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Basics | Week 5 | Message · Rewind

Rock Point Church

38 min

Pastor Nolan Tjaden · Oct 13, 2025 · 4 min read · 38 min listen

The big idea

To build spiritual strength, you have to abandon relational and spiritual comfort by letting people in community speak truth to you in love.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 5The church's mission is to make more and better disciples
Point 2 of 5Growth requires wanting to get better, not staying comfortable

Point 3 of 5Spiritual maturity is defined by unity, growing knowledge of Jesus, and unflinching conviction
Point 4 of 5Warning signs reveal a stagnant faith
Point 5 of 5The power to grow comes through speaking truth in love, making Christ the standard, and staying connected
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Ephesians 4:11
Ephesians 4:12
Matthew 28
Ephesians 4:13-14
Ephesians 4:15-16
Proverbs 27:6

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Nolan Tjaden · Oct 13, 2025 · 38 min watch · 2 min read

Basics | Week 5 | Message

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Ephesians 4:11
Ephesians 4:12
Matthew 28
Ephesians 4:13-14
Ephesians 4:15-16
Proverbs 27:6

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

To build spiritual strength, you have to abandon relational and spiritual comfort by letting people in community speak truth to you in love.

Real Christian community is not just a place to be known and accepted, but a place where believers support and develop one another through honesty. When we let others speak truth into our lives with love, and we do the same for them, we grow into the mature, unified, convictional disciples Jesus calls us to be.

Key points

1
1The church's mission is to make more and better disciples
Pastor Nolan works through Ephesians 4:11-12, showing that leaders exist not to do ministry for people but to equip 'the saints' (every believer) to do the ministry themselves. He shares his own testimony of getting saved as a teenager and immediately bringing drug addicts and metalheads to a gas station Bible study, illustrating a heart for reaching people far from Jesus.
2
2Growth requires wanting to get better, not staying comfortable
Using the illustration of paying an instructor to help his kids improve on guitar rather than just 'have fun,' Pastor Nolan argues that everyone already wants to improve, and that culture's hunger for raw truth (seen in figures like Jocko Willink and David Goggins) shows people are ready for more than soft, stagnant messages. He says God wants the same growth for believers spiritually.
3
3Spiritual maturity is defined by unity, growing knowledge of Jesus, and unflinching conviction
Working through Ephesians 4:13-14, Pastor Nolan unpacks three marks of maturity: unity with other believers rather than divisiveness, a growing knowledge of Jesus through Scripture (illustrated by writing letters to his now-wife Lindsay to get to know her more deeply), and an unshakable conviction that doesn't get tossed by every wind of doctrine, especially referencing the death of Charlie Kirk as a sign that casual Christianity is no longer viable.
4
4Warning signs reveal a stagnant faith
He lists markers of stalled spiritual growth: following Jesus costs you nothing, your God-stories are all from years ago, being asked to give or serve offends you, no one knows you're a Christian, and you're always the hero or victim of your own stories. He points to G.K. Chesterton's four-word answer to 'What's wrong with the world today?' — 'Dear sirs, I am' — as the posture of humility community requires.
5
5The power to grow comes through speaking truth in love, making Christ the standard, and staying connected
From Ephesians 4:15-16, Pastor Nolan explains that truth without love is bullying and love without truth is flattering, quoting Proverbs 27:6 about the wounds of a friend. He urges comparing ourselves to Christ rather than to other people, using a story about judging bad drivers on the highway, and closes with the image of a severed foot to show why staying relationally connected in life groups and teams matters.

fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe

A story from life

Pastor Nolan's wife Lindsay was called to account by a camp director for dating a non-Christian, a moment he says changed the course of her life

Application

Pastor Nolan frames the charge as embracing the throat punch of a real friend — trading relational comfort for the honesty that actually helps you grow.

Get honest in your life group
Stop hiding behind surface-level community; let others know what's really going on in your life, even the parts that feel too awkward to admit.
Speak truth in love to others
When someone in your community is drifting, don't just affirm them or just criticize them — marry compassion and honesty together like the camp director did with a young volunteer.
Run the stress test on yourself
Pay attention to how you act when hungry, tired, or late, and look for those moments as opportunities to confess sin to one another instead of comparing yourself favorably to others.
Stay connected in community
Get into a life group, serving team, or Sunday rhythm rather than trying to function disconnected from the body, like a foot lying alone in a parking lot.
Make Christ, not other people, your standard
When examining your own holiness, stop measuring yourself against people who seem worse off and instead compare your life to Jesus.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“Ephesians chapter four, verse 11 will also be on the screen. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to what? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“He says it in verse 12, look, he says, To equip the saints. Now look at me for a second. This may be confusing because you think, saints are super holy people”
From the transcript
“And he said in Matthew 28, some of you can quote it, go therefore and what make disciples all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son”
From the transcript
“let's look at verses thirteen and fourteen where Paul does. He says, Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to what? Mature manhood. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be what? Children tossed to and fro by the waves”
From the transcript
“We're gonna look at fifteen and sixteen and close. He says, Rather, here's how you grow, speaking the truth in love. 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”
From the transcript
“Proverbs 20 seven:six says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Or I love the Bill Bush translation. Faithful is the throat punch of a friend”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is a temptation to think of the church's mission as something that belongs to pastors and vocational ministers — the professionals. But Pastor Nolan was clear: the work of making disciples belongs to every believer. Ephesians 4:11-12 says that leaders are given to the church not to do the ministry for everyone else, but to equip the rest of us to do it. That is a meaningful distinction. It means your life — your relationships, your conversations, your willingness to show up — is part of how God builds His church. You are not a spectator waiting for someone more qualified. You are part of the body, and the body needs you actually functioning. This is both humbling and freeing. Humbling, because it removes the excuse of 'I'm not a pastor.' Freeing, because it means God is already at work through ordinary people living ordinary days with extraordinary faithfulness. The call to make more and better disciples is not a program you join — it is a life you live. It starts with being willing to be developed yourself, and it grows into a willingness to come alongside someone else on the same journey.

For reflection

Where in your everyday life might God already be inviting you to be a disciple-maker, even in a small way?

Pray

Pray for an open heart to see yourself as part of the church's mission, not just a recipient of it.

Day 2

Before Paul ever wrote to the Ephesians about equipping the saints, Jesus gave His followers a commission that has never been rescinded. Go, make disciples, baptize, teach — and I am with you always. Pastor Nolan grounded the church's mission in this passage, and it is worth sitting with it longer than a quick read allows. Notice what Jesus says first: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. The commission flows out of His authority, not ours. We are not drumming up a movement on our own energy; we are joining something He is already doing. That changes the posture entirely. You do not have to manufacture transformation in the people around you. You are invited to participate in what He is accomplishing, trusting that the One who sends you is the same One who goes with you. The Great Commission is not a guilt trip — it is an invitation into a mission that is larger than any one person, any one church, any one generation. The question is not whether you are capable. The question is whether you are willing to be sent.

For reflection

What would it look like for you to approach your relationships this week as someone who has been sent, rather than someone just getting through the day?

Pray

Pray for a renewed sense of being sent by Jesus into the ordinary spaces of your life.

Day 3

Pastor Nolan described spiritual maturity with three marks drawn from this passage: unity with other believers, a growing knowledge of Jesus, and convictional backbone — the kind that keeps you from being tossed around by every new idea or cultural current. It is worth pausing on the middle one. Growing in the knowledge of Jesus is not the same as accumulating theological facts. It is a living, relational knowing — the kind that shapes how you think, what you love, and how you respond when things get hard. And it does not happen by accident. Pastor Nolan's challenge to open the Word before breakfast was not a legalistic rule; it was a practical recognition that knowledge grows through consistent contact. If you only encounter Jesus on Sunday mornings, your picture of Him stays thin. But when you return to Scripture regularly — even briefly, even imperfectly — something accumulates. You begin to recognize His voice. You start to see where your thinking does not yet match His. That is what growth looks like. Not a dramatic overnight change, but a slow, steady conforming of your mind and heart to someone you are actually getting to know.

For reflection

How consistent is your personal time in Scripture right now, and what is one realistic change you could make this week?

Pray

Pray for a genuine hunger to know Jesus better through His Word, not just to know more about Him.

Day 4

Convictional backbone sounds strong, maybe even rigid. But Paul's image here is actually about stability in the middle of motion — waves, wind, people who are skilled at making bad ideas sound reasonable. Spiritual immaturity, he says, looks like being tossed. Maturity looks like being anchored. Pastor Nolan pointed to this verse as a description of what genuine growth produces: not arrogance, but groundedness. A person who knows what they believe and why they believe it is not easily swept away by the next persuasive voice or cultural trend. That kind of stability does not come from being closed-minded. It comes from having spent enough time with Jesus — in His Word, in community, in honest reflection — that you actually know where you stand. If you find yourself regularly uncertain about what you believe, or easily swayed by whatever argument you heard most recently, that is not a reason for shame. It is an invitation to go deeper. The anchor is not your own conviction — it is Christ Himself. The goal is to be so rooted in Him that the waves have less and less to grab onto.

For reflection

Is there an area of your faith where you feel shaky or easily influenced? What might it look like to go deeper there?

Pray

Pray for the kind of rootedness in Christ that produces quiet stability, not defensiveness.

Day 5

Speaking truth in love is one of those phrases that gets used to justify almost anything. But Paul's meaning in context is more specific — and more demanding — than a general license to be honest. He places this in the middle of a passage about the body growing up into Christ together. Truth and love are not a trade-off; they are inseparable. Truth without love is just criticism. Love without truth is just comfort. Neither one, on its own, actually helps someone grow. Pastor Nolan was direct about this: the kind of community that changes you is not one where everyone agrees with you and no one asks hard questions. It is one where people love you enough to tell you what you need to hear, and where you trust them enough to actually receive it. That requires real relationship — the kind built over time, with consistency and honesty. It also requires humility, on both ends of the conversation. If you are the one speaking, ask yourself whether your motivation is genuinely the other person's good. If you are the one receiving, ask whether you are open to being sharpened. Both are acts of love.

For reflection

Think of a relationship in your life where truth and love are both present. What makes that relationship feel safe enough for honesty?

Pray

Pray for the courage to both speak and receive truth in love within your community.

Day 6

Pastor Nolan cited this proverb alongside his call to build the kind of community where honest conversations can happen: 'Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.' It is a jarring image, and that is the point. Flattery feels good and does nothing. A hard, honest word from someone who genuinely loves you can sting — and also change your life. Most of us have experienced both sides of this. We know what it feels like to have someone tell us only what we want to hear, and we know — if we are honest — that it did not actually help us grow. We also know what it feels like to have someone say something true and uncomfortable out of clear love, and how much that conversation still echoes years later. The question is whether you have people in your life who love you enough to tell you the truth. And equally: are you someone who loves others enough to do the same? This is not a call to go looking for fault in people around you. It is a call to invest in the kind of relationships where enough trust has been built that real honesty becomes possible.

For reflection

Do you have a friend who loves you enough to tell you the truth? If not, what might be keeping that kind of relationship from forming?

Pray

Pray for the humility to receive honest words from people who love you, and for the courage to offer the same.

Day 7

Looking back across the week, a single thread runs through everything Pastor Nolan taught from this passage: growth is not a solo project. The church is described as a body — with a Head, with joints that connect, with every part doing its work. A disconnected part does not grow; it withers. And yet connection is exactly what many of us resist, because being truly known feels risky. This final day is an invitation to hold the whole passage together and ask an honest question: Am I genuinely connected, or am I nearby without really being part of it? Sunday attendance matters. But Pastor Nolan pointed to life groups and serving teams as the joints — the places where real connection happens and where real growth becomes possible. If you are not yet in one of those spaces, the application is plain: today is a good day to take the next step. Not because you need to perform your faith, but because the body was designed to function together, and you were designed to be part of it. Christ is the standard, the source, and the Head. Everything else — the teaching, the community, the honest conversations — exists to help you grow up into Him.

For reflection

As you look at the whole week's teaching, what is one concrete step you feel invited to take toward deeper connection with your church community?

Pray

Pray for the willingness to take one real step toward genuine community this week — and for the courage to let people actually know you.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about a time you saw a team or a group click — where everyone was pulling in the same direction and something real got built. This message is about what that kind of community looks like inside the church, and why it matters more than we might expect.

Discussion questions

1
In Ephesians 4:11–12, Paul says the leaders God gives the church are there to 'equip God's people to do His work.' What does that suggest about whose job discipleship actually is — and how does that land compared to what we usually assume?
2
Ephesians 4:13–14 describes maturity as involving unity, a growing knowledge of Jesus, and what Paul calls not being 'tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.' What do those three things have to do with each other — why might they rise and fall together?
3
Verses 15 and 16 pair truth and love together — 'speaking the truth in love.' What goes wrong when a community has one without the other?
4
Pastor Nolan pointed out that Paul's picture in verse 16 — joints, ligaments, every part doing its work — only holds together when every part is actually connected. What does genuine connection in a community look like, and what can get in the way of it?
5
Pastor Nolan challenged us to measure our spiritual growth against Christ rather than against the people around us. What difference might that shift in standard make for how a group like this one encourages each other?
6
Pastor Nolan encouraged a practice of consistent time in God's Word — 'Bible before breakfast' — as a way to let our actual knowledge of Jesus grow. How might a group support one another in that kind of rhythm, day to day?

Pray together

Ask God to make us the kind of community that speaks truth with love, stays genuinely connected, and keeps growing toward the full measure of Christ

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Basics

Week 5 · 9 messages

Where these passages are preached

Ephesians 4 Matthew 28 Proverbs 27

Explore related topics

Christian Community Discipleship Life Groups Speaking Truth in Love Spiritual Maturity

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