There's No App for Maturing

Alright, everybody. I hate to break up this party. Y'all can hug on the Haggers later. So glad you all are greeting one another. Happy Memorial Day weekend to you all. As we've talked about already this service, in our church, we celebrate Pentecost, and we're really grateful for this Sunday. And we're gonna turn in God's word to Ephesians chapter four as we talk about, again, this series we're in on, there's no app for this. So if you turn your Bibles, find that in your bulletin. It's on page ten thirty seven. If you wanna follow along in the pew bibles, let's join our voices together and read.

So if you would join your voices with me, let's read these words. This is from Ephesians four one through seven and eleven through 15.

Therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit just as you were called to one hope at your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through all and in all. Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift, and he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Then we will no longer be little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ. — Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-15

It's the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You know, we live in an age where you can get an app for just about anything on this device. We have lots of apps, and they are meant to both create ease and reduce friction. So you can order and have your groceries delivered. You can date without awkward introductions. You can stream a worship service. You can have friendships through group texts. All these things are designed to create ease and reduce friction. Our culture says, hey. If there's a problem, we've got a technological workaround for it, a way to make this easy.

And here's the premise though for this summer. We're gonna look at all these passages in scripture where there's not an app for this. There's no app for loving one another, for bearing with one another, for speaking the truth in love, staying when it gets awkward, loving people you didn't choose, forgiveness. These things only happen in the body of Christ. You can consume a lot of Christian content, but you will not grow in maturity just by consuming content. You can stream sermons by yourself, but you cannot become more mature by yourself. Christian maturity isn't content creation, it's covenant participation. Participation of the body.

It's like gym videos. You can watch a thousand workout videos, and that may be really informative for you. You may have a diet plan for that. You may know all the techniques because of that, but if you are not in the gym, all those videos and techniques and suggestions are not going to help you.

This passage from Ephesians is the beginning of sort of a "therefore" part of the book, and we're looking at all those parts in the New Testament. All these letters that say, here's the theology, therefore, live this way. Therefore, this is how you are to engage with one another. And we're learning what it means to be a church together. Many of you have been at this church for a long time, and you may be like, why do we need to do this? We always need to be reminded of what it means to be God's people.

Now today's sermon's a little weird, but it's Memorial Day weekend. You got an extra day to rest. So I'm gonna ask you to hang in with a little bit more challenging sermon today that's gonna feel like tying your shoe. I'm gonna have lace number one. That's point number one. Got lace number two. They're gonna seem like they don't work together. I'm gonna tie them all in a nice bow at the end. Okay? So hang in with me.

Here's my outline for today. The unseen reality, the unflinching mirror, and the unfinished business. And I want to give credit to two people for this sermon today, Tim Keller and my granddaughter. And I will identify their contributions at various points in the sermon.

So the unseen reality. Maybe I should say unseen realities. It's fascinating.

This passage starts with a list of things that what it means to be a Christian. All Orthodox Christians agree upon. There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who's overall and in all and through all, and it could sound like, therefore, the unity of the church is based on nodding to or assenting to a list of theological truths, and that's what binds us together like a political party or like a group of people who come together around a cause, we're all saying yes to this list. However, that's not the basis of Christian unity. What unites Christians is a shared participation in Jesus and the spirit of God who makes us alive.

So one metaphor for this that's really helpful to me, and it's here in Ephesians, it's in first Corinthians, it's in Romans, is this metaphor about the human body, and I want to pick two extremities to your body. So let's take your right hand and your left big toe. Can everybody locate those for me this morning? We're already ahead of the game. Good. Right hand, left big toe. What connects them? Now you could say, well, they're attached. They're somehow together. But they're not attached like Legos are attached to one another. It's not just because they're stuck on that they're related. There's an organic, there's an animating unity to your right hand and your big toe.

Now your right hand is probably not touching your big toe all that much. What binds them together? Well, there's a respiratory system that brings oxygen into your body and delivers it to those extremities. There's a circulatory system where the blood pumps from the heart and reaches both of those places. There's a neurological system that's giving commands. They're both under the same command. Your body parts are organically connected to one another. Neither of them, if you cut off either your right hand or your big toe, neither will survive very long apart from this body. Because what connects them is not just they're stuck together. What connects them is an animating life, and they are organically connected.

This is the unseen reality for the church. Now you walk in a church building, and this is the experience of Americans in church. We walk in a building and we don't know those people. We may know a couple of them, but it feels like marbles. Marbles in a jar are not connected to another. They just happen to be against each other, situated by one another. At best, you might feel like Legos. I got a couple of those people I'm kind of attached to. I really like them. We are friends. But what's the unseen reality of scripture? You are connected to the people sitting around you in Christ who have the same heartbeat of God and the blood of Christ flowing through your veins and his spirit in you. That's what makes you alive and cut off like your hand or big toe. You will not last long apart from the body. That's not what we're designed to be. And this is unseen.

We think of this as a modern problem, individualistic culture. But did you know that this has always been a problem for the church? In February, there's a guy named Saint Cyprian of Carthage. Third century guy, and he's writing about the church, and he says nobody can have God as his father who doesn't want the church for his mother. And people were really shaken up by that because why? Their experience was marbles in a jar, maybe Legos. The unseen reality is we're this vitally connected to one another because we're connected to the head Jesus.

This is so important. This is why Paul says, hey, be eager. This is right at the beginning of this passage. Be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit, not build the unity. That's already been done. Jesus created the thing that unites me to you. He did the work. His death on the cross, his ascension to heaven, Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate all around the world today. Churches all over the world are saying, praise God for the Holy Spirit. He is the animating spirit in us, and we are united to him, and we are united to one another. And that is amazing. This is one of those realities that Christians always forget. We live like marbles. At best, you might live like Legos with a couple people, but you are right hand and big toe with people sitting around you this morning. The Holy Spirit is in you, and he's what makes you alive, and he's what connects you to all the other body parts that are in here this morning. Praise God. That is amazing news.

Now that is shoelace number one. Hold that one.

The Unflinching Mirror

Number two, the unflinching mirror. Now nobody loves a mirror, to be really honest. We love a filter, like Instagram filter. Because a mirror can tell you things you don't want to know.

A filter kind of softens the edges, removes a few wrinkles, makes you look good. You can filter a lot of things. But a mirror tells you the harsh realities. You get one of those hotel mirrors with fluorescent lighting around it. Here is the mirror of God's word this morning. It's right here in verse 14.

Then we will no longer be little children. — Ephesians 4:14

Each one of us is a little child, spiritually speaking. In fact, the word there is for babies. Now this goes on. Verse 13:

Grow into maturity. — Ephesians 4:13

Verse 15, right after this:

Grow in every way into him. — Ephesians 4:15

The harsh mirror of God's word is telling you this morning, you're spiritually immature. You're a little baby. Now I want to remind you who wrote this. This is the apostle Paul who, kind of a big deal, wrote a third of the New Testament. And if he's saying of himself that we are little children, what does that make me? I'm like eight days old. I'm like an infant. I mean, where are you on that timeline? If the apostle Paul is a toddler, where are you? This is incredible. There's no app for maturing. It doesn't work like that. The first step in maturing is admitting and recognizing that you are immature, that you're a baby.

Now, you were in luck this morning because I happen to be a baby specialist. My best friend is a baby. All my favorite people that I know were babies at one point. I spend every Friday researching this sermon. I take care of my granddaughter on Friday. Susan does Tuesdays, and that's all for you. It's really just for this sermon. So let me show you. Here's my specialist. That's Mary Collins, and she loves her grandpapa. So I've interviewed her. Some important data for this sermon today, and if you don't want to listen to me, I want you to at least listen to her.

Characteristics of Spiritual Babies

So here's what I've learned in my research with Collins. First, babies are easily upset.

They are tossed by the waves. — Ephesians 4:14

Have you ever seen a startle reflex in an infant? Babies have this thing where you pick them up too fast and they do this startle reflex. They're easily unsettled. There's no equilibrium. There's just no go with the flow with babies. My son and daughter-in-law go to another church and they were at their community group, and Collins is eight months old. There's another baby there about the same age, and they put him up to the coffee table, and my granddaughter, Collins, reaches over and scratches him on the hand and he begins to cry. So what does she do? She starts crying. She's not the one hurt. She's just unsettled by it.

Now that's the same for spiritual babies. Spiritual immature Christians, this is what we're like. You're easily rattled. You easily think any bad thing comes in my life means God doesn't love me anymore. I've done something wrong. You know, he's punishing me. You easily flinch at circumstances. You doubt the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, which by the way, you want to know pastor's secret? That's a sign that the Spirit's at work in your life. You wouldn't want him if he wasn't at work. But we doubt this stuff because we're spiritual infants. We're babies. A mature Christian is steadfast. Steadfast. They know the Lord is steadfast. Unmoved. Not going like this all the time because they know where their dad is, and they're good.

Babies are also, second part, easily distracted.

Blown about by every wind of teaching. — Ephesians 4:14

Collins is easily distracted. I mean, it's funny. She has all these toys, but you bring anything new into the room. Got a travel mug? She wants the travel mug. Susan's got a water bottle. She wants Susan's water bottle right there. Anything new, especially if it lights up or sounds a certain way. She wants that immediately.

So also baby Christians. Baby Christians are excited about the newest thing and the latest fad and the newest teaching. They want something shiny, and they don't stay with it for very long. They jump on the latest Christian trends. Anything novel or cool. Leaders who look cool, churches that have all the stuff. Babies think there's something special in the new. Mature Christians have long obedience in the same direction. They're like the old writers. They like the old ways. They want to be at a church where it's like, I don't think they invented this on Tuesday. No. It's not new and improved. It's the same old tried and true. That's what maturity looks like. They test things before engaging.

Third, babies are threatened by inequality.

Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of God's gift. — Ephesians 4:7

This one's a little harder to see, but you get this.

Babies are threatened by anything that's not the same. Right? They want what you're having to eat. They want what you have. If another baby has a toy, what do they want? That toy. Right? Then when they get older, they have a well-honed sense of justice and injustice. Every child I know can say two words really well: "Not fair." Right? Not fair. You're getting what I have.

So immature Christians are the same. Baby Christians, is this you? Baby Christians, immature people devalue their own spiritual gifts. They want the spiritual gifts of other people. They're jealous. They're petty. They're divisive. They're gossiping. They're competitive. See, a mature Christian knows who they are because they know whose they are. They're like, God has chosen to sprinkle gifts around, and I've got some and you got some and they're not the same, and that's a good thing. And I'm okay with me not having what you have. See, that's the sign of maturity.

Fourth, babies can't feed themselves. This is verse 11:

He gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ.

Now this is what's really annoying to me on Fridays with Collins. Every day I go over there. It's the same thing—a bottle—and she still is not getting it for herself. I tell her where the stuff is. I'm like, "Bottle's up there. You take the formula. You shake it in, you shake it up. Right? This is not that hard." And she refuses to do that. I'm just kidding. You know, we love bottle time together. Actually, she plays with my beard. It's one of my favorites. But I'm making a joke.

Spiritual babies only want to be fed by somebody else. Now those roles that I just said—pastors, teachers, apostles—those are good. Those are gifts for the church. But a baby is only able and only wants to take the food from the person they want to take the food from. An immature Christian is like, "Oh, I want to know the truth. I can only get truth from this speaker, from this author. I don't want to hear truth from anybody in my community group who I judge to be less than me."

A mature Christian can hear truth from even someone less mature than them because it's coming from the spirit. They can pay attention to that. They love digging into a sermon. Sure. But they also love digging into studying God's word for themselves. They can feed themselves. They know where the bottle is and how to shake it up.

The Problem with Church

Here's the problem with church. Okay? Let me just summarize this way. You want to know the biggest problem with church? It's filled with babies. Yeah. Why does it stink in here? There's a lot of dirty diapers. And I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about me. Like, there's a lot of mess. There's a lot of immaturity. And people come to church, and they always expect, "Why is the church so immature? Why are people around here so immature?" Because we haven't read Ephesians. We haven't hung out with Collins. You're spiritual infants. Of course it's like this. Of course people are petty and competitive and thinking low of themselves and not feeding themselves and crying a lot. There's a lot of noise. There's a lot of smell because it's church.

So let's take these two things and tie them together. We got the unflinching mirror, and we got the unseen reality. So let's thread these laces in time together. The unseen realities: you are united to Christ. His spirit lives in you. Yeah. You don't have to make unity in the church. That is already a thing to maintain. Second reality, unflinching mirror: you're a spiritual infant. Let's tie them together. Here's the unfinished business of the church: growing up.

How do you mature? This is what's wild. Verse 3:

By pursuing unity, making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.

Now Paul's language here is really weird in this passage. And verse 13 kind of echoes the same thing. He says, you know, you're gonna grow up into mature manhood. And actually, what he says—and this I got from Tim Keller, the rest was from Collins—but he says the word here when he's talking about maturity is growing up into one mature person. Now this is odd. You're a bunch of spiritual infants, and the way you mature is growing up and maturing into one person.

Maturing is not something you do individually. We mature as we are growing and becoming, really living out the reality of what God has made us already to be in Christ. We are living into that reality of being one. You pursue unity. The more you grow, the more one you become, the more mature you become. That means you can't opt in and out of community life in a church.

All the phrases in verse two about humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another—all those imply relationship, closeness, life on life, regular time together. And you can't drop in and drop out. You can't be like, "I kinda like this for a season. I'm kinda tired of this." I get why you're tired of this. You're surrounded by infants. But look, maturing means doing this, leaning into the oneness we already have in Christ, and becoming more in that. Stepping into that.

Practically speaking, this church can't be an event you attend. It's not an event. It's not what I'm doing right now. It is the body living out the calling of the gospel together.

How Do You Mature? By Giving and Receiving

By giving and receiving. Receiving equipping from others.

He himself gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers to equip. — Ephesians 4:11

So there's a receiving. But there's also a giving.

By the proper working of every individual part. — Ephesians 4:14

Modern American culture has two options. It's either radical tribalism—everybody's got to be the same—or radical individualism—I'm by myself. Let me put those in musical terms. Tribalism: we're all playing the clarinet, and we're all playing the same notes. And what is that? That is really boring. Or solo: you can only play your bassoon at home by yourself. Also really boring.

What is beautiful? An orchestra. That's unity and diversity, and there's lots of gifts, and they don't all sound the same, and we're playing different movements. We're all picking up strains. There's ways that we blend, and that's called harmony. This is what God's called us to. How do you mature? Like an orchestra.

Now look, don't be offended in this church. If you're like, "I wanna play viola," and we're like, "We need you to play drums." Here's how you know what we fall into in church. We think my gifts aren't that important because they're not up here on the platform. The guy with the microphone—this is all the gifts. That is not the case. Every grace matters. Every part matters. If you're absent and you remove yourself from the body, the orchestra is not gonna sound as good. We need you. There's a space for every person here. There's a space for every gift in this room, and we need to hear all of that in harmony.

So I find that people tend to think, "Well, I've tried this and I don't really fit in, so I'm done." Look, try a bunch of things. There are some people who use their vocational gifts in the church—like somebody who's an accountant who helps out our finance team. And there's other people where it's like, "I'm a doctor, but I help out with youth ministry." And here's my encouragement to you: would you try out your gifts in a lot of ways here? Just try a bunch of things. We need you.

Third: Speaking the Truth in Love

Speaking the truth in love. — Ephesians 4:15

I'm gonna do a whole other message about this one coming up, but here's just real briefly. I think we really struggle with this one because we're so careful. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or step on anybody's toes. We certainly don't want to offend. And there's a lot of being too careful in this church, in our love of one another. Where actually, when we see someone who looks like they're not okay, or we see someone doing something self-destructive, we should say, "Hey, are you sure? How are you? What's going on?" Asking questions. They don't have to be rendering a verdict. It's just asking questions, speaking up.

Applications for CTK This Morning

One: Move from attendance to attachment. Who would notice if you disappeared? Who are you connected with? Who would call and follow up with you besides somebody paid to do so in this church if you disappeared? We need you.

Two: Replace critique with contribution. We don't need another Russian judge at our church. We need a hand. I've got plenty of self-critique. I don't need any more help. We need a hand. Change critique into contribution.

Three: Stay through awkwardness. Guess what? It's just awkward being a part of the body of Christ. It's awkward with babies. Push through the awkward.

Four: Join something smaller. Sunday worship's great. It's inspiring, but it doesn't build any muscle. It inspires, but it doesn't transform. That happens in small communities—in a community group, in a Bible study, in a men's ministry gathering, in a servant team, in helping out with youth ministry or children's ministry. That happens when we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

As I said at the beginning, there's no app for this. Muscle formation only happens in the gym.

And imagine, again, downloading a fitness app. It gives the meal plans and the exercise videos and the motivational words, but if you never move, nothing happens. And Sunday attendance can become that. It can become like a download. You're like, I need to get, just a download of a little encouragement for this week and I'm on my way. And I'm not saying that's bad inherently. I'm sure that the Lord uses that. But transformation happens in the gym, not on the phone.

And here's what I wanna push with you. This isn't this church isn't Gold's Gym, but it is God's gym. There's some weights here to pick up. That's other people's burdens. There's some stretching that's going to be required for you to really engage here, and it's going to hurt a little bit, and it's going to make you sweat, and sometimes you're like, I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm not sure I'm really growing in any muscle here. I'm just tired. But that's actually part of it. God is building up his body. There's no app for maturity. It only comes through engaging. Step in. We can always use another baby here.

Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word to tell us the truth about ourselves. And this is a hard word today that we're this immature. And, Lord, that we need so much, so much, Father, your work deeper in us to mature together. Lord, help us to start moving. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.