Get Connected // Spiritual Maturity // Pastor Josh Evans

Be a part of the body of Christ. Can you say Amen this morning? And I tell you, I am so glad that I'm a part of the family of God. And I love, man, the music was good, wasn't it? Can we give God praise one time this morning? And man, so, so good.

And he is worthy of our praise. And I love the music. And it's so exciting to sing. I'm for it all.

New songs, old songs, whatever. You know, I'm for it. And I love the message of these songs here today. And I am glad I'm part of the family of God. And I'll tell you this, you know, for our church people, you know, that should get you a little bit excited, okay? And you should be excited about that. And so many of you, if you're just like exhausted, tired, whatever, and you come in and church has become a routine and you, I tell you, think about the lyrics of what we sang today. You're a part of the body of Christ.

And that's something to be excited about. And I hope that you could sing that out and lift your voice in praise. The church I grew up in, many of you know my history. I grew up in kind of a shouting church.

You know what I'm talking about? Like those kind of shouting churches. And so they shouted. And so if there was a song that like we sang today and you didn't shout, I can't remember how they worded it. Some of you probably know they'd get up and be like, man, if you can't shout for that, you're like, shouting's broken. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I don't even know what that means.

I shouted because he told me to. And so it was kind of wild. But I tell you, I do get excited about those songs that we were able to sing here today. But Ephesians chapter number four, if you have your Bible here today, Ephesians chapter number four here today, and we will dive right into it. Like I said earlier, we are in a series called Get Connected. Let's all say that together, by the way. Get connected. Let's try it again.

Get connected. And the series is a brief series. We were in the Psalms for several months looking at some of the Psalms. And I wanted to step out of that and really talk about the importance. We had recently, you know, two months ago, we did our starting point, which is membership class here at our church. And for those who want to become members, and we saw at starting point, we saw about 32, 33 adults, something like that, attend that. And then the week or two afterwards, we were able to, you know, line up people up here on that day. And then a couple times since then, at the end of this service, we got a couple families joining as well who couldn't be here for that one a couple weeks ago.

And so, but it's exciting to be able to see that. And it really, I think God was using that to talk, hey, we need to have a series about what church community really looks like. And what this really looks like to be a part of the body of Christ and to be plugged in and connected to the body of Christ. Because listen, when you get here on Sunday, I've been in church my entire life.

That's all that I know. My parents drug me to church when I was born. And so I've been a part of the church community for a very long time. But I'll tell you this, I've been a part of it long enough to know that there's a lot of people who show up and they occupy a seat on Sunday and they think that that is exactly what the church community is like. And my point is that it is much more than just filling up a seat on Sunday.

It is much more than just like, oh man, I checked off Sunday morning off of my list, so I am good to go. No, I'm telling you, being a part of a church is going all in on the community here. It's caring for one another and serving for one another. It's being in community with one another and growing together as families in your walk with the Lord.

And so we're going to continue that series here today. Week number one, we looked at this, the importance of the Sunday gathering. We looked from Hebrews chapter 4 about corporate gathering and not forsaking the assembling of yourselves. And let me just say this up front.

We're not going to dive in. If you need more information or what the Bible says about the importance of me being in church on Sunday, hey, go back a couple weeks and listen to the sermon. But I'll tell you this is that church should be a priority for your family.

It should be. You should want your family to be here. It should be something not that you're looking where church is your last resort. It should be a priority, something for your family. And it's not so that our numbers can be awesome and we celebrate that and things.

It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the spiritual health of your family and the obedience to the word of God and what he's commanded the church to do. Week number two, which is last week, we looked at the importance of community and relationships in the church. You see, it's more than just coming and sitting and filling a spot in here. It's actually being connected relationally into the local church and being connected where people know you. Where if something happens in your life and some tragedy happened in your life and you lost a loved one, that there's somebody in your circle, in your community that you have been growing with who's going to be there for you. Because how shameful it is, in fact, pity the person is what the scripture says in Ecclesiastes.

Pity the person who when they fall down, nobody's there to help pick them up. You see, the point in the scripture is that we are to do life with more than just yourself. It's not intended for you to do life isolated by yourself. Come in and leave.

You know, we have people that do that. Even in our church, they sneak in and they sneak out. And listen, that is not the life that God intended for you to live.

It's not. He intended for you to go all in into relationships here in the church. And today, week number three of the series, we're going to talk about the importance of serving in the church. From Ephesians chapter number four, the importance of serving. In fact, what we're going to see here in scripture from this passage is that there is a correlation between spiritual maturity and serving. You're going to see here in this passage that you cannot call yourself spiritually mature if you are not actively serving in the local church. That's what the apostle Paul's talking about here.

By way of introduction, I wanted to mention this. There's nothing worse than an adult that acts like a child, right? How many of you would agree with me? You ever seen that? It's kind of like, man, that guy's 35 years old. It's time for him to start growing up, right? And he still needs his mom for everything and stuff like that.

There's nothing like that. It's the worst thing because why? Because for us, we're supposed to grow up, right? I have two children. My daughter, she just turned 12 years old and my son is nine years old. Now, I don't know if this is normal.

You guys can help me and give me some feedback here today. I don't know if this is normal, but I feel like we only have two kids. Many of you have more than that. But there eventually comes a point where you stop having to pour so much into them and they can start carrying some of their own weight in the house.

You know what I'm talking about? And so my daughter, she's 12, and she's been able to do this for years. Like if we're ever home and there's nothing to do on a Saturday, for years, as long as I can remember, she's able to kind of make her food, get her a drink, whatever.

I mean, very independent. How many of you have somebody like that, that they could be 10 years old and they could probably go out and live on their own? That's my daughter.

She could do it, right? My son, I don't know if we're ever going to get to that point with him. My son is nine years old, and I'll tell you this, he is nine years old. He will come into the kitchen.

In fact, this happened the other day. Came into the kitchen. I'm sitting, we have this like island in our kitchen, and I'm sitting there and I'm studying. I have my laptop out, and he comes in. I mean, he is nine years old, and I want you to know, he's perfectly capable to do a lot of things. He walked into the kitchen. Dad, can you get me a cup of apple juice? And listen, like the cups, he knows where the cups are.

He is perfect. I've seen him pour himself a drink a thousand times in our house, and he's like, hey, Dad, can you do this? Everything that we do, he's like, Dad, can you do this? I mean, his toothpaste, like, you know, sometimes toothpaste can be hard to open, I guess, if you're nine. He'll come to me like every single day, and he'll walk in and be like, hey, Dad, can you open the toothpaste for me? And here's what I always tell him. I'm always like, Cameron, you are nine years old. At some level, you've got to grow up. How many of you say that, parents, to your kids, or is that just me?

Okay. I say it all the time. I mean, sometimes I tell them, I mean, listen, this is just like confession time for me a little bit. And sometimes I'm just like, this is bad, okay, so I will hit the altar.

I'll be the first one at the altar if I have to after this. Sometimes I'll be like, have you seen your sister? She can pour drinks.

She's been pouring drinks since she was six. That's what I'll tell him. And he's just like, he thinks Lindley's a show-off, you know, is what he always says.

And I'm like, listen, we're not showing off just pouring a drink. We're saying, you've got to grow up. You've got to grow up. In fact, that's life. That's life. At some point, kids have to reach a point where they can do things for themselves.

Right? Well, listen, on a spiritual level, in Ephesians chapter four, what the apostle Paul's going to talk about is that same idea of spiritual maturity is that we as Christians should grow up. And as we grow up and we become spiritually mature, it is going to result in you giving your life and using your gift to serve in the local community.

That's what you're going to see. You're going to see the correlation between those two things is that when you grow up, in fact, in verse 15, we're going to read the entire 15 verses here in a second, but he says in verse 14, he tells us, henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro. In other words, don't be kids to where you can be persuaded every which way. And then in verse number 15, he says, but speaking the truth, in love may grow up. Everybody say grow up. In fact, look to your neighbor and say, hey, you need to grow up today, okay?

All right. Grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. You see, the theme of this passage is all about spiritually maturing.

And by the way, and here's what I mean, because I don't want you to miss this as we talk about what this is. A lot of us are no different than my nine-year-old in that he just takes so much from us and takes so much energy from us as parents to continue to give him and to continue to give him. And at some point, he needs to move from taking something to start putting something back into the family, right? Well, that's the problem in a lot of churches, is that there's a lot of people who sit in our churches and they're really good about consuming. They're really good about consuming information. They sit out here and they consume a sermon, and then they leave, and then they give, you know, all these suggestions for what should be done differently. And man, the praise team, they always have an opinion about things like that, and they have opinions, right? But listen, they just continue to consume, but they never pour back into. And you see, that's the point of Ephesians 4 and what we're going to see here today.

Some of us need to grow up into spiritual maturity. A little bit of background here in this passage, then we'll dive right in together. The book of Ephesians, in fact, we did a Sunday night series on this about a year ago, and so if you want to kind of dive deep into the book, we did an expositional series.

It's online. You can look at that. But Ephesians chapter 4, or Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, is all about identity.

It's all about identity. You can see it throughout the scripture. In fact, the first three chapters are all about the gospel, and it's a deep dive into what the gospel did. The most famous part of that is Ephesians chapter 2.

Many of us could probably recite it. It says in the first three verses all the things about your life before Jesus came in and miraculously saved your life, and he talks about all these bad things, you know, like we were children of wrath, and we were dead in our trespasses and sins and all this terrible stuff that nobody likes to talk about, and then verse 4, everything changed with a conjunction, the greatest conjunction ever uttered, and it says, but God who is rich in mercy. So the first three chapters all about the gospel, and he's reminding a group of Ephesian believers in the church, and he's reminding them of the importance of living out their faith, living out their faith. In fact, the Ephesians were struggling, and the reason why he wrote this to begin with is that Ephesus, the city in which this church was in, is the city of Ephesus was like what we call a port city, and so there was a lot of people coming and going. There was a lot of people coming and going, and the important thing for you to understand is there was tons of temples to different gods there in Ephesus, tons of temples to all these different gods. You can read about them online like Artemis and different people like that, and people would come into Ephesus, and they'd worship these things, and what was happening to the church is that many of these Ephesian believers, they were taking their faith in Jesus, and they were also taking some of these rituals that they were seeing in some of these other temples.

They were taking some of that, and they were adding to their faith. So what was happening essentially is they would say, Jesus plus a ritual equals everything. And what Paul is writing about is he's saying, listen, you don't need all those rituals.

It's Jesus plus nothing equals everything, right? And so that's what he's writing about. So the first three chapters, you can read them, are all about the gospel. Chapters four, five, and six is all about what the gospel looks like when it is lived out in your life.

So chapter four is a transition chapter. You'll see it from the very first word, therefore. It's about, hey, everything that we've seen about the gospel at work in your life, therefore, in other words, because of it, because of this, what God's done in your life, now this is how you are to live.

And I want you to know this before we jump in. You aren't spiritually mature if you aren't serving. Say, pastor, that's a very dogmatic statement.

I think it's a biblical statement. And let me tell you this. If you're physically unable to do certain things, that's fine.

That's fine. But let me tell you this. There is something that you can do. There's something that you can do. I always say it this way, that if you're still breathing, God's not done with you. And God wants to do something in your life.

He wants to serve. In fact, I'll say this, and I could brag on our church all day long. I was sitting at Nick's with Barry Sizemore and his family the other night. And here's what was amazing to me, and we kind of just breezed over this, but when I left here, I was like, my mind was blown about this. Barry Sizemore has served at VBS, listen to this, for 51 years.

51 years. Listen, I have been approaching the week of VBS this week. I'm already ready for Friday morning to get here.

Seriously. And I'm thinking, Barry, here he is, signed up again. And a few years ago, Barry had, and I hope he's okay with me sharing this, he had a stroke which really set him back and affected him to be able to do as much as he did. But guess who is still signed up today, ready to go for VBS tonight?

Barry Sizemore. And I say that to say, not to brag on him, I say that to say, listen, you can do something. You can serve. You can be a part of this, and it is connected to your spiritual maturity. So first, let's look at this, the attitudes of spiritual maturity.

Look at the first six verses, the attitudes of spiritual maturity. He says, I therefore, this is Paul writing, the prisoner of the Lord beseech or beg you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. By the way, living for God is a worthy cause for you to live out. It's a worthy cause.

It's a worthy cause. In fact, you should feel privileged and honored to live out the gospel, to be a part of the mission that God has called you to. It should not be something where the church has to beg you to serve. You should be willing to serve because of everything that Jesus has already done for you.

That's what Paul's saying. It's he saying, listen, guys, Jesus has saved you. Remember, you were dead in your sins. Now you're alive in him. You were headed for a place called hell. Now you're headed for eternity with him in heaven. You now couldn't have reconciliation and peace with God.

Now because of Jesus, you have peace with God. All of these things in your life, because of that, listen, we should be the first to sign up. We should try to serve. We should try to live for him because it's a worthy cause that we've been called. Verse two, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Then he goes on, there is one body, one spirit, even as you're called and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. So here in these six verses, we see the attitudes of spiritual maturity.

You say, what are those attitudes? If I am maturing and I'm growing up in my relationship with Jesus, with Christ, and I'm seeing the gospel live out in my life, what does that look like in my attitude? The first thing we see in verse number two is spiritual maturity produces humility.

Spiritual maturity, it produces humility in your life. Now, humility is at the root of the gospel. Humility is at the root of the gospel. In fact, you can see this in the book of Philippians when it says Jesus, he humbled himself, how? By becoming obedient even to the death on the cross.

He became obedient, but it was humble for him to leave heaven's throne and to come to earth to purchase your life. You see, at the heart of the gospel, it is humility because when you really get the gospel, and by the way, I don't know what your background is in this room here today, and so we have new people pop in every single week, I want you to understand when we're talking about the gospel and the gospel of Jesus Christ, here's what we're talking about. We're talking about the fact that you and I, every single one of us, the pastor in front of you, the Bible fellowship teacher, if you attended one, the person sitting to your right, the person sitting to your left, hey, guess what? Every single one of us, we were all born into one category, one family. You say, what was that family? It was a sinner's family. That was what all of us were.

So I don't want you to walk in and be like, man, I'm a bad person up in this place. Listen, you're surrounded by good company because we're all just born bad, all right? And so we were all born into this family called sinners and there was absolutely nothing. The scripture says, not by works of righteousness which we have done. So that means that there's not enough good stuff that we could ever do to reconcile our relationship with the Father.

Get that. So it's not good works. It's not attending church every Sunday. It's not learning verses.

It's not attending VBS. It's not because you were born into a Christian family. It has nothing to do with any of those things.

In fact, none of those things can get us back into a relationship with the Father. So God saw that. In fact, we sang about it and what a beautiful name. He left heaven's throne because he wanted a relationship with you. He wanted that fixed.

What did he do? He sent Jesus to live a perfect, righteous, holy life in your place, something you could never ever do because the law shows us that we are sinners and that we all have missed the mark. So Jesus died for us. He died in your place so that you could, through Jesus, through trusting in Jesus and giving your life to him, you could now be reconciled to the Father forever. So when I was a kid, I trusted in Jesus as my Savior.

You say, what happened in that moment? Right when I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior, in that moment, my life, I went from being an enemy of God to being at peace with the creator of the universe. So that one day when I stand before God, I'm gonna stand there and it's not gonna be, well, guess what I did to get me into heaven. It's gonna be, no, I trusted in what he already did for me. You see, that's the gospel.

That's what we're talking about here. And so when we talk about that, it has everything to do with humility. It has everything to do with humility because when you understand the gospel, you realize that all of us are unworthy. Every single one of us in this room is unworthy. Nobody deserves to be in the body of Christ. There ain't a good Christian in this place.

Listen, we are all bad. You see, the gospel, it is not a story of God coming to you because you were searching for him and because you were trying to live for him. The beauty of the gospel is that God came searching for you when you were actually rebelling against him, what the scripture says. You see, we were enemies of God and he came to us and died for us anyway. You see, the beauty of the gospel is found in humility. It's found in humility recognizing that we can't look down on others because just like every single other person, they're unworthy just as much as us. You see, that's the beauty of the church. So when Paul says humility and he talks about humility here in verse number two, he's reminding the church, listen, Ephesian believers, you're not a country club. And let me say this, Union Grove, you're not a country club. There's a lot of you who have been a part of this church for a very long time and I respect that, I love that, I love hearing stories of people who have been here their whole life.

I think it's beautiful. But let me tell you this, that doesn't mean you deserve to be here. It doesn't give you any tenure. There's no tenure in the body of Christ because every single person that comes into this place, whether it's their first time or whether it's their 500th time, guess what?

Every single one of us don't deserve to be here. And so for all of us, I want you to understand, for long timers, don't look down on anybody else because they're just as broken and sinful and wicked and undeserving and unworthy as you are. You say, pastor, that's hard. I'm just trying to remind you, that's what Paul's saying. Ephesians, don't think you're better than anybody else. Maturity produces humility, but the second thing, maturity produces patience.

It produces patience. Verse number two, he talks about forbearing one another and love, forbearing. Remember this, that the gospel, aren't you thankful that he was patient on you? Many of you, the gospel was shared to you many different times.

I've heard some of your stories and you rejected and rejected and rejected. And aren't you thankful today that God was not willing that you should perish, but he wanted you to come to repentance. Listen, he gave you time and time again, he was patient with you. And then in verse number three, maturity produces unity. It produces unity. Verse number three, he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And then he goes on to say that we are one body. Now, if you look back, I think Romans chapter 12, and then first Corinthians chapter 12, both talk about spiritual gifts. And we're gonna get there in a second, but both of them talk about spiritual gifts, but in first Corinthians chapter number 12, he likens, Apostle Paul's writing again, he says that there's many members and one body. In fact, he actually asked these questions that if the foot is upset because he's not the hand, and remember the ear wants to be the eye, and things like that. He said in that, he says, but listen, even though that might be the case, there's still one body. There's still one body. In other words, what the Apostle Paul is trying to remind us of is that we are one body unified with a purpose, unified around a purpose, and we should live at peace with one another.

We should live at peace with one another. Now, let me tell you this, I've been a part of a Baptist church my entire life, okay? And one thing that really is surprising to me, the Baptist and people in these churches, they get it right in a lot of ways, right? But I'll tell you this, they struggle with this. They struggle. Isn't it a part of churches where they just flat out struggle with unity? They struggle with living in harmony with one another.

They struggle with living at peace with one another. Let me tell you, if you're a part of our church and you call this place home and you're a member here, here's the point is that you have a gift and you might be the ear, you might be the foot, you might be the hand, you might be the eye. Wherever God has gifted you, but he says all of them are supposed to work in harmony together because they are one body in Jesus Christ. You see, that's the beauty of the body of Christ. That's why we sing about the body of Christ. That's why we shout about the body of Christ. That's why we're humbled to be a part of the body of Christ.

Because all of us unworthy, we still have been given a gift by God to serve in the church and we are supposed to be working together. You see, that's the attitude of spiritual maturity. When the gospel's at work in your heart and you are maturing in him, you'll be humble, patient, and you'll be fighting for unity in the body. Let's look at the source of spiritual maturity, verse 7. 7 says, But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. If you mark in your Bible, mark the word grace.

We'll come back there. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it, but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. Then he gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. So here we see Paul, he's reminding us that, and reminding the Ephesians that these gifts, it is God who gives them to us. And let me say this, salvation is so much more than a get-out-of-hell-free card. For some of us, and I'm not saying that's a bad reason, listen, hey, I trust Christ because I don't want to go spend eternity in a place called hell, but let me tell you this, there is so much more to the pull of Christianity than just that.

And that's kind of what, in a lot of our churches, we've communicated, hey, listen, say this prayer so that you don't have to go spend eternity in a place that you don't want to go to, right? And that is a part of it, and that's one of the beauties of the Gospel, and I'm thankful for that. But there's so much more to the body of Christ than just getting out of hell free, right?

There's so much more to it. In fact, what Paul says here is he says that the more that you're looking for, it's fullness. God wants to fill you with himself.

You see, if you're a Christian and you're a part of the body of Christ, yes, you don't have to spend eternity in a place called hell, but guess what? While you're here, God wants to fill you up with himself. The goal is fullness. And that's what he gives us. He gives us two things. The first thing is found in verse 7. It says, we were given grace. We were given grace. Listen, grace, it's a love that you receive and it seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Absolutely nothing to give him in return, and it says unto every one of us. Look to your neighbor and say, that's you, okay?

Listen, here's the thing. It's for every one of us. Verse 7, unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Grace, it's seeking you out when you have nothing to give in return.

It's reminding yourself that when he gifts you and he fills you with himself, it's a reminder that none of us deserve it. It's only by the grace of God. For by grace are you saved through faith.

Listen, it's the grace of God, and that's the only reason that we are where we are today. Listen, in churches, you know, I've been a part of churches for a long time. Don't serve because you think you're just really good at something, right? A lot of times you see that in church that you can become prideful in the area that you're serving in, your way, and things like that, and here's what I want you to be reminded of. I'm thankful that you're serving, but listen, we need to serve out of the attitude remembering that it's only by the grace of God that I stand where I'm standing here today. That's why me as your pastor, I never want this to be about me. I never want this church to be about me. Here's what I want to wake up every single day when I leave this church and I shepherd the flock that God's given me.

Here's what I want to remind myself every single morning. God, it's only by the grace of God that you've given me and put me in the position that I'm in today because you're looking at a guy who does not deserve to be here, who's unqualified to be here, who does not deserve to stand before you every single week, but listen, it's by the grace of God, and so the gift that he's given you, it's not because you're good at something. It's because you have been given grace, which leads us to the second point.

He gave you gifts. It's out of the grace of God that he's given you gifts, and there's a lot of gifts, and we're not going to take the time to look at them. Listen, if you want to know what your gift is, I can help you with that. There's gifts, spiritual gifts like hospitality, mercy, leadership, exhortation, teaching. There's all these different things, and listen, if you need help finding your gift, listen, we can help you find that, but listen, I don't want to spend a lot of time on that.

All I want you to be reminded of today is that by God's grace, you've been given gifts, and think about it this way. If I was to show up down here in the gym and play basketball, and we're picking teams, and these five guys are like, hey, we got our team together. Who are we playing?

And I come out there and say, you're playing me. Well, where's the other four that you're going to play with? No, I don't need the other four, just me, okay? Some of you who play basketball, you're like, man, he really needs the other four. Yeah, I know, and so, but see, I'm out there, and I go out there, and I bring the ball up, and I'm the only guy out there, and so, that's not the way that basketball is intended to be played, right? It's intended to be played together as a team, working together. It's not about one person. It's not about this person doing everything. It's about us working together, and let me tell you this, is that is the way the church should be run, is that it shouldn't be one person doing all of the work.

It shouldn't be just the pastor. They're going to do everything I want them to do. No, listen, here's what I'm getting really good at. I'm getting really good at when people come to me, and they say, hey, I need you to do this, or I think this is a good idea. Here's what I've just learned to say.

Okay, awesome. Since you clearly God's birthed this in your heart, can you lead this for us? And listen, if you come up to me and say something and I respond that way, don't think I'm being ugly or whatever. No, I'm trying to remind you that it's not just supposed to be Pastor Bailey and myself and Pastor David doing it all. Some of you are like, whoa, whoa, man, I don't like this.

We pay that guy to be up there, right? Listen, it's not supposed to be just us. It's a team. It's all of us working together. It's all of us working together because we're unified under the body of Christ. For some of you, if the basketball illustration, I was thinking about this while I was studying, if that didn't get you, I know many of you have been in Baptist churches your entire life.

Think about it this way. Church is not a catered event. It's a potluck, okay? Does that resonate with some of you?

Okay, I like that. When I was studying, I was like, man, if I don't get any amens, I'll get one there and stuff because it's close to lunch and us here in the community of Arcadia, North Davidson area, we love some potlucks, right? Listen, it's a potluck. You go to something, it's catered.

You know what the beautiful thing about that? You just show up. You just sit there and you enjoy. You don't have to worry about a thing.

You don't have to bring anything. Isn't that good? Men, you don't have to run to the store last minute to get something.

It's nice. Women, you don't have to work in the kitchen to do whatever you do and that kind of thing. Catered events are awesome, but listen, church is not supposed to be that way. Church is a potluck. All of us have a responsibility. All of us are supposed to bring something. All of us are supposed to be a part of it. It's not something where you come and get served.

It's something where you come looking for where you can serve. That's the church. Number three, and quickly, the goal of spiritual maturity. Look what he says in verse 12. He says, so he gives, you know, these gifts by the grace of God for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect or mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Why? So that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie and wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. You say, what's the goal of mature? What's the goal of using my gifts?

What's the goal here? Here's what it is, is that the first thing he mentions here in verse 12, the first goal is for the perfecting of the saints. The word perfecting, it means equipping or maturity.

It means maturing. When it talks about perfecting of the saints, it means that we're all getting closer to God and growing as a result of each person using their gift. Then he goes on for the work of the ministry in verse number 12. And I said this, but listen, church is not supposed to be ran by pastors. And here's what's interesting is that we, like my job, a lot of people think I'm supposed to do everything in the church. And here's what I'll tell you, is that Ephesians chapter four actually is telling us that one of my main roles is to equip you, the saints, to do the work of the ministry. We think a lot of times, like pastor is supposed to do the work of the ministry. But here's what, in essence, Ephesians chapter four is saying, is that pastors are there to equip the saints.

You see, you're the saints. You're the church. You're the ones who are supposed to do ministry. You're the ones that are supposed to step up and see things and welcome people and greet people. We shouldn't have to beg for nursery workers in our church.

We shouldn't have to beg for security and hospitality help. We shouldn't have to do that because if every single one of us, collectively, is using the gifts that God has given to us by his grace, then we should see maturity, the work of the ministry being done, the third thing, the edifying of the body of Christ. Listen, I'll tell you this, is that somebody needs your gift for them to be built up. And some people aren't receiving the encouragement that they need because God has gifted you to be that for them. You see, serving in the church, it's not all about you. It's about somebody else. And when we use our gifts, we are actually sharing that with somebody else and we're sharing our gift the way God's gifted us with somebody else and somebody needs it.

Somebody needs you. And then he goes on for the unity of the body of Christ. Verse 13, this is really good. So we all come in the unity of the faith and here's what he says, and of the knowledge of the son of God. In other words, here's what he's saying, is church at Ephesus, there are some people who will know God better because of the gift that he's given you. Think about that.

Like, that's wild. In other words, it's saying that if I don't use my gift and I keep it to myself and I get consumed with with everything else that life throws at me to be consumed with, and I decide to not serve, I'm gonna sit on the sidelines and I'm not gonna get involved, I'm not gonna use the way God gifted me and I'm just gonna sit over here and I'm gonna keep everything to myself. Here's what he's saying, is that there is somebody in the local church who might not get the full knowledge of God because he's gifted it through me to show them. You see, that's the beauty of gifts. That's the beauty of these things in the local church is he has gifted you to help somebody else. To help somebody else. Now that puts a lot of pressure on us, right?

It should. Because we're a unified body and if you're using your gift, these things should happen. We should be unified. See, gifts help us know God better. And so we see this about serving and gifts and here's my challenge to use this. Grow up. If you're sitting here and you're like, man, I've been on the sidelines and I've just been waiting for everybody else to do everything, I point out stuff a lot but I just sit there, I'm not a part of the solution, my challenge is for you.

Grow up. You're like, pastor, man, I don't remember the last time that I served, I signed up to be a part of something. Hey, listen, VBS is a great opportunity. Or how about this? We've been needing nursery workers for a long time. I say this all the time, if we can't get nursery workers that we need, I'm just bringing every kid that we have, all the rowdy ones, the worst ones. I'm bringing them right here into this congregation on a Sunday morning, I'm going to preach through it and I'm going to see how distracted you become and then I'm going to have a sign up sheet on your way out, okay? Listen, we need it. Scott Baker sent me an email a couple weeks ago, we need extra hospitality people, people who are willing to come a few minutes early and greet people.

I'm thankful for that. Listen, it's hard to find seats sometimes in this place and if you're a brand new person and you're walking in here and you're kind of like, man, you can never find your way around these buildings if you're new. If you're new in here today, God bless you because I've been there, okay? Our buildings, it's hard, our parking lot's crazy and in here, it's like hard to find a seat. Listen, I'm grateful we have people who are there to help people find seats. But we need more people that are willing to serve. We need more and more people who are willing to step out of your row and step in to an area of service somewhere and it's not a lot.

It's not a lot. You say, pastor, I'm in here today and I want to serve. Like, I want to do something. And here's what I would love for you to do.

We don't have a whole lot of time here at the end but here's what I want you to do. If you're like, pastor, okay, I get it. That's me. I'm not using my gift.

I think God's gifted me. It might be hospitality. It might be administration. It might be leadership. It might be something.

It might be teaching or whatever. Listen, there's a spot for you here on the team here at Union Grove. And you say, pastor, because this is what we've been talking about. You say, I want to take a step of some sort. Now, we've talked about things over the last few weeks. It might just be, hey, I need to have my family in church more than we do.

That was week one. But some of you might say, hey, I need to be in community. Hey, we have Bible fellowship classes that are happening every Sunday morning and it's great because that's where community happens. That's where care happens. When you find yourself in the hospital, guess what? Your Bible fellowship class is going to be there for you.

That's why that's important. That's why we encourage you to be a part of it. As our church gets bigger, we have to find out ways to get you into these smaller groups of people so that you can be cared for and so that you can serve one another, so that you can care one another, and that we can all one another one another. That's the point of the local church. You say, pastor, that's where I'm at. I need to get into that community.

Find me a class, whatever. Or today, you need to serve. We need to. If you're a member of our church, many of you joined in the last couple of weeks. Listen, we have weekly serve teams for you to get involved in. Every single week. Listen, some people have to serve a lot because we have way too many people serving.

Not at all. You know what breaks my heart? Is when I hear that somebody has to serve in the nursery week after week after week after week because we have so many people sitting right here every single Sunday. It shouldn't be that way. It should not be that way. We should be able to do that because so that they can, we should have so many people serving so that everybody can enjoy the aspects of being able to be in here.

That's the point. You say, pastor, I want to take a step in the seat back in front of you. I know we reference the new here card every single week, but listen, we don't reference this one enough, but we have a card in front of you called next steps.

Next steps. And if you're in here today, on here, here's what it says. If you need to take a spiritual step, maybe the gospel, when we shared the gospel with you on here, it says I pray today to receive Jesus as my Savior. I have questions about the gospel here today. I don't know if I'm a Christian. I don't know if I'm a part of the body of Christ. You say that's where I'm at. That's the first part. That's where it all begins for you. If that's where you are today, here's what I want you to do. I want you to check that and I want you to hand it to me after the service or I want you to put it in one of these drop boxes on the walls on your way out. I would love to spend my week sitting down with you showing you how you can know for sure that you're a Christian.

Or how about this? There's a spot on here. I would like to become a member at Union Grove. We got four families already signed up for the next starting point. Families who have been coming, being a part of this.

Listen, that's something to celebrate. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor, I want to become a member. I've been attending here and this is where I want to call home. This is where I want to call my church family.

Then listen, sign up for a starting point. You can do that on this card. Put it in those plates. Hand it to me, whatever, or in those drop boxes and I would love to help you. You can even do that online.

We're pretty tech savvy, okay? And then listen, anything that we've talked about. I would like to join a Bible fellowship. Listen, it's hard to find a Bible fellowship that works.

Fill out a card. That's what Pastor Bailey and I are here for. We can point you in the right direction so that you can find a group of people, a community of people that you can be with, that you can care for one another, that you can hang out with, that you can do life with. And then today, if you're like, man, I need to join a serve team. There's an option there to join a serve team to be a part of it. And by the way, if you're a young person teenager in here and you're a part of our church, listen, we want you to serve. You can be a part of this. This isn't something, man, when I turn 25, then I can serve.

No, this is everybody. If you're a young person or a college student, hey, this is a great way for you to on-ramp yourself into community, into serving, into being a part of it. Don't let, man, I'm too young.

I can't do anything. Listen, if you're not in kids' ministry, hey, start serving. Be a part of what God is doing here.

And you say, why do you want us to do all that? Because what we find in Ephesians chapter four is we find that when all of us are collectively in community together, collectively serving with one another, that's when the body of Christ is edified. That is when the work of the ministry happens. That is when we experience unity.

There ain't a person in here, everybody in here has always told me this right since I've gotten here. Pastor, we want to grow. Pastor, a lot of new houses going up in this community.

Great opportunity. Pastor, can't wait till we build a building. Pastor, all these kind of things. You want to know what we can reach our highest potential as a ministry. It's when every single one of you step out of a row and into community and into serving and start using your spiritual God-given, grace-given gifts for the furtherance of the gospel and for the edifying the body of Christ.

That's when the potential happens. It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with Pastor Bailey. David Iverson is awesome. He's worked here for a week and I think he's going to be incredible.

But listen, at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with him either. It has everything to do with the saints, you, the church, doing the work of the ministry. So listen, I want you to take that card. That's going to be our invitation. Let's stand at this time.

Nobody looking around. I would love if every card was full by the end of this. And all I want you to do in the few moments that we have, I'm going to ask our pianist, them to play our instruments and they're going to play. And listen, I just want you, nobody's looking around. Maybe you need to take that card and you need to just look at it and you need to fill something out.

That would be awesome. But listen, as they play, I want you to think and I want you to evaluate and examine where you're at here today. Is it joining the church that you need to take a step for? Is it community or is it serving? What part of your life, listen, somebody needs your gift.

Somebody needs it. Or maybe it's on here, you're like, man, I have questions about the gospel. I don't even know if I'm a part of the family of God. Listen, what a great testimony. Listen, you can leave here as a part of the family of God today.

We would want nothing more than to sit down with you after this service and show you how you can know for sure that you're a Christian. I'm going to give you just a couple of minutes to look at those cards, to evaluate, to pray, to make a decision. Listen, these are response times.

This isn't a time for you to think about lunch. This is a time for you to respond to the word that just was preached to you. Second place is your pastor. The church is serving you around the house, around the house, around the church. This is what you've done, vegetarian Customer Service Office, social services, all over the place.

This is just a simpleANKO question that came up Amen, amen. You can look this way. If you can have a seat real quick, Pastor Bailey's going to come. I want to remind you, if you filled out a card or if you want to text us, we would love that as well. Just kind of let me know where you're at. We need all of you to be serving in some capacity every single week here, and we would greatly appreciate it.

But you can take your card, place it in one of these drop boxes. There's one back there. There's one on the back of the wing and one right here, or you can hand it to me right after the service. I'll be down front, and we would love for you to be a part of what God is doing right here in our knits. Pastor Bailey. Thank you, Pastor.

What a great challenge for us to have an opportunity to serve. We have an opportunity this week, so I hope that you'll be faithful to do that. Let me just share some prayer requests for you to be in prayer for.

A word of praise to start off with. Steve Haynes came home yesterday, yesterday evening, so to God be the glory. Your prayers have been answered, so you continue to pray for him.

He will be having some rehab home and possibly one of the places around here, so do be in prayer for him. God word this morning that Jane Conner, they had to carry her to the hospital. They're running some tests, not sure exactly what I was going on there, so do be in prayer for Jane, but also Bill, because he called me on Friday, and asked some information about kidney stones, which if you don't know, I've had a lot of kidney stones.

I've tried to get away from that as best I can, but anyway, so we're able to share. He has an eight millimeter stone that he needs to have something done with, and so he's, I'm sure not worrying about that, because he's trying to make sure his wife is taken care of, so do pray for both of them during this situation. Also Rosiance, they have moved her to rehab. She's out of the hospital now, so praise the Lord for that. This week, Ronnie Hudson, which he's sitting here in the service, rides a bike, a bicycle on the road where he got clipped by a hay trailer. I think he had a broken collarbone, elbow, some issues there, a wrist, but he is here in the service, and he knows God's not done with him, because the doctor said that you shouldn't be here, but we know that God's in control, and not us, but you pray for Ronnie there that God would just give him the healing he needs.

I know he's real sore, but I appreciate him being in the service. Do be in prayer also for Amber Walsh. She is one of the ladies who's going to be one of our teachers, but this coming year, her boys are going to be in the school, but they were putting in a shunt, and then she got a brain bleed, and so now they've moved her to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, because right now she can't move or speak at this point. So a young family of four young boys, so I know you may not know them, but we just ask you to pray for that family and for ministry. Also pray for James Whitley, my father-in-law. He had a bone biopsy this week, and they're trying to check to see why his legs are so weak, so I appreciate your prayers there, because they went in to get the bone marrow, I believe it is a bone marrow biopsy, so be in prayer for that if you would.

Hunter Kirkman, this is Abby's son, will be having a tonsillectomy this coming week on Tuesday. Kelly Owens will be having kidney stone surgery on Friday, so it makes me nervous, all these kidney stones, because I'm afraid I may be next in the line there, but do be in prayer for them. Also, we've been asked to pray for Donna Yance's grandson, Ty Roseborough. He is going to have to have brain surgery because of seizures coming up here next month, so do be in prayer for that situation. And then pray for our missionaries that we pray for each week. This week we're praying for Sean and Jackie Tice, and then a very faithful missionary that's been with us a long time, David and Karen Tinsley, they're in New York City that God will just use them in a powerful way. So those are prayer requests, so Pastor Yossi will come back and close it out.

Right. Thank you, Pastor Bailey. Real quick, before we are dismissed, obviously we saw a lot of people join the church a couple of weeks ago. We had a few people who went through Starting Point who could not be here that week, so today we're going to join today, so we are super excited to introduce these people to you. I'm going to ask Emily if you want to come right here. Don't be nervous, okay?

So that's fine. And so this is Emily McDonald, everybody say hey, Emily. And Emily's been a part of our church, and she's been such a blessing to us, and we are so grateful for her. She is actually, she went to Starting Point and started, I mean, going to Bible studies with ladies in the church here, and really connected relationally into the church, and that's what it's supposed to be for all of us, and we are super grateful for all the things that God is doing.

She had her daughter, as you see up on the stage, dedicated recently, which we celebrate with her with that. And so Emily is coming today, and then I want to ask, this is Tony and Beth Kite, if you guys could come here today, and we are super excited for you guys. This is Tony and Beth, and judging by your picture, man, you guys are scuba in scuba gear. I want to hear a little bit more about that, and so, but they are awesome, and I'm so excited for them, because this is actually Jonathan and Jessica Kite. They joined a couple weeks ago. This is Jonathan's parents, and so this is a family. We met the Kite family when we started here. My son got into Arcadia baseball down here in the community, and so we just struck up some conversations and things like that. Next thing you know, Jessica works in our school, and now they've become members, and now Jonathan's parents have started coming here as well, and just been faithful, and we're super excited to have them be a part of this. All three of them have been saved and been baptized and ready to become members here at our church.

Do I have a motion to receive them into membership? We'll go Lomax, and then second right here, Roger. Do you guys ever feel bad? Like, there's so many hands going up. I need to choose some different people, because I don't want you to ever feel bad.

He never chooses me for the motion. But let's do this. All in favor, say amen. Amen.

We're super excited about this. I know we're out of time, and I know you probably have plans for lunch, and then also VBS starts tonight. Do not miss that.

6.30 right here. Volunteers need to be here by 6. Just a final reminder, if you're doing registration for VBS, you need to be here at 5.45 tonight, and we'll be ready to go. It's going to be exciting. We'll look forward to it, but here's what we need to do. Any time somebody joins the family, we welcome them, all right?

So you need to come up, get to know them, introduce them. We'll give them a quiz on your names next week. We'll see how well they do, and go from there. So let's do this. Let's stand. I'll pray, and then I want you guys all to come up and meet our newest members of the family here this morning. Let's pray. Father, we love you. God, you've been so good to us. I pray that you would bless our week of VBS. God, I pray that many kids would come to faith in you this week, and that kids would make decisions for you. We love you, for it's in your name we pray. Amen.

You are dismissed. Amen. Amen. Amen.