ENGAGE
In just a week, the Super Bowl will be on television. And while a lot of people will tune in to watch the game, many more will be watching primarily to see the commercials. And undoubtedly there will be some car commercials among all those high priced ads. While I don’t know exactly what cars will be advertised or the exact nature of the commercials will be, what I do know is that if those commercials show anyone driving one of those vehicles, in small print at the bottom of the screen will be a disclaimer that will read something like this: “Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt”.
I still remember a commercial for a Ford Fusion from a few years ago that showed the car “flying” after it drove off the edge of the cliff that had this disclaimer: “Fictionalization. Professional driver on closed course. Do not Attempt. Cars Cannot fly.”
TENSION
Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people have come to view the ministry of the church like that. They think it is to be done by the “professionals” in the church and it is not to be attempted by the rest of us. We’ve even developed language that reinforces that idea by dividing the church into “clergy” and “laity” a distinction that is not found anywhere in the Bible, by the way. For many, Christianity has become a “spectator sport” where we hire professional “clergy” to do the work of ministry and then come to church to cheer them on.
But as we’re going to see this morning, that concept of ministry is completely contrary to what we find in the Bible.
TRUTH
Today’s message is the fourth of five messages that we’re using to teach about our church’s discipleship path.
THORNYDALE FAMILY CHURCH
DISCIPLESHIP PATH
We began with the first step in the process – Come. We learned that our invitation to others to “come and see” Jesus ought to be the natural outflow of our own personal relationship with Jesus.
Then we focused on the second step in the process – Commit. There we learned that being a genuine disciple of Jesus requires us to be “all in” and to relinquish control of our life to Jesus.
Last week, we discussed the third step – Grow. We saw that spiritual growth is a matter of knowing, doing and being. It is not just getting me into the Bible but getting the Bible into me.
Today, we come to the fourth step in the discipleship process – Serve. Like growth, this step involves so much more than we could possibly cover in just one message, so all we’ll be able to do here is to focus on one aspect of what it means to serve and how that fits into the process of becoming a mature disciple of Jesus.
And like last, week, we’ll only have time to answer this one question:
1. What concrete actions can I take right now to take this next step in my relationship with Jesus?
Once again, this week, we’ll turn to the apostle Paul for some answers to that question. Today we’ll look at just a few verses from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. Paul had been instrumental in planting the church in Ephesus and had spent 3 years ministering there during his third missionary journey. He writes this letter to the church while he is imprisoned in Rome for the purpose of encouraging the believers there to live in unity so that they might bear fruit for the cause of Christ. In the first half of that letter Paul establishes basic doctrine and then in the second half of the letter he shows how that doctrine ought to impact the way that they live. This morning we’ll look at a passage from that second portion of his letter. Although I’m going to focus on verses 11-16 in chapter 4, I need to begin with verse 7 first:
[7] But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift…
[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, [14] so 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. [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 4:7, 11-16 ESV)
I first preached on this passage almost 10 years ago during the time I was preaching through the entire book of Ephesians and back then I spent 3 entire messages on just verses 11-16. And because this is such a crucial passage I know I’ve preached on this text at least a couple more times since then. So obviously we need to narrow our focus this morning. So I’ll focus on this idea:
The church works best when every member works
As he often does, Paul mixes his metaphors here. In verse 12, he pictures the church as a building which is being built up. And then in verse 16, he pictures it as a growing body. While Paul uses both metaphors elsewhere in his letters, it is the metaphor of the body that he uses most frequently, especially in 1 Corinthians 12 when he is writing about spiritual gifts. And just as he points out there, Paul makes the point here that the body of Christ only functions as Jesus intends when every single part of that body is working properly.
The church works best when every member works
And Paul has clearly laid out for us here the process that Jesus uses to enable the church to do just that.
HOW JESUS EQUIPS THE CHURCH TO WORK BEST
1. He gifts every disciple for the purpose of serving
This is why I began this morning with verse 7, where Paul reveals that Jesus has gifted “each one” with His grace. The grace that Paul is writing about here is not so much “saving grace” but rather what we could call “enabling grace” – the grace that enables us to exercise our spiritual gifts.
Paul had used “grace” like that earlier in his letter:
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, (Ephesians 3:8 ESV)
Jesus had gifted Paul with the ability to use his spiritual gifts for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles.
This idea that every single disciple of Jesus has been gifted with spiritual gifts and the grace to put those gifts to work is confirmed elsewhere by both Paul and Peter:
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them…
(Romans 12:6 ESV)
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
(1 Corinthians 12:7 ESV)
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
(1 Corinthians 12:11 ESV)
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:
(1 Peter 4:10 ESV)
So the fact is that if you are a disciple of Jesus, He has gifted you with at least one spiritual gift. The purpose of those gifts is not primarily to benefit us personally, but rather to benefit the entire body as we put those gifts to work.
2. He [Jesus] gifts the church with leaders who help prepare those individual gifts to be put to work
We see this in verse 11. Not only did Jesus gift individuals with spiritual gifts, He has also gifted the church with gifted individuals – apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherd-teachers. We don’t have time this morning to go into great detail about each of these roles, nor do we have time to address the argument about whether all these roles are still present in the church today or whether some of them were only needed in the early church.
But what is clear is that even though each of these leadership positions have different functions, their work is all dependent upon and centers on the Word of God. The primary tool that every one of these leaders uses in their work is the Bible. But what exactly is the task that they have been given by Jesus?
It is not, as so many have wrongly been led to believe, to do all the ministry that occurs in the church. As I mentioned earlier the church is not to be the place where we’re all just spectators who sit back in our easy chairs and watch while the “professionals” do all the work.
I’m reminded of three boys are in the schoolyard bragging about their fathers. The first boy says, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, they give him $50."
The second boy says, "That's nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, they give him $100."
The third boy says, "I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a sermon. And it takes eight people to collect all the money!"
But that is clearly not the way Jesus designed the church to work. The role of the church leaders is clearly spelled out in verse 12 – they are to equip the saints so that those saints can do “the work of ministry”.
The word “equip” in verse 12 was used in classical Greek to describe setting a broken bone to put it back into alignment. It conveys the idea of fixing what is broken and supplying what is lacking. It is the same word that Matthew used to describe what James and John were doing to their nets:
And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
(Matthew 4:21 ESV)
Here James and John were “equipping” their nets. They were mending holes and removing tangles and objects that had become stuck in the fibers. They were fixing what was broken and supplying what was lacking.
So the implication here is that on our own, our spiritual gifts aren’t always ready to be put to use in the body. So the role of the leadership is to help us mend what is broken and supply what is missing when it comes to those gifts.
Those leaders serve basically the same function that a coach serves for an athletic team. Next week the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons will play in the Super Bowl. Both of those teams have rosters filled with gifted athletes. But without the equipping that they get from Bill Belichick and Dan Quinn and the rest of the coaching staffs they would have a hard time actually putting all that talent to work in the game.
But neither that coaching or the equipping that the leaders do in the church is an end in and of itself, just like James and John didn’t mend their nets just so they could put them away, but rather so they would be ready to use again.
In the church, the goal is to help each person develop his or her spiritual gifts so that the church work best as each member puts his or her gifts to work.
The one difference between an athletic team and the church is that in the church the coach is actually a player coach. He is to put his spiritual gifts to work in the body right along with everyone else. But just like a team can never be successful if the coach is the only one playing the game, the church will never work best unless all the members work.
3. He causes the body to be built up as those gifts are put to work
You and I can never build the church. That is 100% the work of Jesus who said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). It is His church and only He can build it. Verses 15 and 16 are rather difficult to understand in many ways, but the big idea is clear. It is Jesus who makes the body grow.
But what is also clear from this passage is that when the work of ministry is carried out by disciples who have been equipped to put their spiritual gifts to work, Jesus uses that in the process of building up and growing His body. But as, Paul points out in verse 16, that only happens when “every part is working properly”.
The other thing that is apparent in this passage is that the goal of putting our gifts to work is that the whole body would be strengthened. Certainly when that happens, we all benefit personally as well, but that is not the primary focus here. I think that is an important antidote to the highly individualistic culture we live in and it helps guard against the thinking that the church is here merely to serve my needs and carry out my preferences.
One of the greatest benefits of a church body that is being built up like that is that…
4. He [Jesus] develops us into a mature body, which is evidenced by:
When every member enables the church to work best as they work best, one of the benefits is that the church body matures as a body. An in this passage, Paul gives us four evidences that a church is maturing as all of its people are equipped and put their gifts to work:
• Unity
The first evidence of maturity is found in verse 13 – “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” Paul uses the word “faith” here the same way he used it earlier in this chapter to refer not to the act of believing or obedience but rather to the body of Christian truth that we usually call “doctrine”. That word “doctrine” often has quite a negative connotation in our culture today, especially in some “seeker sensitive” churches that try to avoid offending anyone by stressing its importance. I know that because over the years I have seen several people who have left our church because they feel like we’ve been too forceful in teaching Biblical doctrine.
But we see what happens in an immature church where there is not unity over doctrine when we read Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. In that church there were various factions who ended up rallying around people in the church with some following Apollos, some following Cephas, and some following Paul because they weren’t united in their doctrine.
• Discernment
In verse 14, Paul points out that one of the marks of a spiritually mature body is that people have the ability to discern false teaching. They have built a firm foundation so that they don’t easily get sucked into the latest fads or get deceived when others misuse the Bible to try and advance their own ideas and causes.
When a church body is mature, the people will be like those in the church in Berea, who were “examining the Scriptures daily to see if things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
• Truth
Unity in doctrine and discernment are both based on truth, but in verse 15, Paul stresses the importance of truth, when he writes about “speaking the truth in love”. Sometime we probably ought to devote an entire message to that verse since it seems to be misused so often. But for now, I just want us to note that in a mature church truth is held in high regard, which means that the source of that truth - the Bible – is also valued highly.
• Love
In a mature church, truth is always tempered with love. Truth is not used as a hammer to beat someone else over the head, but rather as a tool that is used for the good of the other person. As we talked about at Christmas, our love should be modeled after God’s love for us – love that is an undeserved action that is extended to the other person without any expectation of receiving anything in return.
As I take a look at these four markers and evaluate our church based on these evidences of maturity, I’m really encouraged. We certainly can grow in each one of these areas, but I have also seen some great progress in all of them, too. I think that is because we do have so many of you who are serving in places of ministry within our body. But I can’t help but think of how we could mature even more as a body if we could get everyone to put your gifts to work here because…
The church works best when every member works
So let’s close by answering the question we posed earlier.
APPLICATION
1. What concrete actions can I take right now to take this next step in my relationship with Jesus?
• Discover my spiritual gifts by serving
Most of you are probably familiar with a lot of tests and assessments that are available to help you discover the spiritual gifts that Jesus has gifted you with. I’ve used several of them in the past and I think that they can be a useful tool in helping you identify your spiritual gifts.
But I’ve found over the years that a much more effective way for most people to discover their gifts is to just start serving and observe where God uses you in a way that is beneficial to the body as a whole.
While there may be some of you who disagree, I am confident that one of my spiritual gifts is teaching. But I certainly didn’t discover that by taking any test. I did that by teaching, both in church and non-church settings.
Long before I ever thought about becoming a pastor, or even before I taught my first Bible study, I had the opportunity to teach some classes for the CPA firm I worked for all around the country. I am convinced that God used that experience to reveal my gift of teaching and then eventually He guided me to use that gift in the church.
So I encourage you to just start serving people – both in the body and outside the body – and ask God to show you through those experiences how He has gifted you to serve. We certainly have some places here at TFC where we have needs and we can get you plugged in so that you can begin that process.
• Let the church help me develop my gifts by submitting to godly leadership
I want to be very careful here not to make this sound very self-serving. Please pay close attention here. You should never believe something just because you hear it from my mouth. You should always evaluate everything I say based on the standard of the Bible. So please don’t tell anyone else “My pastor said…” Do your homework so you can tell them, “This is what the Bible says.”
Nor should you do something just because I tell you that you should. Again, the Bible and the Holy Spirit should be your ultimate guides.
But since it is true that God has gifted this local church body with leaders for the purpose of helping you to develop your gifts so that you can put them to work, then that does mean you need to submit to godly leadership. The writer of Hebrews gives us some guidance here:
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
(Hebrews 13:17 ESV)
Believe me, that verse is probably a lot more sobering for me than it is for you, knowing that I’m going to be held accountable for my leadership here. But is does speak to the need for the body to submit to church leadership to the extent it is consistent with the Bible.
There are many ways to do that, but let me just suggest two practical ways things you can do in this area.
o Listen to sermons for the purpose of application and not just information. One of the primary tools that I am always going to use to help equip all of us is the sermon each week and I’m committed to do the very best I can to keep it lined up with the truth of Scripture and also to make it as practical and relevant as I can to better equip you to serve the body.
o Ask for help when you need it. One of the reasons our Elders have developed this discipleship path is so that all of us can use it as a tool to evaluate where we’re at in our relationship with Jesus and to take the next step to improve that relationship. All of our Elders are willing and able to help you with that next step at any time, but we can only do that if you ask for some help. I promise you that we’ll either give you the help you need or direct you to someone else who can do that.
• Put my gifts to work for the good of the body
Whatever your gifts might be, our church needs you to put them to work because without them our church can’t possibly be all that Jesus wants it to be. I know many of you have already done that and I am truly grateful for that. But if you’re not already serving somewhere, we want to get you plugged in. In just a moment I’ll share with you how we can work together to make that happen.
INSPIRATION
The church works best when every member works
The church is not like those car commercials where the driving is limited to professional drivers on a closed course. It is to be a place where every single one of us develops and uses the gifts that God has given to us for the good of the entire body.
As I said earlier, I think our church works pretty well. But I can’t wait to see it work best when every single member works.
[Prayer]
ACTION
Have people complete the Connection Card on the bulletin and turn it in.
Discussion questions for the Bible Roundtable
1. In verse 12, Paul writes about the “work” (singular) and not the “works” (plural) of ministry. Why is that significant?
2. What is the difference between unity and uniformity? Based on what we learned this morning, how do we know that God desires unity, but not uniformity, in the body?
3. How would you use this passage to respond to someone who says, “I’m not being fed by my church.”?
4. Have you identified your spiritual gift(s)? If so, would you be willing to share it (them) with the group?
