Equipping for Service - Sermon for October 30, 2022
If you have been following along for the last little while, you know that we have been talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the church.
Part of the reason that we have been doing this series is so that we can be encouraged that each of us has a calling, and a purpose, and each of us has been given gifts by God, when we come to Christ, that God intends us to use for His glory, and for His Kingdom. His glory and His Kingdom.
A fairly common mindset in churches is that the pastor, or the pastoral staff are the “professionals” who are supposed to do the ministry of the church.
This is understandable, because churches are often structured in such a way as to elevate the leader of the church, as if he or she is the most important person in the congregation.
That might be fairly common, still, but if you’ve been around here at all, you probably have picked up that that is not the case with us. We don't operate that way at all.
In fact, we have a very high view of the body of Christ, and we strongly affirm what the apostle Paul says in this passage, both in word, and in the way we conduct ourselves.
Formally, our church does have a structure. I am the lead pastor of the church, and within the structure of the mission, I am also a Director.
But you’ll notice that it’s not always me up here talking to you. Pastor Arleen is our Associate Pastor.
In the formal structure, she is second to me and is in charge when I’m not here. She is also a superb teacher and preacher
Pastor Jan is our Community Outreach Pastor, and has been in this role with us since 1996.
Jan has always been a key part of the ministry of this church and she, like Pastor Arleen is very highly trusted and highly esteemed among us. She is also a really great teacher.
We also have Pastor Jonathan, who is new to us, who is our Assistant Pastor. Thank you, by the way, for the way that you have welcomed him to the church.
He seems to be really enjoying his time with us. As he spends more time with us, we will grow to appreciate his gifts as well.
And then we have our elders; Darlene Burns, who is a teaching elder, who has been with the church for around three decades. Breda Woodall who is also an elder with us as is Florence Cho. Together with the pastors, our elders provide leadership, and direction to the church.
But very importantly, the direction and leadership that we provide is done through listening. Listening to God as he gives direction, and that includes listening to how God speaks through the congregation. We are always listening.
Of course, we also have William Elson, who is my right hand man, and who overseas the conversion of this gym into a worship space every Sunday with his team, Benjie, Dave, and often Doug McMasters, and others who come in to help.
That team, and all of us, are still mourning the loss of Kirk Grimes, who was a key part of the team, and who passed away on October 2.
Please continue to pray, for all those who are really missing Kirk.
Without William, we would have terrible sound for the band and the service and the livestream and I would be even busier with all kinds of details that he takes care of for the church and for the mission.
Without Benjie we would not be able to regularly livestream our service. Without Dave, we would not be able to deal with the huge process of setting up the PA every Sunday
Anyway, that gives you a little bit of a line of sight into the formal structure of the church, which we really don’t talk about very often at all. Because far more important than our roles is our relationships, our friendships, our being co-workers for God in His Kingdom.
The folks that I’ve just mentioned are in the roles or offices that they are in in order to equip the congregation for the ministry of the church.
And we are intentional about doing this with an attitude of servant leadership. In a sense we lead from below. We do not consider ourselves in any way, higher or elevated.
Jesus modeled godly leadership when he washed the feet of His disciples, and when he said: “...Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26b-28
So we lead by serving. That is the way of Jesus.
In fact, what we really care about is how well we are able to prepare of the congregation for works of service, even as we work to do those same works of service with everyone else who chooses to enter and be part of us.
Now our scripture today gives us some very helpful insight into how the body of Christ is intended to function, and how we are all called to be followers and disciples of Jesus Christ, and to fulfill the calling to God has given us.
Let’s have a look at our passage today:
Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Paul is writing here as he wrote a great many of his letters, or epistles to the church, from prison.
He was frequently thrown in prison, because travelled around and preached the gospel, and planting churches.
That was his role as an apostle, one sent to establish “works” that ended up being churches for which he then. appointed leadership.
And his encouragement here to each one of us who follows Jesus is simple as it is direct: you have a calling from God. Do you know that you have a calling from God?
Earlier in Ephesians 2:10, Paul says that all who are saved through faith in Jesus Christ are God’s handiwork
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We are his workmanship, because he first created us in his own image, which we learn from Genesis chapter 1, and then he re-created us in Christ to bear His image by doing what God has been doing throughout the ages: good works.
These works are not things that we do before we are saved and of course they are not any kind of pre-condition for salvation. Works have nothing to do with salvation, except perhaps, in the way, Jesus himself described works.
In John 6:29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So, if works have anything to do with it, it’s all about believing, it’s all about faith in Jesus Christ. And you’ll notice even here, this is the work of God, not our works. It’s extremely important to understand this.
Rather, the works that God prepared for us in advance to do are the outcomes, the fruits of salvation, and they show our gratitude for the grace we have been given.
In a sense we can think of it like this: after conversion, the more we willingly receive the work of grace from God, the more fruit the Holy Spirit enables us to bear in terms of good works. These works will bring God glory, honor, and praise.
This suggests that we have a part to play in not resisting God’s work and grace in our lives. Our focus needs to be on becoming more, obedient, more open, and honest, and available to God, so that he can engage us, uses for his purposes.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
So God’s calling on us, expressed through the apostle Paul, is to live a life that is worthy of the calling we have received. Again, this is not in any way earning our calling; it is simply living in a way that aligns with our calling.
It is interesting that among the ways that Paul instructs us is that we need to be “completely humble and gentle; to be patient, bearing with one another in love“.
This is much harder in reality to do than it is to say. To do this really requires a deep work in us from God, because it’s not always, for everyone, natural, to be humble, to be gentle, to be patient, to bear with others in a loving attitude and loving actions.
But this is where we start in the fulfilling of our calling. We don’t want to miss this.
Sadly, sometimes people do ascend to very high and lofty roles within the church, and because they lack these qualities, or are immature in their expression of them, or they’ve never learned the disciplines attached to being a follower of Jesus, their ministries tend to self-destruct. We’ve seen this a lot in recent years, sadly.
In our own lives, and in our own service to the body of Christ, it is important that we would be genuinely humble and gentle and patient, not that we just appear this way. Again, this is a deep work of God in our lives.
So the qualities that we are called to display include humility, not because we are inferior to other people, but because we do not regard ourselves as better than others. Jesus Himself demonstrated that humility is the basis of service, honor, respect, and love for others.
We are also to be gentle, that is, considerate of others, and not seeking to dominate them. This, of course, calls for patience to restrain any desire to seek revenge, or to escape, when others annoy us.
Patience, or forbearance or longsuffering is what enables us to put up with the attitudes, manners and faults of others. All of these virtues – gentleness, humility, patience - make for unity and love among believers, as Paul reminds us.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Here, Paul talks about unity, and he really echoes Jesus' own prayer for unity within the church that we find in John chapter 17, where Jesus prays allowed, with the apostle John within earshot, that we would all be one.
Of course, we can say all kinds of things about how un-unified the church is, or at least has been historically. But I like to use the Yonge Street Mission as an example here.
I have served at the mission since 1985, and in all of the time that I’ve been here, there have been Christians representing at least 40 different denominations, including all the different kinds of Baptists that you find.
You might think that with all of that diversity, with Baptist and Anglicans, and Catholics, and Orthodox and Methodist and Pentecostals and non-charismatics and charismatics, and that’s just to name a few, there would be, potentially, real problems.
But the reality is that we have worked together in extraordinary unity, since the mission began in 1896.
The reason for that, I am sure, is that we are focused on doing what we are supposed to be doing, which is caring for those who are struggling, caring for the poor, loving Jesus, and loving Jesus in the people that he sends to us.
What I have observed is that when we are obedient to do what we’re called to do, differences between Christians and theological arguments that could flourish in some other environments, they simply have no place or impact.
We are too busy doing what we’re called to do, which is not, specifically, to engage in arguments that divide the church
Unity matters. Unity is not uniformity of thought; it is unity of love for Jesus and unity in our purpose
We grow through what we learn - in how we absorb what we learn if it’s all new. Through our agreement with what we learn after grounded in the basics, and in our disagreement with what is taught after we are grounded in the basics. These things form the way we think and our understanding of Scripture.
So the mission is an example of how Christian unity does work. It works when we are engaged in doing the work that we are called to do.
Paul points out that our unity as believers is based on the Trinity.
One Spirit, one Lord Jesus, and one cap God, the father.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
Here, Paul gives another hint as to how unity can work. We need to recognize that we live by grace, and that grace is the gift of Jesus to us, and that grace is based on the giver.
I read this as another encouragement to allow for a huge diversity within the body of Christ.
No one is quite sure who said it but this captures the spirit of what is needed for us to work together in unuty:
“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity,” or, “unity in necessary things; liberty in doubtful things; charity in all things,”
The only caveat?
We must be about doing the work of God, the works of God that he created for us to do, and that work has everything to do with loving people, and nothing to do with winning arguments.
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his 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.
Here Paul points out some of the “offices” in the church.
Apostles and prophets, as Paul mentioned in Ephesians 2:20 are about when the foundation for God’s church.
Evangelists travel, carrying the message of the gospel of Christ to places and people it has not yet reached.
Pastors and teachers work in local churches where one person is sometimes both a pastor and a teacher, or where, and I think this is a preferred model, you have a pastor, who is a shepherd, and many qualified teachers.
This cluster of five gifts is often referred to as the five fold ministry of the church. It is basic and fundamental to the planting and growth of the church. All the other gifts are supportive to the church.
As I said before, though, the main point isn’t the “offices”. The main point is what the leadership of a church exists for, and what a church leadership exists for is to equip God's people for works of service.
Why? 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.
God cares about our unity. God cares about our unity in the faith; God cares that we all know Jesus Christ, and that we all keep growing so that we become more and more mature.
What is the goal of that maturity? It is a high and lofty one. As Paul says, it is that we might attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. That is remarkable, and quite beyond what we typically imagine is possible for us.
But this is the word of God, and we really need to take it in. Seriously, even if it sets our sites so high and creates such a challenge for us that we can’t quite see the target.
Perhaps that’s the point, that our eyes be constantly lifted it up to Christ, that our hearts are always set on worshiping the living God, that we encourage one another to live in ways that enable us to continue along this path toward the fullness of Christ Jesus.
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 people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work
Here Paul speaks about you and I becoming grounded, so grounded in Jesus Christ, so grounded, in our faith in the living, God, that we are not subject to the lies of the enemy.
That we become so familiar with the truth, Jesus Christ, that we are able to identify what is false, and what is not of God.
So, that is a little bit of the book of Ephesians. I encourage you to read the entire book, if you haven’t for a while.
It is good to do so slowly and thoughtfully, pausing often to discuss with God what he says in the book of Ephesians.
We are called to live a life worthy of the calling we have received in humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another in love.
We are called to do all that we can to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace in the church.
We are called to understand that we, ourselves, are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
So may all of us continue to grow in our faith, and in our expression of our faith: in, and through the good works, that God created us to do before the foundation of the world.
If nothing else, we should be moved to grasp that our individual lives matter far more to God than we likely imagined.
And our individual lives, when combined together, form the unity of the church, which itself is a testimony to the reality of God, and the power of God to unite people who might otherwise never have known each other.
We know each other here, because of Jesus Christ. We love each other, and are growing in love for each other, because of the work of Jesus in our hearts through faith.
May we continue to grow toward the fulfilling of our calling, always recognizing that we are the recipients of God’s great grace Through Jesus Christ. In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
