Becoming a Better Facility

Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. And verse, we'll just go to 2 and I'll direct you to verse 10 in a moment. We have, this has been an exciting year of ministry, for, for me and I think for the staff and the, the elders.

we've just been on an ongoing journey over the years trying to figure out how to, how to do church better, how to do pastoring and eldering better, how we as a church can, just come closer and closer to the model of what we see painted. On the pages of the New Testament. And at this point, we have more questions than we have answers, but God is working and, and I'm really excited to be a part of, of this process of seeing all that God has for us as a church. And some of these things that we're learning along the way, I want to share with you this morning and a little bit, tonight in our evening service, we'll be having our annual Meeting, a semiannual meeting.

We would encourage all of you to come, and just hear a little more about what God is teaching us. we are a learning church here at Cornerstone and, still have a lot to learn, but God has been gracious to teach us what he's taught us thus far. If you want to give a title to the message, this morning, it would be Becoming a Better Facility. Becoming A better facility.

that might sound odd to you because I think most of us when we think of a facility, we think of a building or a restroom or something, outside of ourselves. But if you think about technically what the word facility means, it gives you, I think, a more accurate perspective on the concept of facility. Facility According to one dictionary, is anything created to serve a particular function. So that could be a building, but it could be a tool.

It's anything that is fashioned and created in order to serve a particular function. Based on that, you are a facility. You can, I'm sure none of you woke up this morning and looked at yourself in the mirror and said, I, by the grace of God, am a facility of God. But you can say that tomorrow morning.

Feel free to say that I am a facility of God. I've been created by God and I have been fashioned by God. I've been saved by God in order to serve a particular function. This is affirmed in passages like Ephesians 2:10 where Paul says we are his workmanship.

We are God's craftsmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them. So we have been created and saved and are daily being fashioned by God for a purpose, and that is to to do works that he has prepared beforehand for us to walk in. But if you're still stuck on thinking of facility as a building of some sort, then let's go there. Technically, We learn in the New Testament that our bodies are facilities of the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 6:19, the apostle Paul tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. So our body is a facility that houses the presence of the Holy Spirit. It in a unique way. And then in 1 Corinthians 3:16, Paul nuances his statement differently in order to capture and convey a different point.

And he says to the Corinthians and in all of us, he says, You plural are a temple singular of God, and the Spirit of God dwells inside of you. If Paul were here today, he would look at all of us in this room, and I don't know how many are in here, let's say 200 some odd people, and he would look at all of us and say, all of you, collectively are a temple. As your lives are interlinked with one another, and a cohesive whole, you all together as believers in Jesus and this local church, compose a single temple of God in which the Holy Spirit resides and manifests himself.

So based on that, and this is the idea that I want us to focus on this morning, us as a corporate facility, and we each are stones that compose this facility which is a temple of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Based on that, I can say to you this morning that I have found the ultimate cornerstone facility, and it's us. And I would submit to you that in terms of facility issues that are of greatest concern to God, it's not so much the physical campus, although that is a concern where we can engage in ministry most effectively. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight, but the facility issue that is of greatest concern to God is us who are a facility of God. A dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.

And so the question that we need to be asking is how can we become a better facility of God. what are some things that we can do better as a church that will ensure that we will become the facility? That God wants us to become and what we're going to do with the time that we have this morning is we're going to ponder 3 things, 3 things that we can do here at Cornerstone in order to allow God to build us into a better facility that serves His purposes, and I think you'll be intrigued by the language that we find in the New Testament where the New Testament does in fact Speak of us in this way as a facility of God and what we can do specifically in order to further God's agenda of making us a facility that serves His purposes.

Primarily the purpose that we serve as a facility of God is a dwelling place of God Himself where special presence resides.

but also a place where God is served, an environment where God is worshiped, and an environment where the glory of God just exudes from us that serves as a light and a beacon of hope to a lost and a dying. world around us. What can we do in order to allow God through us to render us a better facility, more useful for Him as a corporate entity here in the Cornerstone family? Three things.

Number 1 is be feasting on the gospel. That's the first thing we need to do is to be perpetually, continuously feasting on the gospel. of Jesus Christ. This is, this is putting first things first, as believers, if we all individually are perpetually feasting and gorging ourselves on gospel truth and gospel blessing, we will find ourselves through that growing into the facility that God wants us to be.

Now some of you may be thinking, feasting on the gospel. OK, Pastor Milton would figure out some way to get the gospel in here, but actually, as you look at the passage in 1 Peter chapter 2, you'll see that this is exactly Peter's language. It's pretty amazing. Let me set the stage for you very quickly.

In the latter part of First Peter chapter 1, he talks about how we've been born again by the imperishable seed of the word of God, born again. So conversion by the imperishable seed of the word of God, we would infer that that seed, that word of God, is referring specifically to the gospel. That would be a right inference because Peter actually outright states that at the end of verse 25, the very last statement of First Peter chapter 1. He says, speaking of this word by which we were born again, he says, this is the word literally which was gospell to you, and we have the verb form of the word gospel there at the very end of chapter 1 in verse 25.

The word I'm talking about is the gospel word. What is the gospel? The gospel essentially Is the message, the good news of salvation through the person and the work of Jesus Christ. It is the news that we are bankrupt and utterly unable to save ourselves or even to make one iota of a contribution to our own salvation.

But what we could not do, He did, and in doing it, he did it all, and he sent Christ into the world to live a perfect life and to do all the righteousness that we failed to do. And then Christ was put on a cross and bore the wrath of God that should have fallen on us for all of our sins that we have committed against Him. He died on that cross. He was buried in a tomb.

On the 3rd day He rose from the dead. God ascended him shortly thereafter to His own right hand. And at the right hand of God, Jesus now has absolute power in all of heaven and earth to do anything that He pleases, and what he's doing from that position of absolute lordship. He's giving out righteousness.

He's giving out forgiveness. He's giving out relationship. He's giving out right standing with God for free to anybody who will simply be humble enough to see their own bankruptcy and put their trust in Jesus. Anyone who will say I cannot save myself, I don't have the righteousness to stand before God, but Jesus does, and I want what he has.

So I'm believing in Him. I want to be dressed in His righteousness, and all who put their trust in Jesus in that way in an instant become born again children of God. Their sins are forgiven. They're delivered from sin's guilt, they're delivered from sin's power.

They're brought into the family of God. They're brought into the embrace of God. They receive the Holy Spirit. They receive brothers and sisters as a part of their gospel inheritance, and they have an eternal glory that awaits them in heaven for all of eternity, and the blessings go on and on and on.

That's the gospel. This is the word that was gospel to us. Now look at what Peter says beginning in chapter 2, verse 1. After clarifying that the word he's talking about is the gospel word, he now wants to explain to these believers, You've been saved by the gospel, and now you're wondering what is my relationship now to the gospel now that I'm saved.

Peter says, I want to tell you what your relationship ought to be to this gospel by which you were saved. Look at this chapter 2, verse 1. Therefore, putting aside, hypocrisy and malice, envy, slander, and all guile, verse 2, like newborn babies, be continuously longing for the pure milk of the word. And in the context, what is the word that he's talking about?

It's the gospel word. Now that you've been saved by the gospel, I want you to continuously be longing after and craving the gospel word. That word longing is a word that speaks of more than a desire or a preference. It speaks of a life dominating craving.

And we see people with life dominating cravings, right, addicted, addictions to sinful patterns of behavior that are utterly destructive to them, and you watch people whose lives are utterly wasting away because they're being destroyed by this life dominating craving for something that is evil and destructive to them. And Peter is saying that just as those outside of Christ have life dominating cravings for that which is destructive and evil, I want you to have the life dominating craving for the gospel, and I want you to continuously be craving after it.

I want you to be as addicted to the gospel as sinners are to sin. I want you to be as addicted to the gospel and the gospel message as a baby is to his mother's milk.

Continuously be longing for the pure milk of the gospel. Look at this. Why? So that by it, you may grow into salvation literally, so that by it, by it, what is it?

It's the gospel so that by the gospel, you may grow into salvation. We learn here that the gospel is not simply the means by which we are converted. God wants it to be our daily food. And look what he says in verse 3.

As you're gorging on the gospel, feasting on the gospel, look what happens. You're tasting the kindness of the Lord. That word kindness has the idea of deliciousness. Also, in a relational context, it means kindness.

In the context of food, it means deliciousness. And in this case, it's both a food context and also relational. As we're feasting on the gospel, we are encountering the delicious heart of Jesus. And we're tasting that.

how are you doing with that? Are you feasting on the gospel, or are you feasting on the nonsense of this world? The entertainment of this world. There are people who claim the name of Christ and they're not feasting on the gospel, they're feasting on sin.

They're feasting on the stuff that the world has to offer them. And then sometimes we may, may be partaking of the gospel, but we're just sipping. We're taking occasional taste and feeling good about, well, I, I took a taste and that'll get me through the day. But here's what God wants.

God wants you by the things you listen to the music you listen to, the books that you read, the things you think about, the conversations that you have. God wants you to live in such a way that by the end of the day, you can look back and say, I feasted on the gospel today. That's the question that I want to put before all of us. Are we feasting?

Are we making every day a gospel feast? Now, what does this have to do with building? Look at what he says. you are longing for continuously the pure milk of the gospel word so that by it you can be continuously growing into salvation.

And as you're doing that, you're tasting the deliciousness of the Lord Jesus. And now he moves right into verse 4. Look what he says, and continuously coming to him. That's what you're doing when you're feasting on the gospel, right?

You're continuously coming to him as to a living stone. And in referring to Jesus as a living stone, he's changing the metaphor. Jesus is a rock. He is a stone, but he's a living stone.

In other words, nourishment is coming out of Him. Water, as it were, is flowing out of him. Life and nourishment is pouring forth from Jesus. And as we feast on the gospel and all the blessings that are ours in Christ, we're tasting the kindness.

Of the Lord, and continuously coming to him, each one of us as living stones. Look what happens to us, verse 4, or verse 5. We, as we're doing that, he says, you are being continuously built up as a spiritual house. A house is getting built as we feast.

We've, we, we noticed, man, this is so delicious, this is so amazing, and God, this is, you're doing wonderful things in me as I gorge on gospel blessings and gospel truth. But then you back away and you notice God's doing something way bigger than me, and he's connecting me to other people. God's building this entity. That involves me, but it's bigger than me, and it involves brothers and sisters in the Lord, and we're getting connected to one another.

God is in the process of building a house. This expression being built up is the Greek word house and the word build. He's doing house building and he explicitly states this as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. Through Jesus Christ.

It's a spiritual house, meaning it's a house for the Spirit. The Spirit resides in this house that God is building. And for a holy priesthood, this is a house that serves as an environment in which we can now function in ministry as priests of God in each other's lives. What does a priest do?

Basically, a priest does two things. He ministers in two directions. A priest represents God to people. And a priest represents people to God.

That's what a priest does. A priest will represent God, coming to people and speaking on behalf of God. Words of blessing, challenge, assurance, consolation, comfort, what have you. And a priest will also take the needs that he observes and hears from people, and he goes to God and he represents those needs of those people to God.

A priest is a servant. He ministers the grace of God to others, and he also prays, praying to God on behalf of others. God is in the process of building a house in which the spirit resides in a special way in which now Ministry can take place as we represent God to each other and represent each other before God and also he says to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. It's also an environment.

It's a house in which worship takes place. This physical building here is not the building that Peter is talking about. We are the building. We are the stones that make up that building, and this house gets built by us.

Coming continuously to Jesus and feasting on the gospel. And so we need to be making this a priority and a focus in our lives. As a church, we want to be all about feasting on the gospel and on this campus and in our homes, and our Bible studies, and our relationships with one another. I want to take a couple moments to talk with you briefly about something that we're wanting to do this summer to further You're feasting on the gospel.

If you have a bulletin this morning, there should be an insert that's in your bulletin that has like a Greek manuscript. In case you're wondering, that's what that is. It's a photo of, Greek manuscript of something from the Gospel of Mark. But this has been the brainchild of not only meetings with the staff and, and the elders but also the men in the Tuesday morning man forum and, and some other ministry leaders that we've been meeting with on, on Friday afternoons.

But what we would love and what we want to encourage you to do this summer is to make this a summer of advancement, not of loitering and waiting for September to get things in gear. But to advance forward this summer, especially in feasting on the gospel, and we've broken the Gospel of Mark down into 36 readings and then divided that up by week and basically over the 12 weeks of the summer. A quarter, if just 3 times a week you sit down and read around 20 verses from the Gospel of Mark, by the end of the summer, you will have read through Mark's Gospel.

We would encourage you to do this in your private.

personal devotions, and also, and especially our heads of households which would include our single moms, we would encourage you to at least 3 times a week to sit your family down and to read through one of these readings from Mark. And when you're done doing that, just ask your family, how can I pray for you and let them share and then pray over your, your family, You don't have to get fancy. You don't have to deliver lectures on the Gospel of Mark. If all you did, men, and single moms is just read with meaning.

to your family, the scriptures, and then pray you have great reason to be encouraged by how God is, is using, you. I know that some of you are already going gangbusters with your family worship and you got stuff going on like every day of the week, in some cases more than once a day, and And we're not trying to take over here. That's why it's only 3 days. In fact, if you're doing that much, you don't even need to do this.

It's just a suggestion. Some of our men have asked for something specific. Just give me something specific, bite size tangible, and I will go home and I will do this and give me a box that I can check that says I did this. And I can measure my, my progress.

That's the way guys think, ladies. And so this is just something to do in addition to whatever else you are doing. Another thing we're going to encourage, you see this at the bottom of the handout, is along with reading through the Gospel of Mark, we want to make this resource available to you. This is a book by Timothy Keller, a wonderful man of God.

And a student of God's word. This is the book King's Cross, and it's a book on the gospel of Mark. Amazingly, the last time I checked, this is like number 28 on the New York Times bestseller list. And it's not so much a commentary on Mark.

It's not a verse by verse commentary on the Gospel of Mark, but it is a collection of meditations on various important themes that you find interwoven throughout the fabric of the Gospel of Mark. Timothy Keller sequentially will take Incidences and passages from Mark's Gospel, and he will use those to ponder aloud some critical themes that are at the heart of the Christian faith. He has a wonderful way of writing and thinking. He thinks in particular categories that are very helpful for me, and I found that after reading him and some of his other works, I look up from reading and I see the world a little differently.

And in a much better way. And then when I go to the scripture, it's like, wow, that, that is much closer aligned to what is taught in scripture than I maybe had realized before. I've already been going through this book and what we would encourage is read this at your own pace. You want to read it in a week, great.

If you want to break it up. feel free to do that. What I'm doing with my copy is I'm going through this book and I'm highlighting and I'm marking up paragraphs and particular pages because there's stories in here. There's thoughts that are expressed here, and I'm just marking them and making note that, what, when I get to that passage in Mark, I will open this up and I will read this particular story to my family from Keller's book or this paragraph where he expresses things in a way that I think will be a blessing.

To my family, so use this as a resource. We got 40 copies of this from Amazon.com for almost exactly $15. It was the cheapest price we found anywhere. Got free shipping, so they're in our information booth for $15 which is our cost.

And if finances are a problem for any of you, just let me know. We would love to get a copy. Of this book in, in your hands. This is not the only way, this is just one way that we as a community can together just go about the task, the delightful task of feasting on Jesus Christ and tasting his kindness.

And his beauty and experiencing the power of the gospel and as that happens we will start catching ourselves being built together into a better facility in which God's presence is housed in which God is worshiped, and in which ministry can take place in our midst. There's a second thing that I would suggest that we as a church can and should do in order to allow God through us to build us into a better corporate facility that serves His purposes, and that is to be serving, to be serving, and when I say that, everybody serving, not some and not simply the paid staff or not just ministry leaders, but everybody finding something.

to do and serving. this is affirmed in Ephesians 4 as well as other places, but, Paul in Ephesians 4 is talking about how Christ was raised from the dead, ascended to the right hand of God, and from that position of absolute lordship, Christ is like, what do I want to do now?

I know I will give gifts. That's just the heart of Jesus. And so he gives out gifts to his people, and some of those gifts are endowments and abilities that he gives to his people, but some of those gifts are people gifts, and Paul identifies some of those beginning in verse 11. Look what he says that Christ has given.

To the church, it says, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets. And speaking of the ministry of the apostles and prophets, to make it very simple, we can say that the ministry of the apostles and prophets, which they ministered in a revelatory way, giving out divine revelation. Those revelations are contained in our New Testament. So the apostles and prophets and the benefit that they render is found in our New Testament.

That's a gift from Jesus to us. This New Testament is a gift from the ascended Christ to us. Amen. Imagine trying to get by without it.

So he's given apostles and prophets and some as evangelists. Christ is like thinking of you and thinking of me. It's like, what do I want to give to them? I know they need people who are speaking gospel and gospel truth to them.

Evangelists are people not only who are speaking the gospel to the lost, but specifically in this context. It's evangelists who speak gospel truth and gospel blessing for the equipping of the saints. That's literally what the passage indicates. People who are very keen on gospel truth and, and who can reason from the gospel, think from the gospel and help others to think from the gospel.

reasoning from the gospel to the ethical, relational, and theological issues that they are encountering in their lives and just encouraging people with the good news of the gospel. And along with that, pastors and teachers, apostles, prophets, gospel speakers, pastors and teachers are all gifts from the ascended Christ. He could give you anything he wanted with all authority and power, and this is what he gives you. Receive these things as a gift from him.

Why does he give these gifts? Verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. He gave these gifts for the equipping of the saints so that the saints being equipped can now engage in the work of ministry. That word ministry is the word we get our English word deacon from, so that the equipping of the saints for the work of deaconing and to deacon is simply to see a need and to meet the need, to see a need and to serve with the intention.

of addressing that need. Look at this, to the edifying or to the house building, there's something bigger going on. You're being equipped. All the saints are being equipped so they can engage in the work of the ministry.

And here's the intended. Result to the edifying of the body of Christ. God wants to build something that's larger than you and even larger than the one person you might be ministering to. He's doing something broad and cohesive amongst the people of God in a local church.

Now notice the language here. I need to address something real quickly. He says, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, you might say, I, Pastor Mellon, I am no saint. I believed in Jesus, but I'm no saint.

Well, what, you, you may not look like a saint. If you're a true believer in Jesus, you may not look like a saint. You may this week, you may not smell like a saint. But according to the teaching of scripture, you are a saint by God's doing and not your own.

You need to be encouraged by that. And let me prove to you your sainthood. Can I do that? Aren't you interested in that?

let me prove it to you, Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, a pretty messed up church full of some pretty messed up Christians. And he's going to bust them up pretty bad throughout the Book of First Corinthians, but look how he begins to this messed up church full of many messed up Christians who were failing royally. He says Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ to the Church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sainted in Christ Jesus, saints by calling.

With all who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you see what he's saying there.

He's saying that if you're a believer in Jesus and you've called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you've been sainted by God. You are a saint by calling. Now in some Sectors of Christendom. The path to sainthood is very complicated.

You don't even know throughout your life if you're going to get to be considered a saint, and after you die, if certain things happen, then maybe the church might declare you to be a saint. So it's a long, uncertain path to sainthood. But when you open your Bibles and actually read what the Bible says, the path to sainthood is actually very simple. If you're here today, and you're just lost in your sin, you've never believed in Jesus, I can tell you how to be a saint before you walk out of this room.

The path to sainthood is very simple. It's one step. It's simply acknowledging your bankruptcy and inability to save yourself and the insufficiency of your own righteousness and looking at Jesus and saying, I want Him, and I want His righteousness. I want Him to be my Lord and Savior, and I'm withdrawing my trust from me and I'm putting it all in Him to be my Lord and Savior.

The minute you do that, You're a saint. You've been sainted in Christ Jesus and are a saint by calling. And so you are a saint if you are a believer in Jesus, and being a saint, there's responsibility that goes with that. Your job, basically a twofold responsibility.

You need to open up your life to allowing yourself to be equipped. by those whom God has given to you in order to equip you, and then you need to turn around and to use that equipping in order to do the work of deaconing. I'm not going to stand up here this morning and do a rah rah. Here's a list of our official ministries, get plugged into one of them.

I would encourage you to do that. A number of our ministries do address needs, and it might be a great idea to get involved in a ministry. Primarily what I want to say this morning. is just open your eyes.

Open your eyes and look around you. And when you see a need, own it, own the need and seek to address that need. If after church this morning you see someone who's crying or you see someone who's not crying, but it's obvious they're trying, trying very hard not to cry, go up to that person and And speak to them and find out what's on their heart and pray with them or for them and check up on them during the week. Just open your eyes and see the need.

There's needs all around you in your home and in the church and in the care group, and then just own the need, saying this will be my need. This need I've observed in somebody else or, or in this particular part of what's going on in the church, I'm going to own this. This need belongs to me and by the grace of God I'm going to do my part to address this need. That's deaconing.

And I tell you, I, I've been here at Cornerstone for over 19 years now. And I couldn't be more blessed to be here. I don't want to go anywhere else. If God made me, I would go.

But I have, I have no desires to go anywhere else because I know a good thing. When I have a good thing, and that's this body. And I, I'm telling you, you guys amaze me. There, there are times where I think I know people in our church, and this has happened a few times recently.

I think I know someone and I think I know what they're up to and what they're doing, but then I find out that out of the, out of the observation of other people, they're rendering some profound ministry. In the life of some other believer in the body or reaching out to To the lost, and I'm like wow, I thought I knew this person. What a what a blessing. So many of you are such a prime example of this deaconing and we're so blessed here at Cornerstone to have a congregation full of such people.

It's this deaconing, this ministry where everyone, everyone in a sense sees themselves as a minister of God. You can wake up tomorrow morning and look at yourself in the mirror. And say I am a minister of God. I am a saint of God.

I've been sainted by Him. I've been given all these gifts in order to equip me so that I can now do the work of ministry. I am a minister of God and I want to live this day in a way that reflects my commitment to being involved in ministry, seeing needs, owning needs, and addressing those needs. Now I know what some of you are thinking.

because I've talked to some of you who think this way. so let me, let me address, some of you. There are some of you who Look at a passage like this and you're like, man, I'm, I'm, so I'm a saint. All right, I believe that theologically and I need to be doing the work of ministry.

and your heart's desire is to do that ministry, but your thought is, Pastor Milton, I'm so far from where I should be. My faith is not what it should be. My knowledge is not where it should be. My maturity is not where it should be.

I don't have anywhere near the fullness I ought to have to be able to minister to other people, and my unity. Good night. my marriage, we're having some trouble, and, and my relationship with my kids, I'm having trouble. My parents and I'm having some trouble and there's a lack of unity that is showing up in those relationships maybe with other brothers and sisters in the church.

Things are not what they ought to be. There's not the unity that that I feel like God is calling me to, and someone thinking that way can say this I want to minister, but I'm falling so far short in all of these areas. That I think I should wait until I've arrived at maturity in these areas, and then I will step into the lives of other people and minister. But notice Paul's language here in verse 13.

He says, that At the in verse 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry to the edifying of the body of Christ. Now next verse, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. You see what he's saying there? he's saying, I want every saint, and you're a saint the moment you're converted.

I want every saint to be ministering until unity and faith and knowledge and maturity and fullness is attained. You minister until these things are attained, not, you wait until those things are attained, and then you minister. Do you see the difference there? In fact, if you said I know what I'll do, I'll abstain from ministering to anybody, involving anyone in my life or getting involved in anyone's life because who am I to minister and I've got so many problems.

I'm such a mess. If you say, what, I'll wait until I've obtained proper unity, faith, knowledge, maturity and fullness, and then I'll get involved in the lives of other people and minister, let's say theoretically you eventually achieved that. And one day you're like, oh my goodness, I have perfect unity, perfect faith, perfect knowledge, perfect maturity, and absolute fullness. I think I'm ready to minister now.

God says, God then says to you, no, actually you're coming home. Because you've arrived. Your days of ministry are over now. Um-hum.

And I'm bringing you home. guys, minister. Minister while on your path to unity, faith, knowledge, maturity, and fullness. In fact, what Paul is partly implying is that involving yourself in ministry to others while on the way to these things is actually a part of what God uses to get you there.

God matures you in unity and in faith and knowledge and in fullness as you minister. There are people in our church that are, you're meeting with other people, meeting with couples, and you're doing counseling and, and trying to encourage and be a help to others and, and there are times where people in our church, you, they'll, they'll come up against some issue in someone's marriage and they're like, man, I'm not really sure what to say to this person or how to counsel them.

And so often what a person will do is they'll call me or one of the other pastoral staff and say, here's what I'm dealing with, and, and here's the problem, and what do I say, what do I do? You see the beauty of that?

They're asking questions. And have a burning desire for knowledge that they would have never asked or never had if they were not involved in ministry. It's the path of ministering to other people that God uses in part to actually mature you. In these things, so don't wait until you reach perfect unity, faith, knowledge, maturity, and fullness until you minister.

Minister until. You obtain perfect unity, faith, knowledge, maturity, and fullness, and I, I'm amazed sometimes that you might, even in my own life, sometimes I render some ministry and I, I walk away kicking myself like I said the wrong thing. I should not have said that and, and, or my tongue was tied. I, I should have said this over here, but instead I said this and that was the wrong thing and And I'm so aware of the flaws like in a ministry that I'm rendering to someone in a counseling session or whatever or even in a sermon, but it's always amazing to me how God ends up using that.

He uses it, so even if you're a mess. serve, be a blessing to other people. And let God mature you as you minister. Well, there's a 3rd thing that we ought to do if we want God to build us into a better facility, and that is to be relating to one another, to be relating, to, one another.

We'll be able to develop this just a little bit and then, maybe say a little more about this tonight. Be relating to one another. This is takes us a little further beyond the serving that we talked about under point number 2. Notice what Paul says a few verses later in Ephesians 4:16.

He says the whole body being fitted and joined together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the, here's that word edify or house building, for the edifying of itself in love. Grammatically, this is cumbersome, but the kernel of this statement is the whole body, that's the subject, causes the growth of the body. God's the one who causes growth, but how does he do it? He does it through the whole body and look what he says.

According to the proper working of each individual part. See, everyone's playing a role. Everyone's doing something, no matter where they are in their level of maturity. Christians who are one day old and Christians who are 40 years old in Christ.

Everyone's doing something according to the proper working of each individual part. The whole body causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself and love. Now, this causing of growth that comes through ministry, this edifying, which is Paul's way of describing ministry, look at the matrix in which this edification happens, it's relationship. He says the whole body.

Being fitted and joined together. What he's talking about is us coming together in relationship. And allowing ourselves to be fitted and joined together in close relationship, allowing our lives to overlap and to be connected with one another. You think of a great temple being built and all of the materials of that building that are out in the wild and the stones are still in the quarry.

They're still in the mountains, and they haven't even been carved out and For all of those materials to come together into a cohesive whole, a lot of work needs to be done. The stones need to be carved out of the mountain, and then they need to be shaped. Sometimes depending on the size of the stone, it would take weeks for one stone to be properly shaped and fitted, and they would Often sometimes like drill holes through stone, a painstaking, difficult process, and then holes in a corresponding stone, and then they would put dow rods in between the stones or plaster, some plaster in between, and all the parts of a building would be fitted and joined together.

That's what he's talking about.

He's not talking about ministry that is done where we're not even connected and we're just lobbying truth at each other. No, we come together in relationship and allow God to fit us and join us together and then in that overlap where we are relating to one another, that's the matrix where ministry happens most richly and where transformation. occurs. Paul is talking to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 22.

And he says to Timothy, flee youthful lust and follow after righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. He's saying, Timothy, I want you to run from sin. I want you to run after righteousness, faith, love, and peace, and I want you to do those things with other people. I want you to live your Christian life in the company of others who are calling on the Lord from a pure heart.

I don't want you to live by yourself, Timothy. Keep in mind, Timothy is a pastor of the Ephesian congregations, and Paul is telling Timothy this for two reasons. He's saying, Timothy, I don't want you alone. I want you to have the benefit of having your brothers running from sin and running to righteousness with you.

But he's also saying that your brothers need your presence, Timothy. I don't want your brothers running from sin and running toward righteousness alone either. I want you, Timothy, as a pastor to be in relationship with them and to join in that pursuit. of righteousness.

Here's the last slide I'll show you because this is as far as we got in the first service. Three circles that are represented here, imagine those circles as being people. In many churches, what ends up happening is you've just got circles that are just scattered, and they all might be in a single physical building, but lives are not overlapping. There's not real relationship happening.

But as this is, this is God's picture, He wants us to be fitted and joined together. He wants our lives and our lifestyles to more and more overlap with one another because here's the deal, guys, in the overlap, that's where transformation and real ministry takes place. And you see on the slide that there's points where two circles overlap and that's represented by the light green, and that's awesome. And then there's one point where all three circles overlap that's an even richer environment that creates an even richer matrix in which real ministry can be rendered and spiritual growth and transformation can occur.

My intention is not to rebuke you in the relationship, but to show you the promise and the glory of this. There's some of you that are hungry for change, hungry for transformation, but part of the reason that you're not being transformed in a particular area is you're holding yourself back. You're holding that area away from relationship with other people. You might even have relationships with other people, but they don't go there.

And so you lack that fertile, rich environment that God wants to be there in which ministry can happen. These things can be prayed over in relationship with one another, and transformation can occur. In my pastoral ministry and in all of our lives, all of us, I think, would do well to explore ways that we could re-engineer our lives to where there's increasingly more and more overlap and deeper relationships amongst ourselves. The deeper we go, the more we live together and the more our lifestyles overlap, the richer these environments become for ministry.

And for transformation. These are just three simple things. If we're feasting on the gospel, all of us just abounding and just seeking to serve in whatever ways we see, and we're also being intentional about just enjoying relationships with one another, walking in relationship with one another, we will catch God building something really special here at Cornerstone, and he's already doing that. He's already doing that, and I'm blessed to be a part of it.

But we can go so much further, and I'm excited about how much further God is going to take us. So stick around for that journey. Let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask. Him to help us by His grace to do this.

Father, you are a good God and you speak so wonderfully to us in your word. You hold out such hope and promise. For us that makes godliness, relationship, community, Jesus Christ, the gospel so attractive. There's a, there's a beauty, and aesthetic appeal to all of these things, and when compared to our sin, it's like when I look at these things and then look at sin.

It's like sin becomes all the more unappealing. Lord, may we Be feast, feasters on the gospel. And we serve, though we have so far to go, asking you to bless our puny acts of service, trusting that you will do much with them like you did the loaves and the fish that the little lad brought to you that fed 5,000+ people. And may we not run from relationships but pursue them, that we might enjoy your fullness more and engage in ministry more effectively.

And see transformation in areas where we long to see them. We thank You, Lord, for the privilege that is ours to give of our offerings to you at this time. We ask that You would take these funds that are given and use them mightily for the glory of Jesus Christ. We give ourselves to you at the same time, Lord, in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said,