Church Growth God’s Way:  Pt. 4

“Truth, Love & Interdependence”
Ephesians 4:15-16

11 It was he who gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Introduction 
We’ve been studying another one of Paul’s long sentences.  This one spans from Eph.4:11-16, and it’s all about God’s final goal for the Church, which is maturity.  And the means to reaching that goal is spelled out in vv.11,12.   God gave the revealers and explainers of Scripture to the Church in order to equip the saints for the work of ministry.  And the grammar of the sentence shows us that if we can just get that going – get all the saints to carry out their works of ministry, then the body will grow to maturity.  If we have problems at Creekside – anything that falls short of the whole measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…  - There can only be two causes.   Either the teachers are failing to equip the saints, or the saints are failing to do the work of ministry.

12…to equip the saints for the work of service so that the body of Christ may be built up 

A synonym for “built up” is the word “edified.”  That’s what the word “edified” means – to be built up.  And the result of that is unity.

12…the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God

And that kind of unity in the church brings us to full maturity.

13 Lit. …resulting in the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So we reach our final goal in v.13.  The rest of the verses just draw the conclusion that once we reach that point, we will no longer be immature. Instead, we will be mature.  Last time we took a detailed look at what immaturity looks like as we studied v.14.  Paul says, “Then we will no longer be this way…” and then describes immaturity.  Immature churches (and immature individuals) are like babies or children.  They are spiritually gullible.  They are indecisive.  They are easily distracted from their task.  Deferred gratification is never their choice.  They are focused on self.  Amusement is more important to them than anything else.
(I didn’t talk about that last time, but it’s a common mark of immaturity.  That’s why so many churches are going to drama and movie clips and skits and shorter and shorter segments to accommodate an ever-shortening attention span.)  Babies have to be amused.  But most of all, babies are incredibly vulnerable because they have no discernment.  For that reason they tend to be worked over by the deceivers. 

14 …tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching 

They are theologically unstable.  So that’s the bleak picture of an immature church. V.15 gives us the picture of the opposite of that.

Portrait of a Mature Church
15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 
A mature church is marked by three things. The first 2 are in v.15.

Truth and Love
15 Instead, speaking the truth in love
This is one of those phrases that is almost never quoted in context.  We say, “Look, if someone needs rebuke, you’ve got to tell it like it is – speak the truth.  But do it in a loving way.”  And of course that is exactly what we should do. That is very sound advice.  But what does it have to do with this context?  What does speaking the truth in love have to do specifically with maturity?  If you want the answer, just think about the word “truth.”  What is the opposite of truth?  Error. And what was v.14 all about? The vulnerability to error that comes with immaturity.  So if the mark of immaturity is lack of discernment and susceptibility to error, true maturity is going to have to be driven by the truth.  It’s a contrast to the people in v.14.  They propagate error through deception.  We propagate truth in love.  Spiritual maturity is always marked by truth and love.

The Truth (Scripture)
Usually when we read this verse we think mostly in terms of being truthful as opposed to being deceitful.  And that’s definitely part of it (I’ll talk about that in a moment), but fundamentally, we need to understand that the starting point of truth is Scripture.  Speaking the truth means speaking God’s Word, because that is the only source of undiluted truth about God.  A church where truth from God’s Word is not highly prized is immature.  I’ve been in churches where truth is thought of almost like a special bonus.  We’ll set up a whole bunch of Bible studies, and if someone has 10 or 12 spare hours to properly study and prepare, that’s a bonus…  But if we don’t have anyone like that, we’ll still have the Bible study and just have a bunch of people who haven’t studied sit in a circle and pool together all their ignorance about the passage.  Someone suggests or preaches a certain interpretation of a passage, and if it’s helpful, and pleasant, and encouraging – then it’s accepted.  And if it’s actually true – if it’s actually the correct interpretation of the passage – that’s a bonus.  In a mature church truth comes standard – it’s not an extra bonus. It’s the bedrock of everything.

Truthfulness 
And the terminology Paul uses here indicates that this concept of truth goes beyond just what we say.  In addition to saying true things, it’s important for us to be truthful in every part of the way we live.  Unlike the deceivers of v.14, we are to be completely honest and transparent in all we do.  That’s another reason I’m against the bait and switch technique of the Seeker movement.  It’s the method that has been used in youth ministry for years, and now it’s being applied to adult ministry.  You draw unbelievers in my some other draw than the gospel, get them to warm up to you, then introduce the gospel.  Youth groups do it through recreation and games.  Get a crowd of unbelieving students by having a skateboard event or some sports celebrity as a speaker…  And get the students who have no interest in God or spiritual things to come, and, over time, they will see how fun youth group is, and eventually they will develop an interest in Jesus Christ.  
The Seeker movement does the same thing with adults.  Draw them in through entertainment, and felt-need preaching.  Instead of talking to them about doctrine, find out what needs they feel they have in their life, and make that the topic of your sermon.  And give them inspiring tips on how to meet those felt-needs.  And over time, they will become more and more a part of the church, and the next thing you know they will repent and give their hearts to the Lord.  There are countless problems with that, not the least of which is it’s dishonest.  Essentially they are saying to the world, “Don’t worry, it’s not our objective to proselytize you. We’ll just accept you for who and what you are, and we won’t pressure you to change.” 
I visited a church recently where they claimed that evangelism is their highest priority, but when a witch showed up and asked if she belonged at that church, they said “yes,” and made it clear that they knew she was a witch and to quote the preacher, “The church is OK with that.”  If they want her to become a Christian, then they are not OK with that.  And if they are not OK with it, they shouldn’t tell her they are just to make her keep coming back.  Our message to the world is that we love them as they are, but we must also be right up front with the fact that they are an offense to a holy God and our first concern is to call them to repent lest they perish and be punished eternally in hell.  
I’ve talked to some pastors who have realized that their approach is dishonest, so, to solve the problem, they really don’t have the goal of proselytizing!  So they stop calling people to repentance altogether!  This is why that approach always leads to a watering down of the Gospel.  That’s never their intention at first, but it’s always the inevitable result.  You find yourself working so hard trying to get the spiritually dead unbeliever to warm up to God that you just never get around to giving the hard to accept portions of the Gospel.  You can’t talk about repentance or hell or holiness or the nature of God or sin or guilt or spiritual deadness or the cost of discipleship…  - you can’t talk about any of that from the pulpit, because the witches might leave, and then you’ve lost your opportunity to “reach” them.  And so the church becomes filled with unbelievers and malnourished and immature believers.  That’s what we mean by that saying, “Sermonettes produce Christianettes.”  No one has a deep knowledge of the Word, the people can’t teach and admonish one another and build one another up…  The people aren’t equipped for their ministries, and the body dies (even as the church bubbles with activity).
The same goes for a youth group.  In the name of evangelism, you fill the group with unbelievers and carnal Christians, and then a new kid comes in, and all the kids around him are swearing and talking about the same garbage everyone at school talks about, and the net effect is negative instead of positive (even if there are 500 kids).  But if the new kid comes in, and the group only has 15 students, but everyone around him genuinely loves the Lord, when they sing they are worshipping from the heart, they are kind and selfless and generous and Christlike…  That is powerful evangelism.
Many pastors today want unbelievers to be able to come in and not feel judged – so they have a safe place to test out Christianity.  But the ideal situation for a visiting unbeliever is described in 1 Cor 14:24-25 But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, 25 and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!" 
If you walk into a mature church where God’s Word is being powerfully taught to the believers, and unbeliever will walk in and see that and feel judged by all – which is exactly what God wants, because that’s what will bring him to saving faith.  That’s not to say they feel judged in the sense of some kind of unloving condescension, or looking down your nose at them.  They are judged in the heart by the truth of God’s Word, and that brings them to repentance.  That’s the effect of truth in the church.  That is the kind of Church God wants to reach a lost world.  
One thing Zach told us last weekend that really broke my heart was that when he resisted the move toward the seeker movement and his last church, their conclusion was, “Well, you are interested in expository teaching and we are interested in evangelism.”  I’ve had pastors tell me exactly the same thing.  “You want to teach the saints, we want to win the lost.”  When did we ever decide that the best platform for winning the last is an immature, shallow church?  A fighting, grumbling, sinful, undiscerning, ungodly, deceived church full of babies is not the way to reach the lost.  You know who reproduces? Adults. Babies don’t have babies.  If we want to win the lost or do anything else God has called us to do, it will happen when we are mature, speaking undiluted truth. 
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There is some truth in every church.  Even in a group like the Universalist Unitarians, or the Nazi skinheads or the atheists’ club – every group says some true things.  In fact, that’s what makes the deceivers of v.14 so incredibly hard to spot – the vast majority of what they say is true.  They mix their error in with so much truth, that it’s extremely hard to find.  Those of you who have come out of the cults know all about this. You might be in a cult for years before you become aware of some of their errors.  You can listen to a false teacher like Joyce Meyer for months and months before you find out she teaches that Jesus was born-again in hell and that some time ago she “stopped sinning” and so now she is no longer a sinner.  People don’t pick up on that because so much of what she says is true.  In the apostate church, there is mostly truth and just enough deadly error to keep people from truly knowing God.  In an immature church there is truth about the Gospel, but the commitment to that truth is lethargic and weak and haphazard...   And where it does exist, it is diluted with large doses of human wisdom.  In a mature church everything is driven by truth in its purest, most unadulterated, undiluted form.

Love
The same goes for love.
Speaking the truth in love

Truth and love are always the marks of maturity.  And they go together.  Be careful about taking the phrase “in love” as some kind of limiter or safeguard for the phrase “speaking the truth.”  People see this verse and say, “When you speak the truth, it’s harsh. So you have to temper it with love.”  I don’t think that’s the idea.  The truth, by itself, is not unloving.  Scripture does not present truth as something that is by nature harsh or brutal or unloving that needs to be softened or moderated with love.  Just the opposite. Truth and love always go together.  Love doesn’t moderate or limit truth. Love rejoices in truth.

1 Cor 13:6
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

If I love you with true, Christ-like love, I will love the truth, because true love loves truth.  In a mature church, the words that come out of people’s mouths are truth – not limited by love, but motivated by love.  That’s true in a general sense for anyone who is a believer at all.

1 John 3:10,14
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a
child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. 

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

Look around at the people sitting in this room.  Do you love them?  If not, you’re lost. It’s as simple as that.  So all Christians love their brothers and sisters in Christ.  But love has degrees.  We start out, in our immature state, with weak, vacillating, patchy, sketchy, diluted, on-again-off-again love.  We do a great job loving each other under ideal conditions, but if things get a little rough, our love falls apart.  That’s the immature church.  And as a church grows to maturity, that natural family love within the body of Christ becomes stronger.  
When Nikki & Faith were toddlers, they loved each other. If one got hurt, the other would show sympathy – maybe even cry out of compassion.  But that love wasn’t very mature.  It couldn’t survive much testing.  If they both wanted the same toy, their childish selfishness would override their love. Now they are older and their love is much more mature.  The other day I took them to MacDonald’s and got them each a sandwich, and one order of fries.  They both love fries – especially Nikki.  But Nikki handed the bag (with the fries) to Faith in the back seat while Nikki ate her burger.  She never said one word about the fries. She just trusted her sister to be fair about it.  After a little while Faith handed the bag up front and said, “Here Nikki – I ate less than half of the fries, because I know you like them more than I do.”  Nikki was grateful, but she didn’t act one bit surprised, because that’s the level of maturity of their love now at age 11 and 12.
That’s how it is in the church too.  As the church matures, our love for one another matures, and you can tell by the words that come out of our mouths.  In a mature church you can come to a meeting where several people strongly disagree…  - and still you have the clear sense that they deeply love one another.”  In a mature church you could eavesdrop on people’s private conversations about the leadership and say, “Wow – these people really love the leaders.”  And you could sit in on a leadership meeting and say, “It’s so obvious from they way they talk that these shepherds would lay their lives down for the sheep – they love them so dearly.”  It’s never any fun to gossip to a mature person, because that person is so full of love that he will instantly start defending the person you are trying to gossip about.  When has a church reached maturity?  Is it when their offerings reach a certain amount, or they get a building or a celebrity pastor or city-wide programs?  No. A church has reached maturity when the whole place is dominated by words that are the pure, uncontaminated truth of God’s Word...  And those words are saturated by deep affection for one another… and for the lost.

Numerical Growth
And this is where the desire for numerical growth comes in.  How should we think about numerical increase?  We’ve established that it’s wrong to make that the primary goal. But should it be any part of our goal?  Or should we give it no consideration at all?
We need to answer those questions, because as a church, we do have to make decisions about where to put our efforts.  Is it worth it to pay millions to build a big building?  Should we put energy into building an infrastructure in the church that can handle more people than we have now and always keep doing that?  Or should we just pick a size, and try to maintain that?  The problem I have with picking a size is that it is so arbitrary.  Who are we to tell God what size a church should be?  
Some people have assumed that since I value church planting so highly that that means I don’t want Creekside to get to be a large church.  That’s not my motivation at all.  Yes, I want people in other towns to benefit form what we enjoy here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want more people coming here.  Planting churches is not necessarily going to make us small.  Very often church-planting churches are some of the fastest growing churches there are.  It’s up to God what size He wants us to be.  So how aggressive should we be in trying to attract more people into this fellowship?  My answer to that is it depends on what we are offering.  Either what we are doing here is worth exposing people to or it’s not.  If what we are doing here is not worth inviting people to, then we should drive the ones we do have away, and then shut the doors.  But if we really believe in what we are doing, love demands that we seek to draw in as many as possible (as long as we don’t compromise the message or the method).  
When I hear one person after another after another talk about how their lives were changed after coming here and receiving all the ministry that comes from all of you…  I think, I want as many people as possible to be able to experience that.  My complaint against the church growth movement is not that they want to reach more people – every Christian with an ounce of love wants to reach as many as possible.  My complaint against that movement is that they are reaching more and more people with less and less of the Gospel.  Their ministries tend to become a mile wide and an inch deep.  And churches are rushing into that approach by the tens of thousands.  
I read of a seminary president this week who said, “I would get on my knees and crawl across America to find someone who will teach my students to preach the text of the Bible.”  So should we seek to get big? Yes.  If we are offering something of eternal value, love demands that we reach as many people with that as we possibly can.  And not only love for those individuals, but love for the church as a whole.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t be around enough Christians. 

1 Peter 4:10
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

Every Christian is a grace dispenser.  How many mature Christians do we want at Creekside? Well, how much grace from God do we want?  How many spiritual gifts do we want?  I don’t know about you, but the next time I’m discouraged, I would rather be surrounded by 20 people who have the gift of encouragement than 1 or 2.  How many people with the gift of faith do you think we need here?  If you don’t know what it’s like to be sick and have a few people with the gift of mercy come around you – it will make you want to get sick more often.  How many people with the gift of giving do we want?  I don’t like crowds if they are filled with unbelievers, or weak, immature, worldly Christians.  But I can’t be around enough godly, spiritual, mature lovers of God and dispensers of His grace.
You know what Galatians 5:22 says comes gushing out of people like that? The fruit of the Spirit.  Being around 2000 people, when 1500 of them are worldly would be a drain.  But how would you like to be around 2000 people when 1900 of them are characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  That’s like being in heaven.  So should we do what we can to set up our leadership and the infrastructure of our ministries to be able to handle large numbers of people? Yes!  Is it worth millions of dollars to have a big enough facility to handle a large crowd if the Lord sends them? Absolutely.  We ought to be willing to facilitate as wide a ministry as God wants to carry out through us.  What should we do to attract those people?  Should we try to appeal to their felt needs? Advertise? Offer entertainment? Make them feel safe and unthreatened by the Gospel and unjudged by God? NO! 
How are we going to attract the kind of people we are looking for (that is, people who have a hunger for God and an appetite for His Word, so they will become mature)?  That’s easy – just preach the Gospel.   We try to attract as many as we possibly can but our only method is the preaching of the Gospel.  So the only people we end up attracting are people who have an openhearted willingness to accept the Gospel…  Which means it’s only a matter of time before they become Christians and become mature.  So from every angle, when you speak undiluted truth in pure form, and it comes as the natural fruit of true, genuine love…  That results in even more spiritual growth and maturity –.

15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

More Growth
in all things
When we first begin to reach maturity, our maturity may be patchy – strong in some areas, weak in others.  But it will always be characterized by speaking the truth in love.  And the more we do that, the more we grow in all things.  In every area of the Christian life. In every virtue, every doctrine, every aspect of righteousness.  Our maturity will become even – across the spectrum of church life.  Every area will be progressing in the same direction – toward Christ.  grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.   The end of v.15 sounds strange if you still have the body metaphor in your mind.  It would really be strange to imagine your torso growing up into your head.  That would be such a bizarre picture, I can’t imagine that’s what Paul was saying.  Some have said it’s saying we grow up into the proper proportion with the head.  That makes a little better sense.  
Babies have relatively huge heads in relationship to their arms and the rest of their body.  A little baby can barely tough the top of his head.  That makes a little better sense in the context, but I still think it’s a bit of a stretch.  I really don’t think Paul is still using the body metaphor here at all.  One thing that’s important to understand about Paul – he was never a slave to his metaphors or illustrations like we tend to be.  At any moment he feels perfectly free to jump ship on one illustration and use another, and then go back to the first one, and then mix them together if need be.  He will do anything to communicate the idea.  
The word into is the Greek word eis and very often has the idea of direction – it means “toward.”  And the word head is like our word head – it can refer to the round thing at the top of your body, or it can refer to an authority or ruler.  If we say “That guy is the head of the organization,” that’s not a metaphor of a head on a body. It just means “leader.”  The Greek word was used the same way.  So a better translation would be to say that we grow up toward Him who is the ruler of the Church, that is, Christ.  We grow in His direction (keep becoming more like Him).  As people speak truth in its purity – unpoisoned with error, and undiluted with human wisdom…  And as people speak to one another and about one another in love…  The body will grow in every area, in all things, and progress toward the character of the one to whom we belong, the Lord Jesus Christ.  v.16 gives us a picture of what that looks like.  The first two marks of a mature church are truth and love. The third is interdependence.  Listen to v.16. If this verse doesn’t make you feel close to each other, I don’t know what will.

Interdependence 

16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

joined and held together
The idea is of a perfect fitting together (like perfectly cut stones in masonry).  This body was not just randomly thrown together.  We were each cut by the master Mason to fit against one another.  More than that, we are like body parts that join together with connections too complex to describe.  The two terms, joined and held together, are essentially synonymous, although we could say the first one emphasizes the idea of fitting together and the second one highlights more the idea of relating harmoniously together.  Every part of the body has to adjust to the parts connected to it.  If the body gets cold, the blood vessels near the surface change in relationship to those near the core, so more blood will be at the core.  If you get hot, it works the other way.  If something becomes inflamed or swollen, everything else has to move over.  If the body is trying to do some heavy lifting, if you’re a muscle, you’ll have to contract in response to the nerves.  If you’re a ligament, you’ve got to hold that muscle to the bone.  If you are a knee, you’d better bend, even if you’re sore, in order to save the back.  If you’re a nerve, you’d better communicate accurately with the brain.
You cannot exist in the church independently of everyone else.  Joshua Harris says, “Lone rangers are dead rangers.”  That’s true.  If you take out your liver and set it out on the table, it will die (and so will you).  But more importantly, even if it could be kept alive somehow, it couldn’t possibly fulfill its function, because it’s only function is a function that works in conjunction with the rest of the parts of the body.  Outside the Church you cannot possibly fulfill your purpose for existing, because you are a part of a body.   by every supporting ligament,  The word “supporting” is literally “supply” or “provision.”  The word translated ligament is not a precise medical term.  It’s simply a term that applies to all kinds of connective tissue – including ligaments, tendons and joints, as well as nerves and veins and arteries.  And so the ideas of connecting and supplying are both present.  Just think of how a body grows.  With every breath you take, and every beat of your heart, nutrition and oxygen are carried throughout the body to supply each of the 75 trillion cells in the body.  And when they receive that nutrition and oxygen, they grow and carry out their function.  
Your ministry functions like an artery.  Scripture compares the Holy Spirit to air, and Jesus Christ said He is like bread…  Your ministry – whatever it is – serves the function of taking that oxygen and nutrition and delivering it to the rest of the body.  If Creekside, as a body, becomes weak and lethargic and sick, that may be a symptom of some clogged arteries.  If you walk in here on Sunday morning, sit down in the pew and watch, stand up and walk out, and that’s the some total of your involvement until next Sunday, you are a clogged artery.  There are cells and organs in this body that are in desperate need of oxygen and nutrition that are being choked off from their source of life and sustenance because the whole flow from God to them is being blockaded by the fact that your ministry is not being done.  There are people who will stand in judgment on the Church and point the finger at some sick, dying organ and say…  “Look at that pathetic part of the body. It’s not functioning as it should be, and that offends me, and so I’m going to stand back and remove myself from ministry!”  And they don’t realize that it’s the very fact that they haven’t been faithful in ministry that that part of the body is dying.
Your ministry functions like an artery.  It also functions like a ligament or a joint.  The interaction between the body parts takes place only where there is contact.  I fear in this body there are probably several dislocated limbs.  They aren’t connected closely enough where they are supposed to be connected.  And so an otherwise healthy limb is useless just because the joint that is supposed to connect it to the body is too weak.  And that joint is the ministry that perhaps you should be doing and are not.  You may be sitting there thinking, It doesn’t really matter if I’m faithful in ministry. If I don’t do it, someone else will – or God will manage to get it done one way or another.  Is that true?  If some connective tissue in the body stops functioning, will the Lord override that and supply that part of the body by other means?  Can the growth of the body happen just through the primary cause (which is God), even in the absence of a secondary cause (which is the individual part of the body supplying the rest of the body)?  The translators of the NIV interpret the next phrase as each part does its work, and place it at the end of the sentence.  But in the Greek, that phrase appears right after the words supporting ligament.  So the body is joined together and held together through every connection of supply as each part does its work (lit.) according to working in measure each individual part  That wording, “according to work in measure” gives the idea of proportion.  The supplying and connecting function of the connective tissue works only in proportion to the working of each individual part.  If the individual part does not do its work, God will not override that.  He will allow the body to be diseased and disabled in the whole area surrounding that dormant body part.  And He will not allow the body to grow except in proportion to the functioning of the various connective parts.  
That idea is emphasized again in the final phrase in v.16:  (the body) grows and builds itself up in love  The body builds itself up.  If the body does not build itself up, it will not be built up.  And once again, it happens through love.  grows and builds itself up in love  The body loves itself and serves itself.  Even the most selfless, humble, other-centered person in the world still loves himself so much that God can say to every human being, “If you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, you’re doing great.”  You love yourself. And that can be seen in the way your body treats itself.  Whose teeth did you brush this morning? Whose hair did you comb?  What person on this planet have you wept more tears over when that person has gotten hurt? You!  
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should strive to love ourselves more.  We all love ourselves way, way too much, and we should all constantly be striving to love ourselves less.  But the fact remains, we all love ourselves – so much so that if we ever learned to love our neighbor anywhere near as much as we already all love ourselves, we would be the most loving people who ever lived.  That’s how the body of Christ is to function.  
Let me ask you – How much do you love the Church?  You can tell by the way you talk about the Church.  The way some Christians talk about the Church you get the impression they despise Christ’s precious Bride.  Do you love the Church?  Would you die for her?  Are you like Priscilla and Aquila, who literally risked their necks for the sake of all the churches of the Gentiles? (Rom 16:3)  Or Epaphroditus, who risked his life and almost died for the ministry of the church in Philippi? (Php.2:30)  Or like Paul, who faced death so many times he gave up counting, and just kept track of the different forms of death he faced?  Lots of times it was attempted murder, sometimes shipwreck, snake bites, sickness, starvation, etc. The one that finally got him was execution.  Or like Jesus – the Good Shepherd who loved the sheep and willingly laid down His life for the Sheep.  
Do you love the Church? Would you die for her?  Would you face torture and death for those folks over there on the other side of the sanctuary?  If that’s a little extreme, how about this – if you don’t know if you love them enough to die for them, would you at least serve them with your spiritual gifts?  Would you faithfully pray for them?  Would you clean up after them when they leave a mess somewhere?  Would you defend them when someone wants to gossip about them?  Would you gently and meekly reprove them when they wander in to sin?  Would you forgive them when they repent?  Would you overlook their flaws?  Will we do all of that for one another? We will…when we are mature.  I’ll close by reading you a letter I got this week:

Pastor Darrell,
I had just finished a week-long audit in Atlanta, Georgia.  I was working twelve to thirteen hour days and had just flown in to Denver on Friday afternoon.  All of the way home I was looking at restaurants and fast food places, trying to decide where to eat and deciding that I didn’t want to eat at another restaurant since I had been eating restaurant food all week.  I have just moved to Arvada and was setting up a new apartment.  I dreaded going into an empty apartment and looking at all of the boxes left to unpack and put away.  I arrived at my apartment and got out of the car with my bags and limped to my apartment like a “dead-man-walking”.  There was a bag on the door.  It had a note from your church, a Sunday School tape, and a loaf of banana bread.  I immediately thought of the verse in the Bible where Jesus, said when I was hungry you fed me.  I teared up and took the bag into my apartment and put on the tape, immediately I wasn’t alone, I started eating the banana bread and thanking God for providing what I needed most at that very moment.  Your greeting missionaries are on the job, God Bless Them and your church. 

It took a lot of connected ligaments to get that tape made, labeled, duplicated, the bread baked, delivered, that whole ministry organized…  And all those connections supplied nourishment in the form of truth and love to a part of the body out on the fringe at the moment of need. 

Benediction: 2 Co.7:1  

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God