The Shape We’re In
Text: Ephesians 4:7-13
By: Ken McKinley
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Every year the President of the United States stands before Congress to deliver his state of the Union Address. From one year to the next, what is said is often forgettable – it’s mostly talking points and the laying out of an agenda. Now I do think it is important to take a review of our past; to take a look at what we’ve done over the last year and see if we’ve managed to achieve any of our goals. I also think it’s important to plan for the year ahead, and that’s sort of what I want to do this morning, but I’m not going to do this by my ideas of what I think are important. Instead I want to do it through the lens of God’s Word.
Now last time we talked about unity in the Church, how God unites different people into one Body of believers – e pluribus unum – out of many, one. Today our text is taking this unity into the application stage. So Paul begins by taking us out of the unity mindset and he makes it personal by saying “But to EACH ONE OF US, grace was given…” We talked about grace in chapter two, how it was grace that saved us, but it was also grace that makes us God’s workmanship. The God who saves us by His grace, also molds us as instruments of grace unto good works. If you think that the meaning of being a Christian is only about going to heaven, then you’ve missed the meaning of what grace is all about. Yes it gets you to heaven, but it’s also for today, right here, right now. So Paul makes it clear that grace is given to each and every believer. If we belong to God, and it was God who has chosen us, and it was the Son who died to redeem us, and it was the Holy Spirit who sealed us, then Paul is saying grace has been poured out on you.
Now notice that Paul says that this grace was given “in accordance to the measure of Christ’s gift.” In other words, the grace that is given to you and I is in proportion to Christ’s gift. It’s never ending… Think about it; how far did God go in making you His own? To the point of death, that’s how far… to the Cross, and that’s also how far God goes in equipping you to live today. If you’re a Christian, you’re not only forgiven of your sins, and clothed with Christ’s righteousness, but you are also equipped to honor Him with your life today. That’s why we sing amazing grace, and when we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise then when we first began.
Now Paul uses Psalm 68:18 to try and explain this grace that has been given to us in accordance to Christ’s gift. Psalm 68 is a picture of God’s triumph over His enemies through the conquest of Egypt up to David bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. But Paul changes it somewhat to get his point across… instead of saying, “He received gifts from men,” Paul says, “He gave gifts to men.”
This is an amazing picture of how merciful and gracious God is. Normally when a king conquered his enemies he would enslave them, but Paul is talking about a conqueror who doesn’t enslave men, but instead gives them gifts for service.
Paul ties this in with Jesus and he goes on to say that Jesus first descended into the lower parts of the earth, and then ascended high above the heavens.
Now this is one of those passages of Scripture that has been taken out of context by certain TV preachers and used to further their wrong theology and agendas. They say that Jesus went to Hell in order to pay for our sins, but this is one of the most un-biblical teachings being preached today. Jesus paid for our sins on the Cross. He said His work was finished from the Cross. He told the thief that today He would be with Him in paradise (not Hell). Just before verses 9 & 10 Paul is comparing Jesus to a conquering king, so we have to ask ourselves, “What did Jesus conquer?” He conquered sin and He conquered death. The captivity Jesus led captive were us. Slaves to sin. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the sinless, spotless, Lamb of God had to go to Hell in order to pay for our sins. He did that on the Cross, and descended into the grave, not into Hell.
So what Paul is showing us here is that God’s ordained ways of going “up” is always “down.” The Bible tells us that God resists the proud, but He exalts the humble. “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and in due time He will exalt you.”
Look at verses 11 – 13 (read)
We’ve been given gifts for service. If your foot doesn’t work then something is wrong with it, if your hand’s don’t work then something is wrong with them. God created all our body parts for a specific reason; if one part doesn’t work, then the whole body suffers. Without hands we can’t work, we need people to feed us, to clothe us, to do all sorts of things. If our feet don’t work, we can’t get around without assistance, we can’t get to where we are going. We have been equipped for service.
And here’s what I want you to see: God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers – but what good are all of these ministries without others? I suppose these pulpit positions could preach and teach and proclaim God’s Word to themselves. The idea is that none of us are so equipped by God that we, without other members of the Body, are complete. What good is a pastor without a church? Or a teacher without a class? As Baptists we historically have emphasized grace. But grace; when properly understood will lead to service. If you’re not plugged in to some form of service then come see me after church.
So why did God give these gifts to the Church? What’s the goal? Well He tells us in verse 12 – the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. As your pastor, I am supposed to be equipping you for the work of ministry. Christianity is not a spectator sport, where a congregation comes in for an hour or two on Sunday, gets entertained and then leaves to discuss what they just heard and saw. It’s not a football game where you have 11 men down on the field desperately in need of rest, while thousands of others sit and watch from the stands, desperately in need of exercise, but always eager to offer criticism and say how they would do it better.
At the beginning of this sermon I mentioned how at the beginning of every year the President gives his State of the Union Address, but something else happens at the beginning of every year. Thousands of people make new years resolutions, and for a large percentage of those, the resolution is to loose weight. So what kind of shape are we in as a church?
According to the SBC’s website there are more than 42,000 Southern Baptist Churches in the United States
According to LifeWay, 70% of all the Southern Baptist churches in the United States are either plateaued or on the decline.
Baptisms have been dropping steadily for several years now, and many of the so called “growing” churches are not adding new members through conversion, but rather from people changing churches.
Again according to LifeWay, there were over 16 million members in Southern Baptist churches in 2008, but only a little over 6 million regularly attended worship services on Sunday.
There’s one other important statistic you need to hear: The average age in the SBC is going up. What that means is that people my age and younger are not coming to church like they used to. And when they are coming, the majority of them aren’t coming to socialize, they want church to be relevant to them and their situation.
50 years ago people would come to church to see one-another, to visit with one another, to socialize and spend time with each other, besides worshiping God. Today; its different, the 40 and younger crowd want something different. If something doesn’t change, we will slowly die out, because we aren’t replacing our numbers with younger Christians.
Some people say that what we’re seeing is the falling away that the Bible speaks of before Jesus returns, other people say that its just a trend, and others say it’s a sign of the decline of morality and a lack of effort on the part of church members.
Regardless; it’s reality. It’s happening.
So; I want to encourage all of you to commit yourselves to prayer in the days and months ahead. The effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous, avails much. We need to pray that God would pour out His grace on us so that we can continue to serve, that each of us would be directed by Him to where He would have us serving in ministry.
And that we would be about our Father’s business.
As this world seems to get darker and darker we should let our lights shine all the more brighter.
I want to close with this story I heard once. It’s about a faithful member of a church. He was an older man, who had been in the same church for 30 years. He was very helpful in pointing out to the pastor the people of the community that needed to be invited to church and the people who needed to hear the Gospel. Having lived in the same town for his entire life, he knew just about everyone and was liked and well respected. But one night this Christian died and was immediately in the presence of the Lord.
The Lord took the man to a point in time and showed him the fate of all his friends and family members. The man was very upset because only a few were allowed entrance into heaven.
The Lord asked him, “Why are you so upset?”
The man frowned, “Well Lord, I told my pastor to visit most of these people, and that they needed to hear the Gospel, and yet there they are in eternity without You. He must not have spoken with them about anything.”
The Lord looked at the man sternly and said, “Oh yes he did, some of them he spoke with on multiple occasions, but the problem was that I called you to speak with them about my grace, mercy and forgiveness. I called you to proclaim the Gospel to them. I called you to invite them to church. Your pastor tired, but because you never did; they assumed that those things weren’t important or relevant.”
Now that’s just a story, but it should make us all think long and hard about our mission as Christians.
He gave, He gave His life for me. What have I done for thee?
INVITATION AND CLOSING
