Body Builders

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

Thank you, Brother Ron, thank you, Timothy, for sharing. It is, I think you are doing what I will be reading in a moment, you are speaking the truth in love. You didn’t have to share it, but because you love Christ, you love all the members of the body of Christ, you testified about Jesus, you sang songs. And that is for all of our edification, so thank you, thank you, brothers.

I’ll read from Ephesians 4:15, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16, ESV)

Okay, let’s pray.

Father, thank you for already moving in this service. We thank you, Lord, for the testimonies. How pleasing they must be as you hear them in heaven.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing all of us to be blessed by what we heard. We pray now; we surrender ourselves to you. We pray that you quiet all distractions. We want to meet you; we pray that we want to receive whatever word that you have for us about building ourselves up in love. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

When I was a high school student, I was pretty. I wasn’t scrawny, but I wasn’t strong either. I trained as a black belt.

So, I had certain skills, and I thought I was dangerous as a young person. I think I overestimated what I could do. But, I used to read these muscle and fitness magazines. I used to imagine, one of these days, I’m going to look like this. And then, I went to college with my black belt, and I started training my body.

And so, I would do about nine hours of basketball a week, probably an hour or two of exercise a week. I only exercised from the waist up. So, my legs were totally ignored.

Maybe at some point, I’ll do a podcast and I will explain how my thoughts about fitness have shifted over the years. But I realized growing up, as I get older, that I should have had a different approach to fitness. Everything waist up is visible, is impressive. I ignored the legs. I ignored the core. I ignored things so that in my 20s and 30s, it started catching up with me. I thought I was young. In my late 30s, playing basketball, I got knocked over, fell down, and because I had no core muscles, I herniated a disc.

And that was my first awareness that I am not as strong as I think I am.

So today, I want to talk about bodybuilding in the church. We are bodybuilders. We are bodybuilders. We’re all here to build each other up in love. We’re here to build up the body of Christ.

So, what is the church? If it’s a building and if it’s a place that you go, then this is a gathering place and we work and we serve.

Serve, and we’re tired, and then we go home. Maybe we haven’t changed, maybe we’re just busy. Maybe we’re just, I don’t know, just going through the motions, and just out of habit, and because we know it’s good for us, we go to church, and we do all these things.

But I think in scripture, there’s a very different picture of what church is. I’ll read from Ephesians 4:7.

⁷ But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” ⁹(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) ¹¹And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. (Ephesians 4:7-14, ESV)

Going back to verse 12, it says, “There are two primary functions of leadership.” If you connected with the verses that I read prior to that, the fact that Jesus died on a cross, he ascended to heaven, he conquered all of the principalities, all the demons, and he gave gifts to the church. There are gifts that you can read about in 1 Corinthians 12: gifts of wisdom, gifts of the word of knowledge, gifts of healing. All of these gifts are there for the church, but in this section of scripture, he’s saying… the gifts are the leaders.

It is the leaders who are the gift for the church: the Apostles, the prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. These leaders, the leadership, should be performing two primary functions in the church. One is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and secondly, to build up the body of Christ.

In churches, I think primarily what I’m hearing is there’s a lot of focus on equipping the saints for work. There’s a lot of focus on that aspect. And there’s a call for, well, where are the evangelists?

Because you can have the greatest teaching in your church, but if no one comes, then the impact is limited. So where are the evangelists? Where are the prophets? Where are the apostles? Where are the entrepreneurs? Where are the people who will take the gospel in places where it’s never been preached? And there’s a call for that type of a leader to be raised, and then to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And all of the leaders are supposed to do their part to equip the saints for this type of work.

And if you can identify yourself that you believe, I do have an apostolic gift. I do have a prophetic gift. I do have an evangelistic gift. I do have a shepherd’s heart. I do have a pastoral heart. I do care about people. I do have a teaching gift. I want to exercise it. I want you to come to me. If you think you have that type of call upon your life, I want you to come forward. I want you to identify yourself. I want you to say, “Let’s do this together.” It’s not top-down leadership, I think.

I think it’s God. He will support you. Grass roots. He will raise up leaders in the church.

And there’s going to be some of us, like we’re all called to make disciples of all nations. But He will handpick several in the body of Christ who are particularly good with people. you’re just approachable. you’re just bright. Like you can start up a conversation with anybody and that’s your gift.

If you’re a teacher, that’s a different set of gifts. And so that’s needed in church. But you need evangelists to bring people out there into the church.

You need apostles and prophets with a different set of gifts, supernatural gifts even. Boldness and courage to preach the gospel where it’s never been preached. And we need to all come together because I don’t have all of these gifts. I don’t have all of these offices. I have one, maybe. But the leadership that God assembles in this place is going to have to join forces and we need to brainstorm together. How can we equip the saints of Hill Community Church? Because there is work to be done. But that’s not the focus of today’s message.

Because I think churches will focus on the work, and they will ask for volunteers for work. We need to do this. We need to do this and do this. And they gloss over the second function of the leadership, which I think is far, far more important.

It is to equip the saints for the building up of the body of Christ. That’s why I said in the beginning, we are body builders. We should not just have certain parts of the body built up. Like, it’s – that’s grotesque.

Like if you have a big, bulging bicep on just your left arm, and the rest, you have chicken legs. And you have a gut. It’s just grotesque. We want to be a body of Christ that is perfect, proportionate, and is strong all around, even the hidden things, like the less glorious, less honorable parts.

Like, you need the core to be strong. Like, you can’t see a core muscle. That person just looks slim. But the core needs to be strong so that you can take a hit, so you can take a fall.

There are parts of the body of Christ that need to be built up. Maybe you’re not the one in a public sense, that you’re not maybe the type of person that wants to come forward and testify. That’s okay. But your presence is vital. you’re a hidden part. And your strength needs to also come forward for the whole body of Christ to be strong.

In Zerubbabel’s day, in Haggai 1, this is Zerubbabel is a governor of Judah. And if you read Haggai 1 and 2, he is the governor of Judah.

And Zerubbabel means the offspring of Babylon. He was born in Babylon while the nation was in exile and subjugated by the Babylonians. In a sense, that’s all of us. We’ve been born into this Babylonian world. We are offspring of this system before we met Christ.

And then Christ, we were born again. And now we’ve been translated, transferred into a new kingdom. So Zerubbabel is the governor. And Haggai was the prophet. And he called the people to rebuild the temple of the Lord.

And the verse that is famous in Haggai 1:3 is…

³ Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, (Haggai 1:3, ESV)

Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?”

And so, when we interpret scripture, we should start with the literal meaning. And so, if we heard this today, and we took it the most literal way, it could be that we have a house overlooking the ocean.

And we’re adding a second floor, we’re adding a second unit, we are expanding our house, we’re doing a lot of that type of renovation. And then, the temple in Jerusalem is in ruins. And God would say, “Well, we should not do that. Let’s not do that type of renovation. Let’s all go to Israel and let’s build the third temple.”

In Haggai’s day, Zerubbel’s day, it was the first temple Solomon was in ruins, and they’re building the second temple.

And so, if we were to take this literally, we should be going to Israel and building the third temple. That’s the most literal way. But, I think we would say that’s probably not the way we want to interpret it.

Then we say, okay, it’s not a literal third temple. Some people are building a third temple right now. But, I don’t think we should be doing that. That’s not what we should be doing. We’re not even living anywhere near Israel.

So then, the next level of meaning is, why don’t we build the church?

Why don’t we build Hill Community Church, Bellflower? That’s where, like, why are we so busy with our own homes and our own lives? Shouldn’t we build up the church? That’s the second level meaning. But I think that one also falls short.

We need to go to the third level meaning, which I think is the spiritual meaning, which is the primary meaning of the book of Haggai. And it comes out in Haggai 2:3.

³ ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? (Haggai 2:3, ESV)

And then in verse 9.

⁹ The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” (Haggai 2:9, ESV)

So, if Bellflower Hill Community Church in this particular location is the focus, then we might look at this place and say, “Is this it? Is this it? It’s nothing like Solomon’s temple. It’s not like that glory.”

But even Haggai is saying, yes, in Haggai’s day, Zerubbabel’s day, they built up the second temple.

It’s not that impressive. But Haggai is saying, don’t worry. This second temple is going to be more glorious in the future than the first, former temple built by Solomon. How is that possible? Because this is just a fraction of the original temple. It doesn’t look anything as glorious, as majestic as the first temple. So, what could this meaning be? It’s because Jesus, years, hundreds of years later, will step into this second temple and the latter glory will be far surpassed because Jesus came in. That’s the meaning. If Jesus is here, then this is glorious.

This place is glorious, no matter what it looks like to us, no matter what we see in the natural. The fact that Jesus walked in, that’s what makes the second temple, Hill Community Church in Bellflower, glorious.

So, we may still misinterpret and misapply what I just said. We may say, “Okay, then we need to work hard to make Hill Community Church in Bellflower glorious, because Jesus is here. So, where are the volunteers?”

We need to evangelize. We need to do street preaching. We need to do Bible study. We need to do Sunday school. We need to bring that former glory up to that level. Is that how we’re supposed to interpret and apply scripture?

It’s my testimony that I was very busy in church. Very busy. I was so busy that after a month, the pastor’s wife had to send out an email to all the staff and say, “Okay, do laundry,” because she knows that we’ve been meeting every single night at the church.

She knows we had no time for laundry, so she has to tell us once a month, “Okay, it’s laundry day, take a break.” That’s how crazy I was in my 20s and my 30s, because I was living for the glory of a physical temple of the Lord, a church.

And I look back on those years, and did I know Jesus? Was I shining the light of Jesus? Was I happy with Jesus, was I content?

Or was I frustrated? Was I irritable? Was I tired? Was I complaining? Was I just putting on a good face, but not inwardly, not being renewed day by day?

So, what does it mean to build up the body of Christ? The church. Ephesians 4:12. Not only do we equip the saints for the work of ministry, yes, there is work to be done.

In God’s time, God’s way, he will. He will tell us what to do. He will give us wisdom of what to do. He will give us a strategy of what to do.

He will tell us where to go, how to accomplish his goals. I believe it. He will raise up apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in this midst for us to be effective.

He will give us all the spiritual gifts that we need to do it effectively. I believe it. There is equipping of the saints that needs to happen in this place, and I’m looking to the leaders that we need to do this.

But, the primary focus, I think, is not the physical glory of a local church, but is for us to reflect the glory of God in Christ. Meaning, each of us have to be built up into the very best member of the body of Christ, and you are a shining example of what Christ does in a believer’s life.

And it’s not like we’re showing what we’re doing in a sense, we’re just showing who we are on the inside. That needs to come out more and more.

And we need to build each other up, the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith. And if we focus on theology, there is disunity. If we talk about, well, “I baptize this way, I recite this creed, you don’t do this.” If we focus on theology, if we focus on why we’re different from the rest of the body of Christ, and our tribe is better than your tribe. If we start focusing on anything other than Jesus, we will divide the body of Christ. So, what do we do?

We focus on our faith in Jesus. That is where unity comes. You lift up Jesus, all men and women, children are drawn and unified in Christ.

And so, for our church, we will do our best, as long as I’m here, to focus on the very thing that unifies, which is faith in Jesus Christ. And the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-13, ESV)

We could be so busy working, as I testified a moment earlier, and never reach unity of faith, knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the fullness of Christ. And if we did that for 20-30 years, and then we got to the end of our lives, what would we hear from the Lord? Maybe we would hear, “I never knew you.” If you knew me, then all of this verse would come to pass. We would attain to the fullness of Christ.

Jesus would be evident, regardless of our personality, regardless of our background, our ethnicity, it doesn’t matter. Is Christ in us, the hope of glory? Is He coming out? Are we approachable? Are we likable?

Do people just want to be with us because we’re bright and light and we shine, we’re salty? Do we actually care about our neighbors? Do we strike up conversations? Do we want to shine out to this world?

I know I had a very sincere encounter with Jesus, because no one had to tell me to shine. I just, I was just shining.

No one had to tell me. No one had to tell me to, “Why don’t you schedule lunch meetings and dinner meetings with either brothers in the church for edification, mutual edification, or helping younger brothers for discipleship, or for me to be discipled by older brothers, or for me to meet non-Christian friends, go work out together, and then over a pizza, share my testimony about Christ?” No one had to tell me this. I was just shining. It was a sincere encounter with Jesus. And life just has a way of just putting a veil on that.

You just get busy with life, and dreams and hopes get crushed, and just that light, it’s like someone put a bowl over it, a shade over it. It’s not shining the way it used to. And God is inviting me, why don’t you recover it? It’s in me. It was there. It needs to come out again.

Let’s all be bodybuilders. How do we do this? Well, Ron already did it. Timothy already did it. It’s Ephesians 4:15.

¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16, ESV)

Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Timothy. Thank you for all, anyone who ever opened, opens your mouth on a Sunday, and you share love. It doesn’t have to be here on Sunday. It could be over there, over snacks, over coffee.

Anytime you’re speaking the truth in love, thank you. You just blessed somebody. You just edified somebody. You just strengthened your fellow body part, member of the body of Christ.

I think Matthew was the only one here at the time. When I was just starting out at church, I spent I don’t know how many months on just that one verse, speaking the truth in love. What does it mean? And we talked about that week after week.

And because of bad teaching that we were, that we had grown up hearing, I was being told, “Doesn’t this verse mean we should rebuke people? Shouldn’t we be harsh on Sundays when somebody is not pulling their weight, when somebody’s being selfish, when somebody’s whatever? Shouldn’t we say something? Isn’t that what it means to be loving? Are we supposed to be ladies and gentlemen and let that person be and just ignore them?” I mean, there is a place. If somebody is in legitimate sin, and they are unrepentant, it is a loving thing.

Yes, I agree, to go to that person. But when it comes to immaturity, that’s not a sin. Character, that’s not a sin. Because we all have sins. We all have character issues. Are we supposed to point it out every time we see it? Is that a loving church to walk into? And you’re afraid, well, I messed up. I’m going to hear it by my leader on Sunday. Is that the kind of church we’re supposed to be?

And I kept saying, it says to speak the truth in love. What does it mean to love?

It means we don’t keep a record of wrongs. It means we don’t come above anybody. We are coming alongside of them. And we could be blind to ourselves.

And that other person has a little splinter. We want to help them. But we should first address ourselves, not be so quick to judge.

And so if there is an issue, we’re not presuming judgment. Let’s just have a conversation. Let’s see if that person needs prayer, and coming alongside and serving them.

It’s a total different approach than, “I know that I’m right and you’re wrong, and let me put you in your place.” And it took a long time. Most of the people that I was speaking to at the time, in the leadership, they did not understand what I was saying. Unfortunately.

Thank you, Brother Matthew, that he stuck with me through that difficult conversation. And I also shared with them the following verses, Ephesians 4:17.

¹⁷ Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. ¹⁹ They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. ²⁰ But that is not the way you learned Christ!— ²¹ assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, (Ephesians 4:17-21, ESV)

So, what should we be preaching? What does it mean to speak the truth in love? First of all, as it says right there, the truth is in Jesus. The truth is not, ‘Oh, you’re a sinner, I see your sin and I’m going to show this mirror of God’s Word and I’m going to show you your sin because I love you. I’m going to rebuke you. I’m going to put you in your place.’ No, it says speak the truth in love. The truth is in Jesus.

And so, why do we talk about Jesus all the time in this church? It’s because Jesus is the truth. Yes, we’re sinners. Yes, there is time that we need to address one another when we’re blind and unrepentant. But we don’t do that as our main interaction with one another.

We are speaking the truth in love, and the truth is in Jesus. And we testify about Jesus. We preach about Jesus. Like, you could spend 10 weeks like I did in my earlier years as a pastor when I didn’t know any better.

I spent 10 weeks on Ephesians chapter 5, about marriage, and Jesus was in those sermons. But really, I spent 99% of the sermon about godly marriage. And I missed Ephesians 5:32.

³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:32, ESV)

Meaning, if I were to redo those 10 sermons about marriage, I should have spent 99% of that sermon about Jesus, 1% about marriage. That would have been right.

Because if you have a godly marriage, if you have a good marriage, is that the point of Ephesians 5? There’s no marriage in heaven. So, why should we spend so much energy about having a great marriage? Is that the point? There’s no marriage in heaven, and some people are called to be celibate. So, are you a lesser Christian because you don’t have a spouse? That’s not how we do church. That’s not how we read Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 about marriage is a metaphor for Christ and the church. Jesus, our bridegroom.

Jesus, the lover of our soul. Jesus, the one that we will spend eternity with, not as a married person, but as a single person in heaven because there’s no marriage. And if you have a good marriage, that is supposed to point you to Jesus.

If you have that type of best friend interaction with Jesus, is he the first person you turn to when you’re sad? Is he the first person you call upon when you’re in trouble? Is he the first person that you go to when you want to rejoice? Or do you go to your spouse?

Do you go to your friends? Why isn’t Jesus first? That’s the point of Ephesians Chapter Five. It’s the mystery of Christ and the church, and it’s the best metaphor in this life for what our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be.

I pray that if I go to heaven earlier than Jackie, that Jackie would not be too sad for too long. She might be sad for a little bit. That’s normal if you’ve been married for decades. It’s normal.

But I would hope that she rather quickly shifts her heart and says, ‘Okay, my relationship with Ray was for me to learn what kind of relationship with Jesus I’m supposed to be having.’ And so that, ‘Okay, I’m sad that Ray is gone. I’m gonna see him again. But I have Jesus with me. He is the lover of my soul. He is my bridegroom. He’s coming for me. I wanna be a radiant bride.’ I hope quickly she becomes happy and content with Jesus. I say I hope the same for myself. How do we do this?

We speak the truth in love. That’s how we grow the body of Christ, become bodybuilders in the church. Keep speaking about Jesus. We can testify about all kinds of answers to prayer, but I pray more and more either here or over there or when we gather or in the week.

What really strengthens a church is when you say, “Jesus is my best friend. Jesus is the lover of my soul. I really love Jesus. Jesus did this for me. I met Jesus this way this week.” If we start speaking the truth, the truth is in Jesus.

If we do this in love, we’re not bragging. We’re not doing it to boast or do anything of that sort. We’re giving glory to God. We’re speaking the truth in love, and we start doing this to one another. That’s how the body of Christ grows stronger.

And then, the other part in verse 22.

²² to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24, ESV)

So, if you look at yourself in the mirror and you say, “I don’t quite look like Jesus yet.”

It’s okay, let’s start today. You can start today. Put off whatever you don’t like that you see. Whatever came out this past week.

Your speech, your demeanor, your emotions, and your actions, whatever you saw this past week, bring it to Jesus. Put it off. He will take it. Repent of your sins. And then you put on Christ. And you learn from Christ. Jesus is humble. “I, Jesus, I want your mindset of humility to consider others better than myself, than myself.” Put on the gentleness of Christ. Put on the obedience of Christ. He didn’t do anything unless he heard from the Father and saw what the Father was doing.

We put off everything of the old nature, and we put on Christ. We speak the truth in love. We put off and put on. That is how we build up the body of Christ.

Okay, let’s pray.

Father, you know that we want to reach the lost and bellflower in Southern California, in California, and to the ends of this earth. So Lord, toward that end, I pray that you’d raise up workers for the harvest field, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

Pray that you raise up people in this place as a gift to this church so that we can together equip the saints for the work of ministry.

But Lord, we understand that if we are not doing the second and most important part of speaking the truth in love, and growing up to the full stature of the fullness of Christ individually and corporately, what’s the point of having a packed church building? If we disciple them in the wrong way, if we haven’t changed ourselves and we’re just getting volunteers to serve, Lord, we’ll be doing them a disservice if that happens.

So Lord, we want to get the order right. We pray that you would help us to bless one another, to love one another, to speak the truth and love to one another. The truth is in Jesus. To share about Jesus as often as we can, to put off the old, to put on the new, this is how we grow together into the fullness of Christ. That is what you’re after, Lord. You want to reproduce a life of God, the full image of God in each of us, which is even magnified and amplified when we gather together corporately in your name.

So Father, we pray the Holy Spirit, you would convict us of anything in our thoughts, our emotions, our soul, our speech, our actions, anything that is displeasing in your sight. We pray that we would surrender and repent right now, put those things off. And Lord, we want to meet you, Lord Jesus, and put on your character, your nature. We pray that individually and corporately, as the days and the weeks and months and the years go by together in this place, we will grow up into a healthy, fully functional body of Christ. Every part of the body fully developed, working together for your glory, Father.

Thank you, Lord. We pray that you meet us as we remember the body of Christ that was broken for us and the blood of Jesus that was shed. This is a new covenant that we all get to enjoy together.

Thank you, Lord. I pray that you minister to us as we close out this service. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.