The past few weeks we’ve been looking at this text in Ephesians. We’ve talked about how we are each called to serve... We are all ministers. Last week we looked at spiritual gifts and we looked at the fact that God specifically gifts us to accomplish the tasks that he has for us... Today, I want to step back - instead of looking at this text at ground level, I want to go to 10,000 feet - and look at what it’s supposed to look like - the total plan... Let’s read this text again (READ EPHESIANS 4:11-13)
The first thing I want you to notice is who is responsible - who is in charge - who is putting the church together - It’s Christ! Do you remember the time when Jesus asked his disciples, “Who am I?” Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” Jesus said... “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. (Matthew 16:17-18) Christ is the one who is responsible for building his church...
The pastor is not the one in charge, and you are not the one in charge - Christ is in charge of his church!
So, back to 10,000 feet... This passage says that Christ gives the church leaders who are to equip God’s people to do the work. That word equip is an interesting word. Some of the other uses for this word: It’s used to speak of setting a broken bone. After a break, the bones are misaligned and the doctor gets everything in place... That’s equipping - Another use is the mending of fishing nets. After fishermen have hauled in the days catch, they would spend time repairing the nets - mending them for the next days use - that’s equipping.
God gives the church leadership, so that the church can accomplish its task - and so that everything stays together... One thing I noticed from both of those examples - Both are problems that come from use. When you use bones, they break. When you use nets they need to be mended... the church is similar - when it’s moving and working and we are serving our community, things get broken and torn... The role of leadership is to help repair it! ...to help mend it...
John MacArthur in his commentary gives 4 equipping tools. 1) God’s word is one - God’s word keeps us in check right. It;s our guide for everything we do... 2) A second tool is prayer - when I begin to question our direction as a church, or I am wondering what our next move is - I turn to prayer... Not just asking, but listening... 3) MacArthur points out too other tools that God uses to equip us - Testing and suffering. We don’t like to think of being tested - but its one of the ways that God allows us to grow. Its also one of the tools that I use as a leader. if you say to me pastor, I am ready to grow, I’m going to find a place for you to serve... 4) We don’t like to think of suffering as an equipping tool. We like to think of our lives as easy... But, I challenge you to look through scripture. Persecution drove the church forward in Acts. They would have gladly stayed in Jerusalem, but God used suffering to disperse them throughout the world... Sometimes God has to use suffering for us to wake up to what he wants for us...
Let’s go back to 10,000 feet though... Christ is in Charge, He gives leaders to equip us to do the work. What’s the result though - what’s the goal? What does God want his church to look like? Well we find it here in verse 13 - These things will continue until the Church is unified in faith... Unified in the knowledge of Jesus... and mature in the Lord.
So God wants us to be unified in faith... You need to understand something about unity. There’s a difference between what we tend to think of as unity, and spiritual unity... Unity means that we are all on the same page, right? When we normally think of unity, we think of decisions - when you and I agree we are unified. Spiritual unity isn’t necessarily the same - it’s not person to person... It’s person to God. Spiritual unity is being on the same page with Christ. It’s coming to understand what God is about...
In Austin right now I have been witnessing greater unity in the body of Christ - I see it in leaders of various churches that are laying aside their own agendas and saying, let’s move the cause of Christ forward! I see it perhaps because we are planting a new church, but I’m seeing it all over... That’s what we have actually done as a church - Very few churches are willing to plant other churches because they fear competition. Very few churches can say, the kingdom of God is more important than my wants, my church, my dreams... When we begin to get on God’s page though, we see that the most important thing is for the gospel to be proclaimed - for people to have a chance to come to Christ, and so we’ll do whatever it takes!
In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
The yoke is a picture of unity... In Biblical times farmers would want to plow a field, but how do you get two oxen to work together? You yoke them... Jesus reminds us that as his followers we have to yoke ourselves to him - that’s how we are unified - we tie ourselves to Christ and we go his way...
Spiritual unity is one mark - another is Knowledge of Christ... I remember getting saved as a young boy and beginning to learn about Christ. One day I was in Sunday School, and I asked the teacher - is this all there is? I think I know it all... My teacher said, if you are growing as a christian you will learn something new every day... I was at a conference last week in GA. One of the main sessions was on repentance. A guy named Darrin preached that we must continually repent, so that we can fully know Christ. The more we repent, and the more we know, the more we know our own depravity - the more we know what a sinner we really are...
Let me let you in on a little secret - I still have a long way to go... One of the things that God does in our life is he reminds us of who Christ is - and how much he loves us, and how much we need to change.
So - Spiritual Unity, Knowledge of Christ, and then maturity... When I was younger I used to think that maturity was seen in years - not true. maturity for a Christian is only seen in time spent with the master.
Listen to how maturity is expressed... (READ EPHESIANS 4:14-16)
So, that’s what it looks like at 10,000 feet... But what about you? You know, we talked about that word equip - it means to repair, restore, mend... One of the great joys I have is to get to share the gospel. The message that although, you and I were separated by sin from God, Jesus came so that we might have life again... Think about it. Each of us was broken by sin, but God chose to mend us - to forgive us. Jesus came to die on that cross for us! He took our place! He offers us life...
And he offers it to you too...
