Title: Mature Christian / Ephesians 4:13-25
If you look at the youth these days, they look big on the outside, but there are many poor constructions on the inside. It is said that 5% of large young men go to the military and receive psychiatric treatment because they cannot endure it.
In the United States, there are many kidults because they are adults, and there are many mamaboys in our country who live with the help of their parents despite the age of 30.
A characteristic of modern people is dependence. So you can't do anything by yourself. You have to get help from your parents and you may have to depend on someone else. So, it is said that among marriages these days, 27% of all marriages are with women who are statistically older.
Another is materialism. Everything is material centric. There's nothing you can't do if it makes money. Recently, statistics came out that young people who earn an average of 880,000 a month spend more than 80% of their income on eating, drinking and playing.
This is because the body has grown, but the mind is immature.
Compared to the past, people these days have grown in appearance, but there are many cases where they are immature because there is no internal maturity.
What is growth and what is maturity?
Now, rice is growing in the field and it is in full bloom.
It is the growth of rice that is tall and has lush leaves. But it is maturity to bear fruit and bow down as the fruit is ripe.
No matter how much it grows, if it does not bear fruit, only leaves will grow and become tall rice.
However, at least on the scale, it is because of maturity that they bow their heads until the ears of grain are plentiful and the harvest is harvested.
As verse 14 says, we must not become children, but mature believers. Then you will not be succumbed to temptation, and you will not be carried away by vain lessons.
So how mature should we be?
Today we are talking about verse 13.
13) And we will all become one in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, until we become a perfect man, to the stature of the stature of the stature of Christ.
This verse is saying that our maturity should be 'to the full extent of the stature of Christ'.
What, then, is the maturity that leads to the full measure of the maturity of Christ?
1. Let's do the truth in love (15,16)
Verse 15 says, “But speaking the truth in love, you may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, which is Christ.”
The truth here is the truth.
To do the truth in love is a life of companionship of love and truth.
Truth without love is like a strict, well-informed principle with no leeway, no mercy, no grace.
Love without truth is indulgence.
Love and truth are companions. These two must go hand in hand. The Lord of truth was love. The Lord of Love was the truth.
2 John 1:3 says, "Grace and mercy and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son of the Father be with us in truth and love."
He said that we will be together in the truth and love that comes from Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father.
Grace and peace are things that we must share with us in truth and love.
Without love and truth, neither grace nor peace is perfect.
The same is true when parents discipline their children.
If you force only the truth without love, there is only rigor without forgiveness and mercy, and you make a rebel.
Also, if you raise a child only with love without truth, that child will become a prodigal child who knows neither law nor order.
I hope that the true things that we are living in will become mature lives that combine love and truth.
2. Do not act in the vanity of your heart (17-20)
This is called the emptiness of the heart.
The mind refers to the mind, reason, and thoughts.
Vanity refers to vainness and folly without purpose.
Therefore, today's believers are coming too close to shamanism and shamanism, which must be seen and touched without a clear sense of purpose.
97.3% of the water distributed on Earth is seawater and therefore undrinkable. Of the remaining 2.7% of drinkable water, more than three-quarters are in Antarctica and the Arctic. Most of the remaining one-quarter of that 2.7% is preserved as moisture deep underground.
For this reason, only 0.36% of all water on this planet is drinkable by humans, and even then, it is decreasing year by year due to pollution.
In a nutshell, not all water is drinkable. Even if it rains a lot and the whole is a sea of water, there is no more water to drink.
If this is the kind of water that can satisfy the thirst of the body, it goes without saying much more about living water that quenches the thirst of the soul.
People do not spare much investment and effort to drink the undrinkable water.
In order to obtain that undrinkable water, they have sold their conscience and responsibility and are pursuing vain things.
"Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water."
I hope you do not act in the vain of your heart, but live in truth.
3. Put on a new person (21-25)
There are many people who are concerned about the level of ethical awareness in the Korean church these days. The question is, what makes the Korean church ethically better than the rest of the world? Those who say they believe in Jesus but do not believe in Him, those who go to church instead of going to church, now we all have to put on a new person.
In verses 21-25 of this text, we are told to put off the old man of the decaying old habits, and be renewed in the heart, and put on the new man in righteousness and holiness of truth.
What is the old man following the decaying old customs?
It is a message to give up and stay away from the same behaviors and habits as children in the past.
And righteousness and holiness of truth are attributes of God.
Righteousness is the right attitude in life, and holiness is holiness.
We must live as God's people with the right attitude and holiness of life.
Even though we say we believe, how many times have we not yet put off our old self and practiced our old customs depending on the time and place?
I hope that you will be able to live a holy life separated from the right attitude.
May we all be used as more mature Christians for the Lord and for this time.