature, like children, he says, “instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become, in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined together and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (vv.15-16).

In these verses, Paul speaks of maturity and building or growing up four times. It means that for Paul, God’s chief purpose for the church is that it might become fully-grown and that each of its members might contribute to that maturity by becoming spiritual adults. So that the functions of the church, noted above as evangelism, mission, care of the community a safe retreat etc, can be accomplished as they are supposed to be.

One more time... UNITY!

Paul is being really specific, and when you look at the last few weeks studies, you’ll see the point he is driving home. Yes, the church is to become spiritually mature but how, and in what way does that maturity exist? The first answer Paul gives, the very first specific goal, the overriding purpose is . . . unity. The very point that Paul has been making all along.

Up to this point, Paul has been talking about unity within the church as a necessity. As we’ve looked at in previous weeks, he accepts that there will be diversity within the church, however stresses the point that what we have in common is far more important than the things that are causing that diversity. That being one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Vv.4-5). The church possesses these great unities. Paul instructs us to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Vs 3). A unity like this can only be given by God as a spiritual gift and maintained through the church.

But in vs 13, Paul speaks of reaching “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God”. This unity is to be attained, it does not yet exist but is an expression of the full maturity to which the church and its members should aspire. It has two clear parts, unity in the faith and unity in the knowledge. This twofold knowledge - of the head and of the heart - is what Paul says the mature church should strive to attain. Wherever possible, we should have an outward, visible, supernatural unity, for Jesus prayed that his church might have a unity on the basis of which unbelievers might be stimulated to faith (John 17:23).

This shouldn’t be a superficial, ‘everything is great on the surface but don’t look too deep’ type of outward unity, rather a deep, inward, motivational unity that comes from the believers growing in knowledge off the truth, as we find in the Bible, and living that truth in day-by-day fellowship with Jesus Christ. This reality is way beyond any barrier that may effect the unity of the church.

Growing in Truth.

Another goal of maturity within the church is truth. Without truth there is no real maturity. Paul writes in verse 15, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into his who is the Head, that is, Christ”. The contrast here is with the nature and conduct of infants described in verse 14. Children are great to be around, but they are fickle, they will be interested in one thing for five minutes, before getting bored and going onto the next. Also, children can be easily fooled. It’s why parents have a special responsibility for the careful guidance of children. The characteristics we receive as children, we take with us into adulthood. Depending on what we are taught as Children, we can be strengthened in later life, or weakened in character. This is particularly unfortunate when the same principle happens within the church, if we are taught “bad” characteristics whilst within the infancy of our faith, we take the bad traits with us into maturity.

This is why Paul started by talking about “teaching” gifts - apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. It is by no means that these are the only gifts or the only gifts of worth, not at all! But he lists these since they are the ways the church is to grow out of spiritual infancy into maturity. One of the tragedies of our day is that the church can be immature in this area, and that it can get swept up in the worlds latest fads or be lead astray by false theology. The only real cure, is teaching, followed by teaching, then a bit of teaching, finishing off with more teaching.

Truth Combined With Love.

HOWEVER! It is not just teaching and truth in isolation. We cannot simply bombard people with facts. Truth is important, without a doubt, but don’t forget we also need to speak the “truth in love”. Love is also essential and a specific expression of maturity.

Read John 17:13-26.

Jesus highlights six marks by which the church is to be recognised: joy, holiness, truth, mission, unity and love. Each of this is important, but love runs through all the others.

Take love from joy, you end up with a hedonistic revealing which is found in the secular world, the pursuit of pleasure for pleasures own sake. Joy becomes distorted.

Take love from holiness, the result is self-righteousness, the kind of thing that distinguished the Pharisees of Christ’s day, and allowed them to be filled with hatred, so that they crucified the Lord Jesus Christ when he came. Sanctification is destroyed.

Take love from truth, the result is a bitter orthodoxy. Truth remains, but is proclaimed in such an unpleasant, harsh manner, that it fails to win anybody for Christ.

Take love from mission and you have colonialism, where we would work to win people for our denomination or organisation (or country?) but not for Christ.

Take love from unity and you have ecclesiastical tyranny, in which a church imposes human standard to those within it.

BUT if instead of subtracting love, you express love, for God the Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ, for the Holy Spirit, for the Bible, for one another and for the world. You will find that all the other marks will naturally follow. Love for God leads to joy, nothing brings more joy than knowing and loving him. Love for the Lord Jesus lead to holiness; as he said “if you love me you will follow my commands” (John 14:15. Love for the Bible leads to truth, we will read it and grow in knowledge of what the Word contains. Love for the world leads to mission and love for one another leads to... UNITY!

Paul refers to the Church’s maturity in terms of bodily growth, and growth takes time. The church does not become mature overnight no more than do we as individuals. We trust in the Lord as we mature and should be patient as we grow.

Questions.

These are not necessarily questions that need answers, they are rather to be used as conversation starters.

1 : What are some worldly philosophies and practices that takes away form the model of Church that God lays out? Is there one that affects us more than others?

2 : Do we tend to go to one extreme or the other, focusing on truth or love at the expense of the other. Can you think of examples of both sides?

3 : Is it difficult to speak the truth in love? What is the difference between this and evangelism? Is there a difference?

4 : When we think of growing in spiritual maturity, is there an age group that comes to mind? Even though Paul mentions infants, do you think he is speaking of children? What else could he mean?

5 : Consider your own spiritual growth, can you think of times when you’ve had one of those “mind blown” moments - where a great revelation was made lear to you that you had not considered or thought of before?

6 : Ephesians 4:16 gives us a beautiful picture of the church. The image of the course is that of a person’s body. Could you try and draw a body, with different parts noted as different characteristics? For example - The ears could be to hear the needs of the community. If not can you list 10 characteristics?

7 : Which of the characteristics do you feel we do well at MIE? And where do we struggle? Pray for both?

8 : What could, as individuals and as home groups, you do to help strengthen the areas we struggle?