Grow Up

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. God's purpose in salvation was not just to save you and take you to heaven. God's purpose was to fill you with himself. So he fills you and gives you spiritual gifts whereby you experience him not just working for you and not just working in you but working through. Welcome back to another day of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. So let me talk to the moms and dads for a second. When your kids are babies, it's okay for them to wear a diaper and suck on a pacifier and be completely dependent on you for everything, right? But at some point, it's going to be time to move past that phase.

You can't exactly show up to high school holding mom's hand with a pacifier hanging out of your mouth now, right? And today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer reveals that the same is true of our faith. We can't be spiritual babies forever. We need to grow up and experience God in new ways and trust him more each day. We're moving into Ephesians chapter four. So like every day, it's time to grab our Bible, a pen, and a notebook, and let's see what God has to say about growing up. Here's Pastor J.D. Paul's message to the new Ephesian believers in Ephesians 4, 1 through 16, is grow up.

That's literally what he says. Verse 15, I want you to grow up in every way. Verse 14, I want you to no longer be children in the faith. This really communicates to me.

It speaks to me deeply because I'm a dad of four kids and you all, I love my kids as kids. I really want them to grow up. I mean some of you that are older tell me to cherish this time because I think you've forgotten what it's like to get up at 3 a.m. and have to change the sheets on the bed. There's nothing to cherish there. I'm just going to say that. I mean, yeah, I know I should cherish this time.

I realize that. I realize I grew up too fast, but that said, there's nothing worse than a kid not growing up when he should. Nobody wants to be around a 10-year-old who still acts like he's four. I've decided to have lots of kids so they can take care of me in my old age, not so I can take care of them forever. Kids in their younger years will run you ragged. Now as they get older, they become a little more useful, your kids. Again, I had four because I felt like the chances in four of one of them marrying rich is really, really good.

So that's why I had a lot of them. I say all this, obviously joking, if you're new here and a guest, this is not, I'm not really this bad. But the point I'm making is this, there's nothing worse than an adult who still lives like a child.

No girl wants to marry a 35-year-old guy who has no job and still lives in his mama's basement and plays Worlds of Warcraft until 3 a.m. each morning, all right. Well in the same way, some of you desperately need to grow up spiritually. You come here and you do a lot of taking. You need to start giving.

You need to become useful. So let's look at chapter four. Again, I think you should notice it's very important how this chapter opens. Paul says, verse one, I therefore, you see therefore connects what he's about to say with all the stuff that he's just said. Again, he's not randomly bringing up the church.

Paul has just given in Ephesians one and two, one of the clearest explanations of what it means to know God anywhere. And what he's saying is if you get that, if you really understand it, you're going to be involved actively in the church. I asked this question, can you grow in Christ and be a good Christian apart from active involvement in the church?

81% of Americans say yes. The Bible clearly, emphatically and without exception says no. You cannot be growing in Christ and be what God wants you to be without being a part of the church. Believing, real believing always leads to belonging. I therefore, Paul says, urge you to walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling, worthy of the calling. In other words, I want you to walk in a way that is a proper response to what God has done in you. I want you to live in a way that is a proper response to the gospel. You see, all I'm going to talk about today is a response to this great and glorious gospel. And if you don't do the things that I'm telling you today that Paul is saying here in Ephesians four, it's because you don't get the gospel. Verse two, look, he expounds a little bit on what that looks like. He says, you should walk with all humility. If you get the gospel at all, that your righteousness to God was like a filthy rag, that you had to be rescued from death, that you weren't even seeking God and God stepped into your life and intervened to begin to seek you. If you get all that, you won't look down on other people with feelings of superiority or self-righteousness. How could you?

There's nothing to brag about. Humility, the response to the gospel and gentleness with patience, bearing with one another in love. If you're aware of how God treated you, what gentleness and patience that God has used with you, you'll treat others that way. See, a lot of times I think about this when I want to get harsh or impatient with people just because they're dull or they're lazy. And I think, you know, I wonder how God looks at me because I'm pretty sure that they are no more dull and lazy to me than I was to God. When you are harsh or impatient with others, that is a clear demonstration that you're not in touch with how patient and gentle God had to be with you. It has to be with you.

And yes, I'm talking to married couples. When you are harsh and impatient with each other, what you are demonstrating is you are not aware of the gospel. Verse three, you should be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. He says, if you get the gospel, you'll be eager to see peace. You will not love controversy or division or strife or hatred. If you've experienced the gospel, you crave unity.

You hate conflict. And I don't mean, by the way, you know, unity at the expense of truth because Paul's going to say later to speak the truth in love. You see, you desire unity in the body of Christ. You see that word, maintain, in verse three?

This is really important. The unity that Paul is speaking of is not something that we find or create. It's something we maintain. We don't create the unity. The gospel created the unity. And what that means is that when we lose the unity, it's because we've lost the gospel. Guys, if you relish a fight, you do not know the gospel.

If you love to gossip, you do not know the gospel. If you don't naturally want to connect with others and be involved in their lives and minister to them, you don't know the gospel. Keep reading, verse four, just like you were called to the one hope that belongs, you see that word, belongs to your call. It's all inherent in your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Now, verse seven, Paul shifts and starts to talk about what the fact that God lives inside of you means for how you relate to the church and the world.

Right? Let me just read the next few verses in entirety and then make some comments on them all together. Verse seven, grace, you see, Paul says, was given to each one of us according to each one of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it, the Old Testament says, and he quotes from Isaiah, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, that's us, and he gave gifts to men. This is an Old Testament prophecy that when Jesus rose from the dead, he would put his spirit into the people that he left behind, that's us, and he would give us supernatural spiritual gifts. Verse nine, in saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.

We'll come back to that. Verse 11, and so he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all maintain to the unity of the faith and to 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 to each other. 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. God's purpose in salvation, get this, was not just to save you and take you to heaven. God's purpose was to fill you with himself.

Do you see verse 10? The whole point of Christ's work was that he might fill all things. God's purpose was to fill you with himself. So the whole point of all this is to let you experience him moving inside of you, for you to love the world like he does and to be a conduit of his great power through you. So he fills you and gives you spiritual gifts whereby you experience him not just working for you and not just working in you but working through you. Now, y'all, this is truly one of the most exciting things about Christianity. It really is.

And sadly, many of you don't know anything about it, or at least you've never experienced it personally. I mean, you feel like Jesus saved you, yes, but there's so much more that God wants for you. God wants to do some things through you that would blow your mind. He wants you to be amazed at how he fills you with himself and how you speak and you say the very ministry of God in you. The prayer that Paul prayed in Ephesians 1, we studied this a few weeks ago, one of the components of that was he prayed that the church might be acquainted with or might understand the power that was at work in them and through them. Y'all, this is what he was talking about right here. He was talking about becoming familiar with these spiritual gifts that God had put inside of them that God was going to minister his very power to you.

And he was talking about power through them. One of the prayers that I have prayed for you in this message, I've prayed it all week long, is that you would not leave here feeling beat up by me because you're not more involved, but you would leave with this sense of eager anticipation because you had your mind blown at how much God wanted to do in and through you. I have prayed that God would literally change nations through this message, not because the nations are sitting right here, but because some of you are going to realize how much God wants to use you, that it would blow your mind and you would go out from here and you would go to somewhere where God would use you to literally change somebody's eternity.

This is what Paul is going after here. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer, and we are so glad that you've joined us. Before we jump back into today's teaching, I want to let you know about a special resource that we've created this month to help you dive deeper into God's Word. It's our second installment in the popular Gospel Flipbook series. It's a spiral-bound collection of flashcards that guide you through reading four of the most influential of Paul's epistles, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. We believe that time spent in God's Word is the most important part of any believer's journey, and we've designed this resource to help make that time both engaging and fruitful. The Gospel Flipbook includes a reading plan that takes you through each of these four books, as well as the information about the churches, key passages, and more. Plus, we've included guided prayers and reflections to help you really apply what you're learning to your life. There's so much important truth in these four books of the Bible, as we've experienced here on the program lately.

It takes time to marinate in these truths for maximum impact. So contact us today. We would love to send you a copy of this second Gospel Flipbook as our way of saying thank you for supporting this ministry.

To get yours, simply call us at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching here on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor JD. So I want to look at three questions really briefly, I think, from this passage. Here they are. What are spiritual gifts and how do I know what mine is? That's our first question. And secondly, we're going to ask why is it so crucial that I know what mine is? And then after that, I want to give you a quick word about what all this means for our church's philosophy, and then I want to make a personal challenge to you.

Okay? There we go. Here we are. Number one, what are spiritual gifts and how do I know what mine is? Let me give you a definition that I think comes out of this passage. Here it is.

Spiritual gifts are an experience or an ability that God has given to you that he intends to use to build up others. I'll show you where I get that. Verse 7. Grace was given to each one of us. Verse 12.

Why? For the building up of the body of Christ. Verse 13.

Until we all attain to the knowledge of the Son of God. In other words, I come to know God better through your gift. It may be an experience that you've had with Christ that you share with me that helps me see him better, or maybe it is an ability that helps me know the truth about Christ or helps me see that truth in my own life. Some of you are gifted to speak for Christ.

I know because I've experienced it. Some of you have given me words that God was saying to me. You have spoken over my life, you have spoken into my life, and suddenly I came to know something about God or my life better. Some of you are equipped to minister the compassion of Christ, and when you touch somebody, they feel more than just one human touching another one. They feel the very Spirit of God, Jesus himself, ministering his compassion through them to you. Some of you, it's in how your mind thinks when it relates to ministry.

You are just gifted at seeing what ministries need to be done and how to get them done. God gives you a special awareness of need and goes to work in your mind showing you what he wants to do there. Some of you, it's how you pray.

When you pray, God gives you a gift of knowing exactly what he wants to do in a situation and you pray those things that God wants to do into existence. Verse 16 says, when each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Not that God builds it up in love. It builds itself up because it's God in them. This is how Christ ministers to his people through spiritual gifts. It's how we experience his power. First Corinthians 12, another place where Paul talks about spiritual gifts.

He calls spiritual gifts a manifestation of Christ. Now, a manifestation is when something that is invisible is suddenly made visible. For example, if I was really angry at you, that's invisible. That's an emotion that you can't see. You can't see that I'm angry. If I punch you in the nose, that is a manifestation of my anger. You now know that that which is invisible, my anger has become visible in my fist encountering your face.

You catch that? That's a manifestation. In the same way, how Christ, who is invisible, becomes manifest in the world, how he ministers and makes his power known is through the gifts that he's put into the church.

Now, here's a question a lot of people ask. Like, well, how are these gifts different than just talents? I mean, for example, like J.D., I suppose your gift is preaching or teaching. At least I hope so because that's what you've built your whole life on. But you seem to me to be a naturally talented speaker.

If you didn't do this, maybe you could sell vacuum cleaners or use cars or something like that. So how is it different than a natural talent? That's a great question. Let me give you an answer that comes from a theologian named J.I.

Packer. Honestly, I could not improve on this, so I'm just going to quote him. He says, quote, the ability to speak or act in a certain way is only a spiritual gift if and as God uses it to build up the body. Some natural abilities or talents that God has given us, he never uses in this way. Well, sometimes he chooses to build up his body through performances that in our eyes seem substandard. In other words, sometimes we're really good at something and God just chooses not to use that in his body.

I don't know why. Maybe it's because he doesn't want you to get proud about it. And then other times he'll take a grade C plus performance and he'll pour his spirit out on that and he'll use that in his body. Packer goes on to say, it's only what makes something a spiritual gift is not the quality of the performance but the blessing of God. What makes your talent a gift is if God uses it to reveal himself to others. Talents are what God gives you when you're born. Gifts are what he gives you when you are born again. Sometimes gifts are given to you on top of your natural talents and sometimes they're given to you despite your natural talents. And all of you who know Christ, all of you have one.

I know that. Verse 7 says that to each of you was given a measure of grace. There's nobody in here who knows Christ that does not have one, two, three, maybe ten spiritual gifts. Like, well, how do you know what your spiritual gift is? Here's how you know. A lot of times you can just feel it. A lot of times you can sense the spirit of God at work in you. Sometimes and usually it's because other people tell you about it how God used you in their lives. That's, by the way, one of the reasons we want to have a culture around this church where we affirm the work of God in each other's lives and we tell people God used you this way in my life because that's how they come to know those gifts. When God is using you, other people tell you about those things. So number two, why is it crucial that I know what mine is?

Our second question. Well, it's because you're uniquely gifted, see, and you have a particular gift, a particular part of Christ that only you can display and there are certain things that only you can do in ministry. And that means there are certain ways that only you can reveal Christ and certain people only you can influence to come under the lordship of Christ. And if you don't use your gifts, there will be people that God intended to reach through you who will otherwise never be reached.

You see, that's what I want you to embrace. Ephesians 2 10, we studied this a few weeks ago, says that God has preordained works for you to do. There are people that he wants you to reach and bring into the kingdom that nobody else can reach but you.

I can't. There are those of you in here that God intends to use your mouth to speak words of deliverance and freedom to captives who otherwise without you are going to stay in prison, bound. God's going to use you to minister his healing to certain people who otherwise are not going to experience it. There's some of you in here that God intends to take his power to a certain people group, a certain nation.

That's the word that he has preordained for you and God is going to use your mouth and your ministry to set people free. And if you don't use and embrace your part of the body, it's never going to get done. That's why you've got to find your gift, right?

You're part of the body. This is how Christ does his work. The other dimension of this is I know that you'll never really experience fulfillment until you find your gift.

God saved you so that you can be filled and used by him. Do you know what that is like? Listen, a lot of you know that Jesus has saved you, but do you live daily with the knowledge of his fullness, the knowledge that he's using you?

For most of you, the answer is no. Or at least it hasn't happened in a long time. You know Jesus as savior, but you don't know him as the power surging through you. I can remember the first time I felt like God ever used me. I was somewhere about 15 years old and I was sitting on my front porch with a guy, a friend of mine that lived in the neighborhood. And as I was explaining to him who God was and what God was doing in my life, I remember when this guy said, I get it.

I understand that now. I remember when he bowed his head and put his trust in Christ. I remember that sensation that God, the eternal God of the universe had just used me in somebody else's life. It was a life-defining moment for me and I have never been the same. To the point as many of you feel unfulfilled and bored spiritually because you've never experienced the power of Christ surging through you.

Here's something I know. My sermons will never be entertaining enough to keep you coming back here week after week. I don't care how entertaining I make them. The ones of you that will come here and be committed are the ones who have an awareness that God has a plan for you and he is using you. Y'all, it's time to grow up. How are you growing spiritually? How is your church deeper and wider because of your involvement? You're listening to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. This month, we have a special featured resource to help you stay engaged with God's word, including the passages we've been camped in the past several weeks. It's the second installment in our gospel flip book series, which we started last year. It's basically a set of spiral bound flashcards that you can set on your desk or your nightstand wherever you know you'll see it.

And we've included all kinds of helpful information to give you a better understanding of four key epistles from the apostle Paul, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. We'd love to send you a copy today. It's yours with your gift of $35 or more to our ministry. Join the mission by giving today and we'll be glad to send you a copy of the gospel flip book. And if you miss the first flip book, taking you through all four gospels, you can get a hold of it with an additional donation. To give, call us at 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or give online at jdgreer.com. And if you haven't signed up for our email list yet, be sure to go and do that today. It is the best way to stay up to date with this ministry. You'll get pastor J.D. 's latest blog posts and the popular wisdom for your weekend compilations. And we'll also make sure that you never miss a new resource or series.

Sign up today at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. I am so glad to have you with us. And be sure to listen next time when Pastor J.D.

reminds us not to forget the gifts we've been given. We'll see you next week right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.