Growing Together: Maturity in the Body of Christ

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So the risen Christ gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints—that's all of us. The shepherds and teachers equip all of us for the work of the ministry to one another and to the world, but especially to one another because it's for the building up of the body of Christ. [00:34:48]

The aim of the ministry is for the building up of the body of Christ—that's the totality of Christians, conceived of with Christ as our head, as we saw back in chapter 1 verses 22 and 23, which we'll look at in a minute, and ourselves as his body on the earth, of one piece. We're grafted into him and we are of one body. [00:28:40]

We are to seek the expression of that oneness in unity, faith, and knowledge until this happens. There is a mature man. I put this in Greek here because andra is male. It's not anthropos, uh, human; it's male. It's pictured as a mature male, and that might be because the mature male in Greek culture was the paragon of completeness in beauty and strength. [00:33:19]

Paul uses the metaphor of growing from childhood to adulthood to illustrate the church's journey towards perfection. This maturity involves moving beyond individualistic thinking to a corporate mindset, where the church collectively reflects the fullness of Christ. [00:43:12]

The fullness of Christ is seen in two ways: the fullness of His deity and the fullness of His body, the church. As the church matures, it becomes the expression of Christ's divine rule and influence in the universe. [00:47:36]

Each believer is called to strive for personal maturity, contributing to the corporate maturity of the church. Although perfection will only be achieved when Christ returns, the pursuit of unity, faith, and knowledge is essential for the church to embody the fullness of Christ in the world. [00:55:12]

The way we become the mature man, the complete body of Christ, is that each individual child grows up to be more mature in Christ. That's what I'm getting at. This is a corporate term for Paul, and yet followed by this individualization of the corporate term makes me say never think that when a corporate term is used that Paul has lost sight of the individual impact upon the people in the corporate reality. [00:56:40]

Christ has a fullness about him, and it's spoken of in two ways in Paul, isn't it? So here's one: in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, so we can't help but think fullness of Christ is fullness of his deity. And yet here's another way it's spoken of back in chapter 1 of Ephesians. [00:59:59]

His divine rule in all the universe would be expressed through the church, Christ's radiant influence in the universe, and his extending his rule, his judgment, and his control over all things would be expressed through his fullness, the church, and that stature, the stature of that kind of fullness, divine fullness, and the fullness of the body is the measure we are to attain to. [01:03:20]

Let us aim individually not to be children any longer, but to grow up into maturity as a part of this mature man through this teaching, through this ministry, through this faith, through this knowledge. Let us no longer be children, and as that happens to more and more of us, the mark of mature children would be that they don't just think individually anymore. [01:05:11]

God means for his Son to be known in his fullness through the fullness and beauty and completeness of the corporate reality of the church. We won't attain it perfectly until he comes, but oh how we should seek to attain it as much as possible in unity, in faith, in knowledge. [01:08:55]

The call is for each believer to strive for personal maturity, contributing to the corporate maturity of the church. This involves moving beyond individualistic thinking to a corporate mindset, where the church collectively reflects the fullness of Christ. [01:10:15]

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