How old is “old?” Are you old? Raise your hand if you are old.
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel came out with a song in 1968 called “Old Friends.” “Can you imagine us years from today,” the song goes, “sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy…” Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are both 80 years old now, about the same age as President Biden. Rod Stewart, in 1988, at the age of 43, sang a song called “Forever Young.” He is 76 now. About the same age as former President Trump. Actually, the comparisons seem about right!
How do you feel about growing up, growing older, getting old, especially if you consider the alternative? Because for as much as we live in a culture that never wants to grow up, the Bible says that growing up is a good thing, that spiritual maturity is a mark of a healthy Christian, of healthy churches.
So this week we are going to talk about spiritual maturity, unpacking a passage of the Bible from Ephesians 4, which talks about spiritual maturity, what it looks like, and why it’s a good thing. We will contrast that with an example of from the Bible of a family system marked by spiritual immaturity and dysfunction. Let’s start by reading Ephesians 4:1-7 and 11-16.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. [8 This is why it[a] says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”[b]
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions[c]? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)] 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
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