Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: God has the audacious aim to make you exactly like his son. And if that's the case, there's a whole lot of transformation that needs to occur in your life, in my life. See, and we need the infinite love of Christ or we'll never be able to face up to the truth of how much change is needed in our lives.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy and today we're talking about growing in maturity together. Now Pastor Philip, being in the image of the son, is that even possible? I'm not sure I can achieve it.

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, that's why I called it audacious. It is an audacious thing, this notion that we would be righteous like Christ in all of his perfect holiness and beauty. That is amazing. And yet, that is where God is going in all of this.

Jesus says the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. We are being conformed to the image of Christ and one day we will share in his glory. Not like he's the sun and we're the moon and his light is reflecting off of us, but that kind of glory. This is where God is going with this beautiful maturation and transformation that he's doing in our lives.

What's amazing is he's using the body of Christ, all these interdependent relationships, as the agents of truth and love in our lives to bring about that kind of transformation. Of course, it won't be done until we go to glory. But we're making incremental progress every day as we are in these relationships in the church, following Jesus, loving one another, and speaking truth. That's the magic formula.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Well, let's hear more. Let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church as we look at how we grow into maturity. This is part three of the sermon, Together We Grow, and we're in Ephesians chapter four, verses 1 through 16.

Pastor Philip Miller: Friends, you are a uniquely gifted conduit of Christ's grace for those around you. Did you know that? When you show up, grace pours out. We will never be all that God wants us to be until every single one of us is present. Do you believe that?

So what does it mean to walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling to which you've been called? Well, it means to eagerly maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. We saw that. It also means eagerly contributing our diverse giftings for the building up of the body of Christ, doesn't it?

So, unity through diversity now unto maturity. This is our third point: maturity. All these gifts, all this grace, it's going somewhere. Verse 13: "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and 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 and deceitful schemes."

So much there. The reason God gave all these gifts, all these gifted people to his church as pipelines of his grace, is in order to grow us into full maturity. Paul says that together we might become like Christ, which Paul describes with a set of positive and then negative descriptions.

So the positive ones first is the unity of the faith. The oneness that we have in Christ that we are learning to maintain as we follow the spirit will one day be true in reality. We will be one in Christ forever. We will be all that Jesus prayed when he prayed that we might be one. Unity of the faith.

Knowledge of the son of God, the second phrase. To know Jesus fully and to be fully known by him. This is what maturity looks like. He says "mature manhood." This is adulthood. It means to be all grown up. My son likes to say, "I'm a big boy now." When we're all mature adults, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, conformed to his image and likeness. When we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him face to face.

That's the positive set. Now the negative: then we will no longer be children. We won't be immature. We won't be incomplete. We won't be making all kinds of foolish mistakes. We will no longer be tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

When we grow up into maturity, we will be built up by the gracious gifts that Jesus has given to us in one another. Then we will be steady, we will know how to hold the course because we will have the north star of God's truth to guide us in every way. That's what these apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor-teachers, shepherd-teachers are for. They're there to point us to the truth of the gospel so that we won't get distracted and derailed by all the lies out there.

There's lies out there and there's lies in your own head. None of them will keep you on course; only the word of God will do that. So that's what we're going to be when we're all grown up. That's what it'll look like. Now, how do we get from here to there?

Verse 15: "Rather, speaking the truth in love, 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."

There's the ticket. Speaking the truth in love. Speaking the truth in love. There's the formula. That's how we grow. Friends, truth without love is unbearable. Isn't it? It's just debilitating criticism and we wilt. Love without truth is sentimental. This is blind affirmation. It doesn't actually help us.

But truth with love? That's transformational. Because love enables us to hear the truth, doesn't it? And the truth enables us to grow into people of love. You see? Because we've got to change. Friends, this is the grace we all need from one another. Speaking the truth in love. That's how we grow.

That's how we become like Christ. That's how the body builds itself up in love. Friends, we are maturing in Christ's fullness. We're maturing in Christ's fullness. God has the audacious aim to make you exactly like his son. And if that's the case, there's a whole lot of transformation that needs to occur in your life, in my life.

We need the infinite love of Christ or we'll never be able to face up to the truth of how much change is needed in our lives, right? It's only in the safety of his love that we can face the hard realities of how much change is needed. And it's without the unflinching truth of Christ, we'll never be challenged to become the people of love that we were always meant to be.

See, we need them both. We need love and we need truth. Without that, we cannot grow. To grow in maturity into the fullness of Christ, we must learn to speak the truth in love with one another. So what does it mean to walk worthy of the calling to which we've been called?

Well, it means to eagerly maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. It means to eagerly contribute our diverse giftings for the building up of the body of Christ. And it means speaking the truth in love with one another that we might become mature in the fullness of all that Christ wants us to be.

Unity through diversity unto maturity. Unity through diversity unto maturity. Because God grows us by grace through one another. God grows us by grace through one another. Now there are all kinds of implications for this. And I don't have a lot of time, but I'm going to give you six quickly. Okay?

First implication: transformation is not a solo sport. You cannot become all that God wants you to be by yourself, with yourself, in your closet. You need the body of Christ if you're ever to become who you were meant to be. This is huge. Devotions are great, but they're not enough. We need one another if we're ever to become like Christ.

Secondly, content will never be enough. Now, I'm a content guy. I preach sermons, I listen to podcasts, I read books. I'm a man of the word. That's who we are. But it's not enough. We need the love of the body of Christ to form us into the image of Christ. We learn to love and be loved with one another. That's how we actually change.

Third, we need thick relationships if we are to speak truth in love. Friends, do you realize how close you need to be before you have the right to speak hard truths in someone's life? Do you know how secure the love bond must be between people before we can tolerate critique? It's really hard, isn't it? It's so hard to receive and not bristle and not respond with knee-jerk defensiveness and denial and all the things. We need thick relationships of loving bonds if we're ever going to be able to speak truth to one another. So we've got to build those.

Fourth, grace must be given and received. Some of us find it easy to give grace to others and struggle to receive grace from others. You've got to learn to let other people love you. Grace must be received. It's part of the equation. We need grace to give and to be received.

Fifth, distance is dangerous, proximity is powerful. Friends, the only way you build relationships is you get up close and over time with people. That's the only way you build those relationships. You can only do it up close. Relational distance is dangerous. Proximity is powerful.

Lastly, we need each other more than we realize. There is grace that Jesus intends to give to you through people sitting right next to you if you will open up and let them in. We need each other more than we realize. Because God grows us by grace through one another. Unity, diversity, and maturity.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're so glad you joined us today and today we're considering how our unity actually brings us to maturity. Great sermon today, Pastor. Thank you. Speaking the truth in love and maturity. Help me make the connection there. Do you have an example or a story you can share with us, something real life?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, let me just share something from my own life. When I was in seminary, I was just starting to speak and do sermons and whatever. I grew up in a home that was kind of sarcastic and we would rib each other and give each other a hard time a lot of times. From that I kind of learned to razz people with my humor. A good friend of mine that had known me for a long time one time said, "You know, a lot of times your humor is at the expense of other people."

At first I was kind of offended. "What, are you kidding me? Why?" That hurt. But because of the thickness of the relationship, because I knew this person cared for me, was for me, was not against me, there was enough love in that bond. It was strong enough to handle a rebuke, a critique, feedback that was uncomfortable, that made me bristle.

He was right. Sometimes my humor was at other people's expenses. I was putting people down or I was saying things that just had enough edge or enough truth that it was like, you're actually bothering people. It's not just funny. Everyone laughs, but it's a little caustic. It's not loving. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that feedback.

So it's an example of truth and love together being the formula. The truth by itself might have been too harsh to hear, but the durable bond of love made it bearable. The love by itself, if he had never said anything, I wouldn't have grown. It was the combination of the love and the truth together that actually gave me the feedback I needed to see my blind spot, to recognize my unintentional wounding of other people, and that I was actually being unkind in my humor.

So then I take that, I receive it, I go, "Okay, what does love require? How do I respond? What would Christ do?" And then in humility start working on it because now I see it. I can shift and my humor can be more self-deprecating than aimed at other people or whatever. It's just a little example. I don't know how powerful that is, but it's honest and I think that's the kind of thing the body of Christ can do with these thick relationships and loving bonds. It gives us the safe place with durable strength that allows us to give feedback in ways that are meaningful so that we can actually receive them.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: That's a great illustration. But let me ask you: did your friendship continue to grow?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. Well, Proverbs says the wounds of a friend can be trusted. And here's the thing: that friend is even more precious to me to this day because I know this person actually cares enough to help me grow.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Great illustration. In the sermon you gave us a laundry list. You gave us six crucial implications here. If you had to pick one, could you do that? Is there one that you think is the most critical one that you want us to take away today, or you got something else?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, just a reminder those six things are that transformation is not a solo sport, content will never be enough, we need thick relationships, grace must be given and received, distance is dangerous, proximity in contrast is powerful, and we need each other more than we realize.

I think if you take all six of those as a cluster, the very center of it is this difference between independence and interdependence. We are Americans. We have an independent streak. We think, "I got this. I don't need anybody." But the body of Christ, the vision that Jesus has for his church is one of interdependency where we're giving and receiving grace and giving and receiving truth in relationships.

I think that's the hardest thing for us. I think the tide forces of culture are always pushing us away from interdependence toward independence. Everything's about independence. I want to have independent wealth, independent house, independent life. I want to be able to do whatever I want. The tide is moving away from interdependence and so we've got to swim hard toward the thing that Jesus wants, which is this interdependent kind of life where we are giving and receiving grace on a regular basis in a community that is pursuing Jesus. That's not a normal thing. It takes a lot of effort.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: That circle, so to speak, of grace. There's a time we're ministered to and a time we receive, and we receive and we minister to others.

Pastor Philip Miller: That's right.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: We pray over this program and our hope is that people will be encouraged. They'll be encouraged in their walk with Christ, that they'll come to know him and serve him and love him. But if I were going to ask you, and for our listeners, anyone listening to this program, how does that go beyond just their solitary understanding? How does that help the community, so to speak?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, that's kind of the danger, I think, with Christian books or Christian radio or Christian media or programs. There are great resources out there, but I think what we can forget is that we need an embodied relational growing environment of the church to actually transform.

It's great to supplement with all these resources we have in our Christian world. That's amazing, these resources that we have. But unless we're living it out in relational bonds, we're not going to grow the way God wants us to grow. That's the danger.

My prayer for all of our listeners is that they would not only metabolize the resources that they're getting through this program, but that they would also enmesh themselves into thick relationships in the Christian communities around them where they live. We all need to be a part of a local church. That's not easy, but that's where the transformation's going to happen.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Stay there for a minute. Thick relationships. How do I... maybe somebody says, "You know what? I'm just overwhelmed with keeping up with the day-to-day of my life and this just seems to be adding another component to that." How do I do that? How do I really cultivate and navigate these thick relationships that you're talking about?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, sociologists are talking about this. We have a loneliness epidemic in our country and we're losing our ability for relational bonds and connection. There are all kinds of reasons for that, but that's not a good reason to stop trying.

I would say my best advice would be to just begin with the relational connections you already have. Start building on those. You have more people in your life than you realize. There are neighbors that you see. Maybe you live in a building and there are people you walk by, you see them in the hallway or the elevator. Or maybe you live on a street and there are people next door.

I think slowing down enough to get to know people, to have real conversations, to ask questions about them, to be curious about their life, to make relational overtures to the web of relationships you already have. Even if you're a shut-in or you have medical problems, you have a nurse or somebody that's coming to see you and you can quickly turn that from a transactional relationship into a relational one and find out about their life.

You can build relationships in lots of little ways. The most important ones for transformation into the image of Christ are going to be people who are following Jesus. If you think of the people in your life, there are a couple of them, I'm sure. There are a couple people in your life that are also following Jesus. Why don't you just talk about the Lord together? Talk about what he's doing in your life, talk about where he's convicting you, talk about what you find beautiful about who he is. Talk about things that are encouraging you in your faith. Just opening those kinds of conversations can be very catalytic. Just start in small ways, small steps to make thicker bonds of the relationships that you already have.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Wow, we've come full circle. Speaking the truth, I need people in my life, I need friendships. I'd like you to be involved, that certainly can help with that and in developing thicker relationships that you're talking about. I'm so glad for our discussion today.

If you'd like to grow in maturity, we have a resource for you, one that I really believe will be a blessing to you. If we're going to be honest, let's face it: we all have encountered thorns in the flesh, whether it's a chronic illness, a difficult relationship, or maybe it's a deep struggle you've pleaded with God to remove. Remember, Paul asked three times to remove his thorn and God said no. But God gave him a powerful substitution: grace.

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Thanks for joining us for Living Hope, where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.