Laying The Foundations Series

Laying the Foundations

CCCAG, April 24, 2022

Scripture: Ephesians 4:7-14

There was a man who knew nothing about cars.

He brought his car to the mechanic because it was shaking. It was a busy day in the garage, so he was told to sit in the waiting room until one of the mechanics was available. When his number was called, the man went to the desk to speak to the person would fix his car.

He told him that about a month ago, his car had started shaking, and it has been getting worse and worse and he can’t even go over 35 mpg anymore because the shaking is so bad. The mechanic nodded and went to go and check the car out.

In about 15 minutes, he came back and said your car is ready to go. Not only that, but because it was such an easy fix and you’re a good customer to us, we will just charge you for the part and let you go on your way.

The customer was amazed and asked what the problem had been. The mechanic said that there were 5 lugnuts on each of the tires, except for the front left tire only had 4 lugnuts, and the tire had been getting looser and looser, and that is what caused the shaking. He said he gave the alignment and suspension a quick check to make sure there was nothing damaged from the shaking, and everything looked good there, and they’d just charge him the $5 for the lugnut.

Isn’t it funny how one little part, not in its proper place, can cause so much potential shaking and damage to a car? You’d think the other four could take up the slack, but there is a reason that the engineer designed the car to take 5 lugnuts for that tire. They calculated out the weight of the vehicle, the strength of the suspension, the size of the tires, the torque that would be applied by the drive train and when they crunched all those numbers, the answer came to the number 5.

Just like the engineer designed that particular car to need 5 lugnuts to properly function, God has designed his church with 5 necessary positions with it.

Those positions form the foundations of the church that every Christian has stood upon since Paul’s day.

As we continue our Ephesians series today, we are going to look at those positions, their reasons for being, and their function and necessity.

Scriptures-

Eph 4:7-14

7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

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11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's 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 men in their deceitful scheming.

NIV

Prayer

One of the things that we all have noticed is the decline of the influence of the church in the last 30 years. Some of it is because of scandals involving well known preachers. Some of it was the church trying to be openly influencing politics and then supporting very failed men in an effort to protects our rights and comforts.

Much of it thought was because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most grew cold. (Pause) Someone named Jesus predicted that would happen (Matthew 24).

There is a large documentary on a cable channel that says it “exposes” a very influential worldwide ministry essentially as being nothing more than a money and influence making enterprise that numbs it’s attendees with emotional music and then gives them essentially a pep talk before dismissing them for the next service.

It's the world system pointing at yet another possible failure and trying to call the whole church a fraud.

There is no question that the church worldwide is shaking right now, and part of the reason is we are missing some of the tools and positions within the church that Christ designed us to operate with.

Let’s start to break this down-

In verse 7

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it

When we see the word “Grace” in the bible, it means that God has given us a gift, unmerited gifts- meaning we didn’t earn it, and that it’s necessary for us to accept those gifts in order for us to be healthy members of His Kingdom.