Now we’re moving from preaching to meddling, as the old cliché goes. To declare that there is a life worthy of the gospel is to claim that there is a life that isn’t. There are choices to be made in how we live out our faith. And some of those choices reveal whether we are indeed “rooted and grounded in love” or not.
Sermon Text: To declare that there is a life worthy of the gospel is to claim that there is a life that isn’t. There are choices to be made in how we live out our faith. And some of those choices reveal whether we are indeed “rooted and grounded in love” or not.
A read of the text for this week shows us that a primary sign of the gospel-worthy life is unity. Think about a person you knew who lived a worthy life. When I do that, I don’t think of someone folks would think of as perfect I think more along the lines of someone who is committed to God and the service of others.
What truly comes to mind is three men that came to my hometown during my last year of high school and first year of college who led a Rights-of-Passage program in Bennettsville with me and 9 other young men.
These men took time away from their own families to mentor me and others about being African, being Black, being successful, and being powerful. At the time we called them Africans from Columbia, I later determined they were Men being used and assigned by God for a real purpose.
That’s really what this text is about maturity. Growing up in faithfulness. What have you learned in the last year and a half about the importance of physically gathering as a community of faith for corporate worship! The primary call of worship is unity, education, and Christian Maturity. The recipients of the letter should make “every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”
The unity of the church is a reflection of God’s gift of reconciliation in Christ. The opening “therefore” (4:1) indicates that the argument here follows logically upon the previous verses. In Ephesians 1-3, the author has elaborated upon the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles that God has brought about in Christ. Now we see how to have unity in the church itself.
1. The Church, Our Church, is growing up.
The church should reflect the unity of God's purpose. However, the author makes clear that the perfection of the church is a process and not a completed event.
Christ has equipped the church with gifts (4:7, 11) so that the church as Christ’s body may reach maturity. The body metaphor of verses 12-16 is interesting: the church is depicted as growing into its own body. Christ is already “mature. Yet the church, which is Christ’s body, must build up the body until it arrives at maturity (verse 13).
Wesley in the Deep River community of Lake City is not perfect yet, but we are very much in the process of moving to God's perfect will.
The list of offices in 4:11-13 poses a theological problem for many interpreters. In these verses, the gifts given by Christ appear to be identified with various leaders, whose job it is to train all the saints. By contrast, the “gifts of the Spirit” of which Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 12 seem to be gifts that any believer may possess and use for the good of the body (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11).
For many readers, the related text in 1 Corinthians may be more appealing because the whole church shares equally in the gifts of God. Here, in the text today the gifts seem to belong exclusively to church leaders–or, more precisely, the gifts are the church leaders.
However, it is also possible to read 4:11-13 as a recognition that good leaders are necessary for the church’s unity. Here is what I am saying Good Gifted Leaders are necessary for church unity.
Certain people are gifted in particular ways for the building up of the body, and this is a gift of God’s grace. The language here does not demand uncritical obedience to leaders, but we in the church must understand leaders as a gift from God to guide the growth of the body.
We need to understand that the skills of leadership and giftedness in the church leaders are the main way to serve God’s purpose. When Our leaders do the leadership when our leaders serve the will of the church when our leaders can stand up and take the charge. Then the church will be ready to take up the banner of Jesus Christ. The Methodist church is a church of all believers which means we are all called to tell the good news of God. Yes, the Pastor like the apostles has a set aside work to do, but all members also are called to Teach, Preach, and do social Justice around the World.
2. The Church has to Grow Up!
Ephesians 4:14 where believers are seen to be in need of a warning to “grow up.”
Growing up in Christ is a very interesting idea for us. If anything, in our age of rapid and unedited communication, the winds of opinion and doctrine fly faster than we can keep up.
Scientific studies, poorly reported, spin us from one healthy option to the next without time for reflection and good decision making.
How do we slow down enough and build enough trust with one another to speak the truth in love?
One of the things about acting grown-up is you stop spending your time with (he say) (she say). Being grown-up means you must cut out some of the playings and get to work.
We are all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all.
We cannot forget the order that God has called us to, we can’t forget the purposes that God has called us to! And lastly don’t be a line breaker, as some of you know I thought pre-K and one of the worst things you can do in a pre-K or kindergarten class is a line breaker. Line breakers not only don’t follow the rules if you are not careful, but they also have a tendency to wander off and get lost.
Let me move
3. Your Purpose is to live out your gift as a leader.
Perhaps the most important thing for us in these verses is the clarity of purpose in the lives of believers. In Ephesians 4:12 there is a simple statement of the purpose of God’s gifts, given to believers (not attained or earned by them): to equip the saints for ministry and almost in apposition with that, “to build up the body of Christ.”
All gifts are given for the sake of the increase of the whole. Rivalries, competition, judgmental evaluations are precluded.
The Leader does not have to look very far to see the destructive power of factionalism. Within faith groups, within nations, between nations, lack of concern for building up the body results in suicide bombers in the midst of a congregation at prayer, refugees on boats being thrust out to sea by the countries they are trying to reach, an explosion of rage in Baltimore or Ferguson.
What might it look like if we live worthily of the life of the one who gave himself to and for us? Imagine that.
Leaders using their gifts not to create division but to teach others about the gifts they have on the inside.
That’s what Dr. Benton, Dr. Jackson, and Dr. Galmon were doing when they came to tell a group of argent uninformed young boys about manhood and culture, race, and spirituality. Yes, they were keeping us off drugs, yes, they were giving us hope, yes, they were showing us a better way to live. But at the sum of it all, they were also using the gifts God had given them to pull the gifts out of us. One mentoring relationship at a time. We called it Rites of Passage, but it was really an indication of true humanity.
Right now, as one of these three powerful influences in my life is under hospice care as has been given a short time to live by the Doctors, I asked myself once again Rev. Do you still want to grow up and be like this man and the answer I received was more than ever because for what I knew of him teaching at SC State and Claflin, Leading the National Black Social workers union and associations, working with Church officials to improve the AME Church he still considered among his accomplishments working with my maturity and growth and development? Church the Ephesians passage is reminding us to Equip the Saints for the Work of Ministry, for building up the Body of Christ.
