No Longer Tossed -- Sunday, March 21st

This morning we continued our study of Ephesians by reading chapter 4 verses 1 through 16. In the frist three verses we talked about being called and need to live a worthy life. That worthy life is to be a humble life, a gentle life, a patient life, a loving life, and a united life. Verses 4-6 tell us that we are part of one body, we have one Spirit, we have one hope, we have one Lord, we have one faith, we have one baptism, and we have one God the Father. Verses 7-10 talks about Jesus ascending into heaven after he had descended to the earth. He also gave us grace proportianally in order to make us all on equal footing spiritually.

Verses 11-16 finish it all off and was the focus of our morning. It starts by telling us that God has appointed some to be apostles (church planters/evangelists/missionaries), some as prophets (those who speak from God), some as pastors (those who take care of a congregation), and some as teachers (those who teach the bible). Why? He did it to prepare God's people. He wanted to prepare his people to do the following: #1. Works of service, #2. Build up the body of Christ, #3. Reach unity in faith and knowledge, #4. Become mature, #5. Attain the whole measure of fullness of Christ, #6. No longer be infants, #7. No longer be tossed back and forth, #8. Speaking the truth in love, #10. Growing up into Christ.

We are like any young kid, we start off by learning the basics, we might not make the connection between the do and do not but we have to learn what the rules are and make it a habit to follow it. It is very basic. As we grow we start to build on those basics and start memorizing things but still the application isn't there, we are still learning. Finally we graduate and become mature, we know the truths, we have habits of following those truths, but we also understand why they are important to do or not do, and finally we start to teach others. We need to grow up and become mature. Learn the truth, apply the truth, live the truth, and share the truth.

I give this morning: A
Favorite moment: Joel trying to move Ben