Title Ephesians 04:13-15 Achieve spiritual maturity
Contents Main text: Ephesians 4:13-15
Subject: Becoming Spiritual1y mature
“And we will all become one in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, until we reach the full measure of the stature of the stature of Christ, for we will no longer be children, lest he be lost and tossed and tossed by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, you may grow up into him, who is the head, even Christ!" (Ephesians 4:13-15)
I ask my children this question from time to time. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Children's answers to these questions change slightly with age. At the age of 5 or 6, I become a veterinarian at the zoo and take care of the animals. The youngest in our family will be a kindergarten teacher. When you ask boys these questions, they get a variety of answers, including firefighters, police officers, and famous athletes like Park Chan-ho.
People's goals vary according to circumstances and circumstances. For those who are about to graduate from college, the best goal is to find a good job and have a stable life. The top goal of a 50-something salaried worker these days is to not get fired or lose a job through restructuring. For a virgin who has lost marriage, the best goal is to find a good groom and marry him.
As such, everyone has their own goals. What are your personal goals? Does God have a goal for each of us individually? What common goal is there for all believers and for the church? What is our church's goal?
All saints and churches have one goal in common. It is becoming like Christ. In Romans 8:29, God's Word is emphasized like this: "God chose those whom he foreknew and foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son." In other words, God declared the goal that He wants all believers to become more like Jesus Christ, the Son of God. To become like Jesus Christ means 'spiritual mature'.
This text we read today shows the most characteristic of the Christian spiritual maturity and mature church in the New Testament.
However, when we speak of spiritual maturity, we must first understand that this maturation does not occur 'naturally'. This applies to ordinary people as well as to Christians in the church. Most people those who grow up in healthy families and healthy social environments are generally mature. They mature physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually.
However, this maturity does not apply to everyone. For some people, several factors can prevent their maturation. In other words, if a person who lived for 40 years had mental, emotional and intellectual maturity for only about 5 years, the rest of his life could be considered unhappy.
This is also true in the world of faith. Some Christians may still have a childlike level of faith in Jesus Christ, even after 50 years have passed since their mother's faith. It can't be bad luck. They attend church services every week, but there is no progress in their faith. They do not participate in any training or education for the maturity of their lives. They are not at all interested in their spiritual maturity through prayer life, service life, and devotion life. As a result, in proportion to their age or physical growth, their spiritual growth has long stopped, so there is no spiritual maturity.
Can you say that you are now on the path to maturity? The Christian goal is to mature to the fullness of the fullness of Christ.
unity of faith and knowledge
“Let us all become one in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God” (4:13a)
However, the unity spoken of in today's text is different. That is, believing in the Son of God and knowing the Son must be in unity. This does not happen automatically.
"Belief in the Son of God" means faith in 'confessional faith' in Jesus Christ as Savior through the grace of the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is a faith that believes and relies on Jesus as the Son and Savior of God by making voluntarily personal decisions.
And 'knowing the Son of God' means realizing the attributes, will, and teachings of Jesus Christ through experience in our daily lives, that is, experimental knowledge. Such empirical knowledge cannot be obtained through books. It's not even the knowledge in your head. Knowledge gained through the experiential life of an obedient Christian If believing in Christ requires a willful decision, knowing Christ is based on empirical knowledge.
Such experiential knowledge cannot be obtained without directly intervening in the work of Jesus Christ. For example, Park Chan-ho cannot build his skills by not participating in the game himself but sitting in the player waiting room and watching and criticizing other players' games. You need to have a lot of experience in meeting strong batters and competing directly with them. Only after experiencing so many different players can he lead the game in the direction he wants to go.
In the same way, if you do not use the gifts God has given you in your ministry, but keep them as they are (without experiencing ministry in your life and gaining knowledge), your faith is still at the level of a child. Jesus invites all of you into the arena of his ministry. In the field of the ministry of Jesus Christ, you will experience many things and how important it is to believe and know Jesus Christ for Christian maturity.
unshakable stability of faith
Little children are cute and adorable. However, young children have many limitations. One of the most important limitations, especially for young children, is the lack of stability. Cry easily, laugh easily. If you are interested in this and another appears, you throw it away and you like the new one. The limitations of these young children mean their weakness. It is a natural result of not having strong self-beliefs or beliefs.
However, even among Christians, like children, I often see people whose faith life is shaken up and down because of a lack of firm belief in what they believe or the knowledge gained from experience. If the business goes well, it seems that you have received a lot of God's grace, so even if you are working hard in your faith, your business will be sluggish. At one time, I was directly involved in various ministries of the church and helped, but when I had to make some money, I threw away all the church work and cut off church service, such as when I was serving.
Every time a new Bible study comes out, I register diligently, but there are people who study steadily until the end and do not complete anything. Others, whenever there is a conflict within the church, stand on the other side of the road and intervene deeply, and then leave the church because there is no place to sit properly.
In this way, it is difficult for those who do not hold fast to the truth of Jesus Christ that they have experienced and who move from place to place because of itching of their ears to have mature faith. Those who have faith in their mother's womb and have lived in faith for a long time in a church have considerable stability in their faith in this respect. .
'Trickery of men' means 'cunning trickery', and 'craftiness in deceitful scheming' means 'cunning tricks of man'. Both of these words refer to the techniques that gamblers use to deceive their opponents. Even today, heretics do not hesitate to deceive people to extort money and destroy their bodies and families.
In general, those who are prone to heresy or who are persuaded by false teachings are those who are generally unstable at home, economically, and spiritually or mentally. Satan's teachings always seem plausible. Satan deceives that you can get something easily.
But things that are easy to gain are easily lost, so with a restless soul or a shaky life, you cannot see continued maturity. The only stability and maturity of unshakable faith is a life of obedience to the truth of Jesus Christ.
Jesus emphasized that in order for a believer's house to be as strong as a house built on a rock, "Do not call on your name while saying, "Lord, Lord," but put your words into action (Luke 6:46). In other words, the way to live a life of obedience to believe only the teachings of the Lord and to put them into action is the secret to not being swayed by the winds of the teachings of the world without paying attention to these and other lessons.
speaking the truth in love
The meeting of love and truth is the last path to maturity.
Truth without love is harsh, critical, legal, and unforgiving. That truth can be right, but it can be dead right. Truth without love only produces Pharisaic self-righteousness. Therefore, simply speaking the truth is not a sign of maturity.
Love without truth treats sin so easily and trivially that it is taken lightly. This, too, is not a sign of maturity.
But when truth and love become one, there is a balanced concern for the other, while at the same time solidifying what is best for that other. When love becomes one with the truth, there is not simply any emotion, but God's supreme concern for the individual. So, love and truth are always in partnership, and there can be no love apart from the truth, and there can be no doing the truth that is not in love.
Therefore, when giving advice or exhortation to someone, you must convey the Word of God and the teachings of truth based on your love for the other person. Therefore, if there is a possibility that emotions are intense or self-judgment is clouded, you should be patient and wait. Being able to speak the truth in love is a beautiful aspect of a mature Christian.
The unity of faith and knowledge, the unshakable stability of faith, and the ability to speak the truth in love are the mature attitudes that Christians can take to the path of Jesus Christ. We cannot run down this mature road all at once. This road is a spiritual journey that you must go on with a joyful heart. A happy ending to a trip requires a happy heart in every moment. If we prayerfully continue this journey of joy, we will eventually attain full spiritual maturity at the end of this spiritual journey.
Spiritual Maturity In Spiritual Journey!