Ephesians 4:15-16 “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Pastor Herk continued in his Sunday sermon series through the Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians stating that in growing up in all things into Him, Christ is requiring us to develop both our vertical relationship with Him and our horizontal relationships with those around us. The need for the body of Christ to mature is so very important that the Apostle Paul stresses this process where Jesus receives Followers unto Himself and give them special gifts then sends them back into the body of Christ so that they can utilize those gifts in helping Christ accomplish what He desires in His church as they grow and mature, becoming more Christ-like. There is a distinct contrast between Christ’s Followers who are maturing in their faith and those spiritual infants who are unstable and easily deceived. There is a need for the church body to mature.
Just as our human bodies need to grow up into our heads, those who are spiritually immature in the church body of Believers to grow up into the head of the body, Jesus Christ. For that to happen, there is a horizontal and vertical dimension that must be nurtured. Without our vertical connection to the head, our horizontal connections cannot take place. That vertical connection is our relationship with Jesus, which produces growth. Jesus said in John 15:4-5, “Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Jesus is both the goal and the source of that growth, and Christ is the only standard that we are to judge ourselves by towards the measure of His fullness in all things. Are we growing in the Lord and becoming more like Him? To “grow up in all things” includes every single area of our life; our thought-life, our interpersonal relationships, our family-life, our work-life and Satan’s attacks on our life. In every one of these areas in our life, Jesus has to be the standard by which we measure our maturity.
“Speaking the truth in love” is one of the most taken out of context Scriptures in the Bible. People misuse this phase in order to justify the fact that they are being critical of someone else. Rarely is it used to criticize someone. It is truth that keeps us from being deceived and remaining spiritual infants. The Greek word for “speaking the truth” is “alētheuō”, meaning to be true (in doctrine and profession):—speak (tell) the truth; to teach the truth and to profess the truth. The picture that this phase gives us is of a person who continually and consistently speaks the truth but lives their life truthfully.
Ephesians 4:20-24 “But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
Let's continue Pastor Herk's message on the Christian Church in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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