There is a thought in verse 13 that completes verse 12, the Goal of the Equipping of the Saints. What is the final goal? How do we know when we have reached that goal? We saw in verse 12 that the gifted men God has given to the church are given a task. That task is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and also for the building up of the body of Christ. Now, how do we know when this project is complete?

Verse 13 tells us:

"until we all attain."

That little word "attain" is the Greek word katantao. It is used nine times in the book of Acts of a traveler who takes a journey and arrives at his destination. When you are equipped as saints, when the gifted members of the body are taught by the gifted men given to the body, and the body is equipped for the work of the ministry, you can know when you have reached the goal of all of that equipping. Paul is about to tell us what the goal is in the equipping and the building up of the body of Christ.

I am reminded of 1 Peter 4:10. It’s speaking in the context of spiritual gifts, about grace:

"As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."

The word "manifold," poikilos, means multi-colored grace of God. It is almost like God is the master artist. He takes individual believers and gives them a different colored grace. He gives them a gift that fits into the body of Christ. If you put all those colors up on a board, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. But when you begin to get believers equipped with the Word of God and believers who are functioning under the control of the Holy Spirit of God, all of a sudden all those different colored graces, all the different gifts, begin to blend. What you begin to see is not individuals with gifts; you begin to see the Lord Jesus Christ visibly made manifest through His body represented by the believers.

It is so much fun watching people discover their gifts. It takes you a little bit of time to watch the picture come together. But when you begin to see people get under the authority of the Word of God and become filled with the Spirit of God and controlled by the Spirit of God, watch God begin to develop ministries into their lives. You begin to watch them grow up and mature. It is one of the most beautiful things to watch people grow and reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the body being built up and developing so that Christ can visibly be seen in that body.

In Ephesians 2:20 it says we are the household of God, the dwelling of God on this earth. That is why he prayed his prayer, as a matter of fact, in chapter 3:14-21. It’s so we might become filled with the Spirit of God, empowered by the gifts and abilities God has given us, and so that Christ might be made visible in and through our lives.

Well, in verse 13 of our text, the tapestry is now woven and the design clearly seen as to what all of this equipping and building up the body is all about. Look at what it says in verse 13:

"until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ."

Now the goal that we are headed towards, the final end, the destination of all the equipping and the building up of the body of Christ is three-fold. First of all, it is unto the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God. That is number one. Number two, it is unto a mature man, a perfect man. Number three, it is unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. How do you know when the body has reached the point that God?

Remember, we have the universal body of believers, the local body of believers and the individual believers. Keep that in mind as we move through this.

First of all, there is the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God. The ultimate spiritual target for the church begins with the unity of the faith. As in verse 5, the word "faith" here with the definite article, does not refer to one’s belief at salvation (see discussion of "the faith"). It refers to the body of Christian truth. The faith is the gospel in its most complete form. When believers are properly taught and faithfully obeying Christ and allowing His Spirit to minister His gifts through them, then the inevitable result is the unity of the faith.

Let me give you an example of what doesn’t reach that goal. If you have ever studied Scripture and you have studied the church of Corinth, you know that the church of Corinth was one of the biggest problem church in the New Testament. It is a little risky when you get into the book of Corinthians because everything Paul says is to correct an error that is taking place in that church. The church of Corinth is a good example of how disunity (remember, all of this is in preserving the unity of the spirit) occurs when believers are ignorant or disobedient of Scripture.

What were they doing in Corinth? There were several things. One was they were having a meal at the Lord’s Supper. I mean, they thought it was great to bring everything to the church. Instead of understanding what it was all about, they were making a party out of the thing and completely obliterating its biblical meaning. Not only that, they were cursing God and saying they were speaking in other tongues. They were trying to recreate Pentecost at Corinth. The solution that the Apostle Paul gives to them is in 1 Corinthians 1:10:

"Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment."

In other words, it is the doctrine that we adhere to that unifies us. When a person is growing in the Word, when a person is filled with the Spirit of God, the inevitable result of that will be a doctrinal unity, the unity of the faith. We must be united in the faith, in that which we hold to and in that which we believe.

I have never seen a person’s devotion be pure when his doctrine was wrong. We live in America and every time you see something that looks like it is sincere, everybody thinks they must be right. Folks, I am telling you, if people don’t hold to biblical doctrine in the sense and the context of the Christian church, what happens is somewhere down the road you always find where they are not as pure as you thought they were. If a man is not doctrinally right and correct, then his devotion is impure.

If a person’s devotion is pure, his doctrine will be correct. It is a unity of the faith that you come to when you are down on your knees, submitted to the Lordship of Christ, letting His Spirit minister those gifts through your life. There is something about an adherence to a proper doctrine. It is mentioned very precisely in verses 4-6, in the seven that are mentioned there. You begin to draw together in that which a person believes. If you are not doctrinally correct, most of the time you are devotionally impure, even though we may fool other people.

Unity of the faith is something God has to bring together with people who are submitted to His Spirit, understanding what they can’t do and empowered by the Spirit so that their gifts are manifesting Christ and not themselves. There is a doctrinal unity that comes when that kind of thing happens.

You’ve got a lot of people sincerely doing a lot of things, and people mistake that sincerity for proper doctrine with proper devotion. If you’ve got the right devotion, you will have the right doctrine. If you don’t believe it right now, hang on for a while. God will expose the impurities of that devotion somewhere down the road. This kind of unity, which we are striving for, is the goal that the church is headed for. It’s when the church can join hands with the unity of doctrine and understand that it is Jesus being Jesus in us. It is His body. He wants to be made visible in us.

When we join hands in that way, this kind of unity will produce something else. It will produce the knowledge of the Son of God. He didn’t say it will produce greater knowledge of the Word; that is going to be taking place anyway. Not only will you know the Word of God, but you get to the know the God of the Word. It is a beautiful thing. The word "knowledge," epignosis, is the word that means participatory knowledge, full knowledge. In other words, what you have in your head starts sinking down in your heart. There comes that point in a person’s surrender to Christ. That is the ultimate goal of what we are pushing towards. That is when we start growing up. That is when we start becoming what God wants us to be, when we begin to experience Him, not just know about Him. You get to know Him.

Let me ask you a question. Do you know Him? Do you walk with Him? Do you talk with Him? Do you see Him manifest Himself in your life? This is where you are headed. This is what unity of the faith produces. It produces the knowledge of the Son of God. You get to know Him and experience, as Paul said in Philippians 3:10, His power and His resurrection. You experience the fellowship of His sufferings. That is the intimacy that God is drawing us into when we come to that place of surrender to Him and He meets with us and we begin to experience Him on a personal basis. That is when you know it is working. It is not just your gift ministering to somebody. Oh, it is far beyond that. We come into the unity of the faith, and we don’t argue over every Scripture. You see the Scriptures have become strangely inerrant and strangely understandable as we have bowed before the Lordship of Christ. All of a sudden we stand up, join hands and begin to experience the reality of Jesus in our personal lives. Now that is what the goal is. That is the destiny. That is why it is so important to listen to his prayer in chapter 3 when Paul says,

"That we might be strengthened in the inner man with His power like we have never known before."

Look over in Colossians. It is sort of the commentary on Ephesians. You can’t say that in every passage, but it is certainly written from the same place, in the same prison. Paul says almost the same thing in verses 9-12 in another prayer in chapter 1 of Colossians:

"For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

I want to summarize that. That is the Word of God right there. You will never know the Will of God apart from the Word of God. God will give it to you with spiritual understanding. God will give wisdom. Wisdom is the supernatural ability to take something written that long ago and bring it up to date, bring it right into your life and show you practically how it applies.

The word "understanding" means to take all the facts, put them together, draw a line and come to a conclusion that is practical and workable in a person’s life. Now Paul says in Colossians 1:10,

"I am praying for you that you might be filled up with this knowledge so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, [that’s the same phrase we find in Ephesians 4:1] to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."

The word "increasing" means to grow in the knowledge of God. So when a person begins to come to the unity of faith, they are doctrinally holding on and embracing the same Christ, doctrinally holding on and embracing the same philosophy of ministry, doctrinally holding on and embracing that which God has said.

Something else happens. You begin to enter into the unity of that knowledge of the Son of God. When we are all living that way, that is the goal. We are getting closer and closer as we grow. Do you want to talk about having a praise time when we come to church? When we begin to worship Christ and surrender to Him, praise is the overflow. You just celebrate. But if a man has not worshipped and is not living that way, then he is not pushing toward the goal for which we are all supposed to be destined. So the goal is to be united in the faith, a doctrinal unity, but also in that doctrinal unity comes the knowledge of the Son of God. That also continues to unify as we experience His presence together.

Second, it says when we attain to a mature man. That is the goal for all of us. The whole church as the universal body will never attain to it down here. I wish it could, but it won’t. We know that. But one day we will all be changed. God will take care of that. We are pressing towards that goal. The chance is a little bit better with the local body. As individual believers, we can get at least to the point where we begin to enter in to that which he is talking about.

What in the world is a mature man? The word is teleios. It means that which has reached its end, that which is complete, that which is full, that which is lacking in nothing. This really emphasizes something we all need to understand. It emphasizes the continued growth that should ever be the pressing motivation of the believer. How many times have you had the tendency to compare yourself with somebody else in the body of Christ? "Well, Lord, I’ve done pretty good. Look at him. They have a whole lot more information than I have and look how they are doing. I am doing a whole lot better than they are." Friend, it is not a matter of competing with anybody. When we get saved, that is a beginning, not an end. We are to be growing in our faith. We are to be growing up in our faith. There is the word teknon, which means little child. There is the word huios, which means son. We are to grow up and become mature sons of God to the point that we don’t lack anything, to the point we find our completeness in the sufficiency of Christ.

Look at verse 14:

"As a result, we are no longer to be children."

That is the whole thought. We are to grow up. So many people give their testimony and say, "I got saved 30 years ago." That is wonderful! But what is God doing in your life right now? If there has been no growth in 30 years, there was probably no birth 30 years ago because when you get saved you are growing, increasing, growing up to be a mature man. You are growing up to become the son that God wants us all to be. This goal is something that is in front of all of us.

Let me ask you a question.

Are you going forward
or
Are you going backward?

There is a prophecy against Israel and the prophecy says, "Since you have continually disobeyed me, you are no longer going forward, you are now going backward." Has there ever been a time in your life when you loved Jesus more than you love Him right now? Has there ever been a time when you had a quiet time in your Christian walk that you couldn’t wait to get into that you don’t have anymore? Has there ever been a time in your life that you were thrilled at the things God was doing, but you are not thrilled anymore? Well, friend, you are going against the very grain of what Christianity is all about. It is pulling you to grow. You are going backward and not forward. We are to grow from where we are. Christianity is not static. It didn’t happen back here and not effect us. It happened, so therefore, it completely effects us. We are to grow and become a mature person in Christ.

Well, finally the picture is complete in the last statement of verse 13:

"until we all attain...to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ."

God’s great design for the church is that every member of the body of Christ be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ. That is our goal. That is where we are headed. While we are down here in the quarry, God wants us to be growing that way. As I learn to be strengthened in the inner man, as I learn to obey God’s will in my life, God is doing a transforming work in my heart. I get to know Christ. I get to walk with Christ, but I am moving towards something. I am being moved to the point that I am filled to the fulness of Christ. I begin to measure at some point. That is the goal, the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Romans 8:29 says that...

"...whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren"

He has predestined us to become conformed into the image of His Son. Since the church is the presence of Christ in the world today, the goal is that we, the members of His body, come to the place that we are so filled with the fulness of Christ that we radiate Him everywhere we go. When we walk into a restaurant, when we get on a plane, when we are in a gas station, wherever we are, just radiate the person of Christ, filled up to the fulness of Christ. Christ is now manifesting Himself in our life.

First John 2:6 tells us that we ought to walk as He walked.

"the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked."

How did He walk? He walked in total submission to His Father. As Christ was to the Father, we are to be to Christ. As the Father was to Jesus, manifesting Himself, so Jesus will become to us. We reach the point where we are completely dominated by Christ. What fills us, remember, controls us. When others look at us and see Him in us, then we are reaching that goal that is ahead of us, the destiny of the fulness of Christ, the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.

The bottom line in this passage is, we need each other to get there. That is why the gifts are given. No man gets there on his own. That is why the gifted men are given. We need to join hands united in faith, united in the knowledge of the Son of God, coming to a mature man. Then all of us can rise up, and when the world looks at us it will not see us, but Christ. We desperately need each other. If you are not living in the gift that God has given you and you are not ministering in that gift, we are being short-changed for the whole body to reach the stature of the fulness of Christ.

What is the unity of the Spirit? The unity of the Spirit is that which the Spirit alone produces. We preserve it. We don’t produce it. He is the ligament that holds us together. As I begin to let His gift in me function, then I am reaching out to you and you are reaching to me. We are reaching out to each other through the unique gifts that God has given you and me. After a while, we have come to that unity of faith. Then we begin to experience Christ together like never before. Then we see the progression and begin to mature and grow up to the stature of the fulness of Christ. That is the goal. We need each other to get there.

Turn to Ephesians 4:14. There are certain characteristics about people who are mature in Jesus, who are surrendered to the Word. People who die daily to self, are obedient to what God says, and are walking by faith, experience the living presence of the fullness of Christ.

You see, spiritual children are those who have stayed too close to where they got in. For that reason, they are helpless and not stable when it comes to the whims of false doctrine that are around them. That first phrase, "tossed here and there by waves," has an idea attached to it. Ephesus was a seaport city, so these people would understand what Paul was talking about. He is using terms that anybody would understand if they had ever been around the water.

Once I was on the coast in Cape Town, South Africa. I stood in my room and looked out at two people who were trying to walk into the water. Now that was odd because the water was cold. I couldn’t understand why they would want to get into the water. They walked down into the water. The waves were as big as I had ever seen them. I kept thinking, "I wonder if they are going to be able to stand up when those waves come crashing in." They couldn’t. It knocked one of them down and the other one was knocked off balance. He reached to grab the other person. The sand underneath them was shifting and there was nothing stable to stand on. The waves were coming in and crashing all around them, and they were tossed this way and that way.

A person who is not being equipped has misunderstood the whole process. They don’t understand the gifted men, and they don’t understand the gifts in the body. They don’t understand how the Word is to lead them to Jesus, building their faith and their knowledge of Him. These people are very unstable. They have nothing to stand on when the waves of false doctrine come crashing into their lives.

When you find believers who either through the fact that a pastor has not done what God has assigned him to do or he has been unwilling to be equipped in the Word, that individual becomes very unstable and is standing on shifting sand. He is a target for every wave of false doctrine that comes his way.

One of the first characteristics of a person growing up in Christ is that he is mature doctrinally. He is stable doctrinally. He knows what the Word of God says and he is not moved by every whim and fancy that comes his way.

Then Paul uses another term that really shows again the instability of an individual who is not mature in Christ. He says, "and carried about by every wind of doctrine." Now here the picture changes. Whereas in one instance the wave is tossing him here and tossing him there, now it is the wind and the wind is carrying him wherever it wants him to go. The picture I get in my mind is of a ship, like in James when it talks about the winds of doctrine carrying a ship the way it wants to take it. The only way a ship can be blown off course is when it has a broken rudder or no rudder at all. It is the rudder that steers the ship. But when something is wrong with that rudder, it has no path, no course, and whatever direction the winds blow, it will go that way. The winds will pick it up and carry it as if it has no will of its own.

That is a tragic picture of an infant in Christ. It is a tragic picture of some people who will not be equipped. They will not die to self. They continually let the Word stay out of their lives and they are unstable. They are on shifting sand. The apostle Paul had already warned the Ephesians of false doctrine. This is something that has just sort of caught my attention. Remember before he ever went to Jerusalem? This was five or six years before the writing of the book of Ephesians. Before he ever went to Jerusalem, where all the trouble started, he called to himself ,on the island of Miletus, the elders of the church of Ephesus. Remember the problem? He was trying to tell them, "Guys, I am warning you. False teachers are coming your way." The only way to combat false doctrine is when you are growing in your faith and growing in your knowledge of the Son of God. As you are obeying and surrendering to Him in the Word, in the Word, in the Word, under the Word and the Word is getting into you, then you are stable. You know what you believe. You know what the scriptures have to say.

Look over at Acts 20 and let’s look at when Paul warned the Ephesian elders about what was about to happen in their midst. In Acts 20:28-31 Paul was really burdened. He loved these people. He knew if he stopped at Ephesus, he would stay too long because he was hurrying to get to Jerusalem, so he called them down to where he was on the island of Miletus. In Acts 20:28 Paul says:

"Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."

The Word, the Word, the Word

How do you shepherd? You guide. You graze. You guard the sheep. How do you do that? The Word of God accomplishes all three. You guide them with the Word. You guard them with the Word. You graze them in the Word. The Word, the Word, the Word. That is the task of gifted men. To equip the saints so they can grow into maturity.

Continuing in Acts 20:29 Paul says:

"I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock."

The word "savage" there is the word barus, which means burdensome in the context. In other words, there are going to be people who come along and add law to grace. Paul is saying, "Oh, man, guard yourself! False teachers are going to come in." By the way, he mentions not one wolf but wolves plural which is important. Did you know wolves do not travel by themselves? They travel in packs. Paul is saying in verse 29, "They will come in among you."

In Acts 20:30 Paul says,

"and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them."

He shows you the wolves are men, and the men are false teachers. Then he shows you that they are already around you. Wolves will lie in wait for a prey sometimes for three days and never move, never eat, never do anything until they can find the precise moment to move. They always pick the weak. They always pick the easy, the young and the tender. They love to prey upon them. Paul says, "Listen, guard the doctrine. Guard the doctrine. Make sure you equip the saints. Make sure they grow up and become mature. Make sure they are going to become doctrinally stable because false wolves are going to make their move on the little flock God has given to you."

I was studying this and the thought really hit me. Do you realize right here in your congregation there are possibly some wolves you don’t know about? Paul says they are already among you. He said they are going to come in on you, but he also said they are going to come out from among you. This is exactly what Simon Peter says over in his epistle. They are already here. They are the people who are not growing in the Word, who are not up under the teaching of the Word, and are not willing to obey. Their faith, their knowledge of God is non-existent. They live as if they can do it themselves. They cry out to God when they have a problem in their family. They cry out to God when there is a financial crunch. But they don’t live daily, moment by moment, confessing flesh, realizing what they can’t but what God can do in and through their lives. They are in every congregation in the world. They are planted there. They are where you are. Be careful if you are not growing in Christ and mature. You cannot spot them and you become easy prey for savage wolves to carry you off and to throw you here and to throw you there by every wind of doctrine.

In Ephesians 4:14, Paul not only tells you the two characteristics of children, which show how unstable they are and what a target they are for false doctrine, but he shows you the tactics the false teachers are going to use on them. I want you to see them because they are so camouflaged. If you are not growing in Christ, you can’t spot them. Let me show you.

First of all he says, "by the trickery of men." The word "trickery" there is the word for cube. Actually it refers to dice. He has in mind the deception that a gambler uses to cheat you out of what is rightfully yours. That is exactly what a false teacher does. They are good, folks. They know what they are doing. They know what pleases flesh. They know what you want to hear and they will say it and say it and say it and say until they lure you into the trap of cheating you out of your victory in your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact in 2 Peter 2:1-3, Peter talks about the trickery of men and how they deceive you.

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves."

They are not going to do it in the open. They are smarter than that. They know how to do it. If you are reading this, we already know your tactic. You are going to introduce it secretly. You are going to say 80% of what everybody else is saying. You are going to take the 20% that is error, lay it side by side, and win the people with your personality. When they are not looking, you are going to pick up the error and because they like you, they are going to think it is truth. They secretly introduce destructive heresy. Oh, they are out front. They know very well the spiritually mature can spot them. They come in secretly.

It scares me all the time. I think if I have any fear it is the fear of false doctrine getting into our church body. I think nothing else really bothers me as much as that one thing right there.  goes on to say,

"even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves."

Now these are deceptive teachers, not deceived Christian teachers. They are deceptive people. They don’t know Christ.

It goes on in verse 2,

"And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed, they will exploit with false words."

The word for "false words" there is the word we get the word "plastic" from.

The second thing he says about their tactic in Ephesians 4:14 is,

"by craftiness in deceitful scheming."

That word "craftiness" is a word that could be translated "subtlety." These people are subtle, folks. You don’t spot them right off. They can come in among you and you will not even know it for months. They are subtle. They know what they are doing. 2 Corinthians 11:3 uses the same word to describe the devil when he approached Eve as a serpent in the garden in Genesis 2 and 3. Paul writes...

"But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:3)

Remember what he did to Eve? The serpent got Eve's focus on what he was saying rather than what God had said. He got her confused and as a result of that, the fall of all men came. It is the same exact word. It is the word used in Luke 20 when the enemies of Jesus tried to trap Him in a plot by asking Him a leading question.

22 "Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" 23 But He detected their trickery and said to them, 24 "Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?" And they said, "Caesar's." 25 And He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

They were hoping He would say no and they could trap Him. But Jesus realized it was a scheme. He realized it was a method to try to get Him to fall.

"Deceitful scheming" has the meaning of those who lie in wait to deceive with that which is false. The word "scheming" there in verse 14 is the word methodeia, which is where we get the word "methods" from. It is the same word used in Ephesians 6:11 when it says

"Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil."

This is the word we need to become acquainted with. The devil has his schemes. He has his ways. He has his methods. Many people ask, "How in the world can the church be so divided today?" Have you ever asked that question. You can go to six churches and hear six different things. I think it all goes back to properly equipping people in the Word of God, with a relationship to Christ, dying daily to sin and understanding that faith and knowledge must work together to bring a person into maturity in Christ. As a result, since they haven’t been taught, false doctrine easily finds its way to prey on the immature.

Folks, what I am trying to tell you is, if you are not growing and being equipped in the Word of God, if your walk with God is not one of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, if you are not growing into maturity, you are dead.

I want to tell you something. There are people who are enemies of the cross of Jesus. There are people sitting among us. There are people who will not get up under the Lordship of Jesus and for that reason, they have become targets for all the deception you can think of. Talk about confused minds when it comes to the Word of God! The mature in Christ are doctrinally stable.

I want to tell you something, friend, if you are not growing and being equipped in the Word of God and your gifts are useable in the function of the building up of the body of Christ, you’ve probably already been suckered by false doctrine. I Corinthians 2 says the spiritual man examines all things by the Word of God. If you don’t know it, you can’t examine it. You have to become doctrinally stable when you become mature in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is making a contrast. He wants us to understand the difference between the mature in Christ and the immature in Christ. They are all believers, all children of God. Some have stayed in the nursery and some are growing up.

When you grow into Him, it is not you anymore. What fills Him fills you, and it is Christ being seen in your life. It is not just knowing the Word of God. If you will remember correctly, the church of Ephesus was warned of false doctrine. Did they heed the warning? Yes, sir, they did. In Revelation 2 he wrote another letter to them through the Apostle John and what did he tell them? You are doctrinally straight. But what was their problem? They had left their first love. Isn’t it incredible? You can be doctrinally stable and still be doctrinally insensitive. If you are not letting truth change your life, confirm it, express it by everything you do, and "truth it in love," then you are not growing into Christ. If you are not growing into Christ, when people see you they see you, they don’t see Him. But by growing into Christ, people begin to see the Christ that lives in our life.

People who are maturing in Christ are distinctively different. They are contrasted to people who are not growing into Christ. Oh, it is a big difference.

There has been a principle around since the beginning of time, as we know it. That principle is, when you have the whole made up of many parts, each part influences that whole. That is a principle that we all have known in life. When you have a football team, every player has to play to his best ability. He has to fully, properly function or the team will not win or do as it should.

I have always wondered where the local church fits into the whole body of believers. You know there were local churches, Philippi and Ephesus. How did they fit? Well, since the joint has many bones in it and in order to function correctly, all of them have to be functioning properly, maybe there is a subtle thought here that every local church has to be functioning like a church ought to function. If it doesn’t, then it has rendered the whole body useless as far as its maturing and its growing into the stature of the fullness of Christ.

If that is the case, and I don’t know if it is or not, what a challenge to us. We need to be