The Promise of Maturity - Hot Topics Series - Ephesians 4 & Revelation 2 - Episode 146

Well, hey there! Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, where we focus on getting the promises of God into the people of God, I.E. we move from knowing what God has promised in the Bible to living in a state of belief that what He has promised will prove true for us. I’m grateful you’re joining me for this episode and I’m excited to dive into another hot topic promise from the New Testament book of Ephesians. 

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Hot topics. Oh, to be sure, the church has had to square up against a whole slew of them through the centuries. And it is not always fun. The conversations can be challenging at times, when culture and the Word of God clash so intensely. But the hot topics I’m addressing in this series are ones that believers may kind of struggle with, oftentimes without even realizing that struggle. In the last two episodes of the show, we’ve talked about power (and yes, living in light of the power of the Holy Spirit and the power promised to Jesus’ followers in the Bible can be hard to actually do, especially when we find ourselves looking at the state of the world and the heartbreak so many people are dealing with and all the difficult and varied aspects of life in a fallen world). It is a faith stretcher to really believe God’s promise to give us the power to live out the Christian life in a post-Christian world, but the Holy Spirit will not fail us and so, faith stretching or not, it is worth it to make the jump from so-so faith to all-in faith.

 

We have also touched on the hot topic of the promise of forgiveness. The difference between feeling like forgiving someone and deciding to forgive them. Forgiving because God has forgiven you, forgiving simply because He has told us we must forgive. Because if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven…so it says in Matthew 6:15. Yup, that’s why this is a hot topic!

 

And today we are taking a look at the hot topic, and the promise God gives us in His word, about maturity. 

 

I’m going to read to you some verses from the book of Ephesians, this book is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. And then I am going to share some words that Jesus gave to the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation. You know, at this particular point in time, when so much is going on in our world, I wonder if I could safely say that anything I read out of Revelation would automatically qualify as a hot topic subject? Probably. But these words to these churches can also be applied to us, today, in our churches and in our individual walks with the Lord, so hot topic or not, we are going to hit on them, directly and head on and without any wavering or watering down of the Word of the Lord.

 

Ephesians 4:11-16 from the NLT

 

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. 

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. 

 

Ah, maturity.

The thing we so often emphasize to our teenagers. The thing we bemoan in regard to the “younger generation”. And something we don’t regularly apply to ourselves as disciples of Jesus. 

But, let me tell you, based on this text and the words I’ll share from Revelation in a few minutes, we by golly need to apply them to ourselves. Or we may just find ourselves in a whole bunch of trouble. 

 

God gave certain gifts to the church, and since they are His gifts to give to His church which bears His name and is known as the body of Christ, God’s Son, then I think we need to not negate those gifts and choose to live well in light of what He has given. And living well often means simply being thankful and not wanting something different than what we have. 

 

He gave us leadership. This is good to remember. Leadership is not always perfect, and there are for sure some spiritual leaders who are downright abusive and the Lord isn’t about that. Just as we see again and again in the Old Testament, He does not play around for all that long when the shepherds fail to do what He considers their duty. So let’s just get that out of the way from the get-go. I agree with the Lord and with His word, and that includes Him stating plainly that there is a higher degree of accountability and a very high expectation of caring for the flock, as He says in His word. I don’t condone abuse because God doesn’t. I’ve been under leadership that could care less if you were beat down to smithereens and would even kick you when you were down there because keeping you down can keep you in your place. I’ve know leaders who sin like mad and teach others how to sin more deceptively and never, ever repent, apologize, or move on to maturity. So I do understand the struggles some of you may be facing, or have faced. But God has never led me in those ways, His will was never for those things and far worse things to be happening. And He led me on to safer shepherding, if you will, and some of why I could hear and follow where He led was because I refused to turn away from Him when man was leading poorly in the church.

Leadership is from God. Keep that in mind, and keep trusting Jesus. I promise, He is with you and He will never leave you or forsake you.

Apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers - these are from the Lord and He gave them responsibilities. To equip His people to do His work and to build up the church, His body.

Leaders have tasks, responsibilities. Do you have enough bandwidth in your life for those in these positions and roles to actually equip you and build you up? If you don’t, that’s a mark of immaturity. And if you do, I promise you will mature more and more, week by week, year by year. And that is what God wants!  You to become a mature Christ follower. Immaturity is not of value in the Kingdom of our God.

 

So leadership bears the responsibility of equipping you, but for what? To do God’s work. God has things for you to do that fit in with His Kingdom agenda at this moment in time on His Kingdom calendar. In other words, you matter so incredibly much and your life, your time, matters, too. You are not leftovers, you are not sidelined. Your leaders are equipping you to do the things God has planned for you to be doing. So when you feel convicted or challenged or even encouraged by a message or an admonishment or something you hear in your small group, it may be part of God’s equipping so you can be about His doing. And to build up the church, which includes you. God wants you equipped but not without being built up. Isn’t that comforting to know? How you are doing, like really, how you are doing matters so much to the Lord that He has put leadership in place so that you will be doing well, built up, not torn down.

 

And this will continue until we are mature - now it uses these exact words… until we all come to such unity in our faith (not in our personal likes or dislikes, our hobbies, our meal preferences, what we do for our day to day work, where we live, no… unity in our faith. This isn’t one global amalgamated world wide religion kind of unity. Unity of our faith, our following hard after the Lord Jesus who died to give us true life and real freedom. Unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son. If you and I are not increasing and growing in our knowledge of God’s Son, we are moving in the wrong direction as His people. Are you growing? Every year, month, week, day you should be growing in your unity in the body and your knowledge of God’s Son. Do you know Jesus better than you did last year? Are you measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ? And if you happen to be in some area of church leadership, are you equipping and building up your people? 

 

Verse 14 comes next and it tells us that THEN we will no longer be immature like children.

No longer immature.

Are you ready for this kind of Christian living? 

Don’t answer too quickly, because you need to answer with utter honesty.

Are you ready for this kind of Christian living? There’s a reason this is on the hot topics list! Because it’s touchy and feels dicey and can take us out of our comfort zones and remove us from our ability t o exert control…but that control is only faux control, so really all it does is show us the truth.

 

We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.

Ahh, now we arrive at the promise that comes with maturity!

We will not be tossed and blown about.

How often have you felt that way? I’m thinking you could open TikTok, scroll your feed for a few minutes, and if your algorithm aims you toward content that is Christian in nature, then in those handful of minutes and thumb swipes, you can feel tossed and blown about by winds of new teaching. So this promise is a good one for us. We can apply it every day, and we need to not be blown around or tossed about. That’s exhausting! God wants us to have clarity, and He has given us the means to that end right here in this passage of Ephesians. 

 

We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.

Anybody need that? Look, there can be a fair amount of truth mixed in with the lies and we can get confuzled about which way is up, is this the best way to honor the Lord and love people well at the same time? In some arenas, there is zero confusion and it is easy as pie to know right from wrong. But there is deception at play in this world, satan used this tactic in the desert with Jesus when he quoted Scripture in just twisted enough ways to try and get the Son of God to do what he wanted rather than what the Father wanted. Do you think we get exempted from this stuff? We don’t. Satan is as Satan does, and what he does is take the Word of God and twist it just enough to try and trick us with clever lies. So,yes, this promise is one we need on the daily. And we can have it on the daily, provided we will grow in maturity.

 

Maturity matters. 

Probably far more than we realize.

 

Instead of being tricked or influenced by clever lies that sound like the truth, we will speak the truth in love.

This is key.

We won’t be influenced, but rather we will speak with influence. You don’t get to know God’s Son more and more, better and better, and dodge the bullet of clever deceptions and stay silent, say nothing, hide in a corner like a mouse. Nope. You are called in this passage to speak the truth in love. And it goes on, you will grow in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of the Church. So, you get the promise as your own as you mature, find solid leadership to build you up and equip you, you are no longer tossed around and tricked with lies, and as you speak the truth in love you will grow more, in every way (not in a couple of ways but in every way) and will be more and more like Jesus (hello! Isn’t that the end goal? To know God’s Son and to be conformed to His image, literally becoming more and more like HIm? Yes, that is the goal, and it is a great life goal!) He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. Perfectly. He knows best where you will fit best, so as you yield to Him you will be led more and more by Him and will find your place where you fit perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

 

You will do your special work, in the way that only you can, and others are going to grow as a result. So the speaking the truth in love really is important. You are not called to hide away. You are called to speak the truth in love. The truth, not any old truth, not what feels right at the moment, but the truth (so you need to know what your Bible says or you won’t know what truth you are to be speaking) and to do it in love (not in hate, not in disgust, not in annoyance, not in self righteous piousness, not in a spirit of religion, but in love…sacrificial, generous, goes the second mile love). And then the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

 

And a healthy, growing, full of love church makes an impact on the people around it and the people within it. Isn’t that what we ought to want to take place? That’s what God wants to come to pass. Get on board with His program and see what He will do. Don’t ask Him to get on board with your program. No, take it from me, just skip that step and leave it in the trash bin where it belongs and get on board with what He is doing and what He wants to do next. And that’s all pretty well detailed in Ephesians 4:11-16.

 

And if you think it will be too hard or too outside your depth to speak the truth in love, and if you wonder how that will help you to grow in every way like Christ, bear in mind that what you teach most is what you know best.

Working on cars? You know it better than ever after you’ve taught it. The longer you teach, the better you know it. Teaching is just speaking the truth in love. When you don’t have an answer for something, you can commit to find the answer and then dig into the Word of God and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the wisdom that you need. He’ll lead you. And good church leadership will help you in this, too. You notice how per this portion of the Bible nobody gets off scot free? Everyone, leaders and laymen, pastors and parishioners, have a call to certain things? And will that call comes the assurance that there will be a day of reckoning, a day to give an account to the Lord. 

 

Okay, home stretch here…Revelation 2:1-7 To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of  Him who holds the seven stars in His hands…I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place….Whoever has ears. Let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches….

 

Welp, that’s what Jesus said to the exact people whom Paul wrote the letter to…and what He says to us today.

 

He knows. Nothing is missed by Him. We cannot allow our hurts, even and especially our church hurts, to be a reason to just stop being His people. We can’t! We are not allowed to! Doing so is a luxury of sorts that we cannot afford. The price is too high. He will come and take away our lampstand. We won’t be His anymore. This is so serious, my friend! Whatever it takes, remain in the place of your first love. Love Jesus. Love Jesus. Love Jesus. And if you have turned away from your first love, do what the Lord says and consider how far you have fallen and repent. Do the things you did at first. If you have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying, then please hear. Harken to His call and respond. 

 

Get it? Got it? Good.

 

That’s the end of today’s episode and I’m so thankful you’ve joined me for this third installment of the Hot Topics series. It’s hard, but it’s good. I have a Bible study idea that I call The Good Hard, and that seems fitting for this episode of the podcast. And hey, we are getting close to the 150th episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, and I am planning a fun event / surprise / giveaway for that episode so details to come. 

 

I’d be so honored if you felt like sharing this episode with a friend or even with your pastor - it can be encouraging for those in Christian leadership to know that there are members of the church who are calling the body to live more like Jesus. Trust me, pastors need encouraging too. High five to the church leaders who are all in for Jesus and following the words of Paul in Ephesians chapter 4!