“Christ’s Gifts to the Church” Ephesians 4:7-16
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on March 5, 2023
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Audio Transcript
It was pretty exciting when she threw her glasses in the early service. I’m sorry you missed that. We weren’t quite sure who she was throwing them out. All right, our children are dismissed at this time to go to Sunday school.
And if you’ll take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter four. That’s where our message is coming from today. Ephesians, chapter four. Kim, thank you for sharing that mission moment. We appreciate hearing about our missionaries so that they’re not just strangers to us.
We want to support them financially, but also with prayers and our thoughts. We’ve been talking about how the church is united and how together, united we stand. But in Ephesians 4, verses 7 through 16, today we’re looking at how the church is. Is a body of diversity, that there are different gifts that God has given to the church. So in one sense, we’re united, but yet we have individual traits, qualities and gifts that God has blessed us with that help to make the whole body better.
I’m reading out of Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 7. Now, Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. For it says, when he ascended on high, he took the captives captive and he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean, except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things.
And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers equipping the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God’s Son growing into maturity with the stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Then we will no longer be little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ for him. The whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body. For building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.
And then in preparation for our message, I like to read a prayer out of the Book of Psalms.
I’ll be reading from chapter five. Listen to my words, Lord, consider my sign. Pay attention to the sound of my cry. My king and my God, for I pray to you in the morning. Lord, you hear my voice in the morning.
I plead my case to you and watch expectantly for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil cannot dwell with you. The boastful cannot stand in your sight, and you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who tell lies. The Lord abhors violent and treacherous people.
But I, I enter your house by the abundance of your faithful love. I bow down toward your holy temple in reverential awe of you, Lord. Lead me in your righteousness. Because of my adversaries, make your way straight before me. Let all who take refuge in you rejoice.
Let them shout for joy forever. May you shelter them, and may those who love your name boast about you. For you, Lord, bless the righteous one. You surround him with favor like a shield. Amen.
Going back now to Ephesians, chapter four, in verse seven, we read now, grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. For it says, when he ascended on high, he took the captives captive. He gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things.
We’re looking today at gifts for believers and also gifts for the Church. And in this first few verses, what I want you to see is there’s an emphasis on the. The gifts, but the greater emphasis is on the giver of the gifts. The greater the giver, the more they have to give, the more prominent, the more special the gift can be that comes from them. In verse 7, we see this word grace.
And here we see that grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gift that Christ gave us was his death on the cross, his burial, and his resurrection, so that we might have eternal life. And that gift that he gave us by offering up his body is this graciousness that pours out to us. So when we think about grace, it’s always a gift in itself, and it comes from a noun that means to rejoice. So when God gives us the gift of grace, which he gives to us freely, it’s supposed to bring about joy in our life.
It’s supposed to bring about pleasure, it’s supposed to bring about gratification. And it is given with no expectation of anything being given in return. Christ’s gift, his death on the cross, the grace that is freely given to us. But then in verse 8, it also talks about that he gave gifts to people. It’s a different word here, but now we’re talking about the Emphasis on.
Again, it’s a free gift. And it’s used in the New Testament to talk about spiritual gifts or supernatural abilities that are given to us in the church. And they’re all given to us with the idea of goodness in mind, that God wants to provide us everything that is good, meaning those things which are lovely, but also the things, things that are necessary. The goodness of these gifts are freely given, and it’s because of Christ’s goodness and his loving kindness that he gives them to us. So we have these gifts that are given to believers, but again, what’s more important is that they’re given to us by the supreme gift giver.
And Paul points this out in verse nine where it says, well, we’ll go back to verse eight. When he ascended on high, he took the captives captive. He gave gifts to people. What does it mean he ascended, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth, meaning that Jesus Christ gave up his rightful place in heaven. He descended to live among us so that he could teach us God’s Word in the flesh and die on the cross for our sins.
But verse 10 says that the one who descended, Jesus Christ, is also the one who ascended. And he didn’t just ascend a little ways, but he ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things. Meaning that Jesus Christ is supreme above everything, above everyone, above every God. Now, Paul is giving us a quote kind of here from Psalm 68, and I’d like us to turn there because he doesn’t give us an exact quote. He changes it a little bit and he gives us a little bit fuller meaning.
But if we go Back to Psalm 68, we find a psalm that’s talking about King David who has conquered a nation and now he’s returning. And as he comes into the city, there’s this triumphal entry that everyone is excited to see him. And part of what he does when he comes back, that the captives that were held in captivity by the enemy, and he’s recaptured them and he’s bringing them back so that they can be let free among the people. But as in many other psalms, David is talking about an earthly king, but he’s also talking about our heavenly king. And it’s pointing forward to this time when Jesus Christ is going to take all of those that are held captive by Satan’s control.
He’s going to offer them salvation and make them free once again. Let’s go to Psalm 68. I won’t read all of it today. I just want to read some select verses. Verse 1 says, God arises, his enemies scatter, and those who hate him flee from his presence.
Verse four, sing to God, sing praises to his name. Exalt him who rides on the clouds. His name is the Lord, and single celebrate before him. This is when he’s coming back into the city, after he’s made all things new and right. God in his holy dwelling is a Father of the fatherless and a champion of widows.
God provides homes for those who are deserted. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity. But the rebellious live in a scorched land. Down to verse 17, God’s chariots are tens of thousands, thousands and thousands. The Lord is among them in the sanctuary as he was at Sinai, again pointing out the supremacy of our God.
He doesn’t just have a thousand chariots, he has innumerable chariots. His army of angels is far above all earthly kings and all other gods. Then verse 18, which kind of refers to what Paul is mentioning, he says, you ascended to the heights, taking away captives. The picture is that the king is ascending up into Jerusalem and he’s bringing back with him those that had been held captive. And at that point, it says, you, the king, received gifts from people, even from the rebellious, so that the Lord God might dwell there.
Remember that phrase, you received gifts from people. Let me Finish reading verses 19 through 20. Blessed be the Lord. Day after day, he bears our burdens because God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation.
And escape from death belongs to the Lord, my Lord. So when we go back to Ephesians, Paul is referring back to this, and he’s saying, Jesus Christ is the king who came down from the heavenly Jerusalem. And by his death on the cross, he has taken those that were captive and he’s bringing them back home with him. And everybody is in celebration. They’re excited to see this.
And what I wanted you to see there in verse 18, it says you ascended to the heights, taking away captives, and you received gifts from the people. In other words, the king was given gifts by the people. But when we get over to Ephesians, chapter four, as all of the New Testament tells us, Jesus Christ is the better king. He’s better at everything. He is the best.
And so when we get over here to the passages, instead of people giving gifts to God, instead of them giving gifts to Jesus, because he has no need of that, what does it tell us? In verse 8, it says, when he ascended on high, he took the captives captive. And. And here’s the difference. Instead of people giving gifts to him, what does it Say he gave gifts to the people.
What are these gifts that Christ has given to the church? He goes on to list them here. And these are people that he has placed within the church to do specific things. Let’s go on to verse 11. He himself gave some to be the first.
First gift are apostles. He gave some prophets. That’s the second gift that’s mentioned here. He gave some evangelists. That’s the third gift.
And he gave some pastors and teachers. And the way the Greek puts pastor and teacher together, it’s a combination role. It could be pastors, teachers, apostles, preachers, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. They’re all gifts that God has given to the church. So let’s take some time to look at each one of them.
What does it mean to be an apostle? What does it mean to be a prophet? What does it mean to be an evangelist? And what does it mean to be a pastor, teacher? The first term there is that of apostle.
The word apostle was not widely used because it was very specific in that it referred to. Referred to someone who was sent out by someone in authority. They were sent as an ambassador. So as an ambassador, whatever words they spoke were equivalent to the person or the authority that had sent them. They were authoritative messengers.
So in this Christ, in this case, it’s Jesus Christ, our supreme leader, the supreme God over all things. He is the one that appointed the apostles to be the authoritative messengers. Let’s think like if you were going to school and someone came to the teacher’s door and they said, I have a message for you from the janitor’s office, okay? And then someone else shows, no, you’ve got to listen to me first. I have a messenger from the principal’s office who is more authoritative there, the one that was sent by the higher authority.
And so the apostles, they were sent by Jesus Christ to deliver an authoritative messenger. We see it used specifically, but also kind of generally in the New Testament. Specifically, it speaks of the 11 and Paul, it tells us that they gave testimony of having witnessed the resurrection. Now, Paul experienced the resurrection in a different way because Jesus appeared to him on the road to Emmaus. So the first qualification is they have to have witnessed the resurrection, seen that Jesus was dead, and knew that he was raised.
So how many people here today saw that Jesus was raised from the dead? Well, I can say that there were none of you that saw him today raised from the dead. So none of you today, today are what, you’re not apostles in this specific sense. They gave testimony of the resurrection. They performed miracles.
They were willing to be flogged and jailed and persecuted and martyred because they knew that the great authority had sent them. And the people all recognized in the New Testament that these were special ambassadors from Jesus Christ. Because it tells us in the New Testament that the people in devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. They wanted to hear everything they had to say because they were speaking on behalf of Jesus. And we also find that those particular ones, whenever there was a major decision that needed to be made, that they gathered together in Jerusalem in order to decide based on what they had heard in Christ’s teachings, what the decision should be.
That’s the way apostle is used in a specific sense of the 12 in the new Testament. But it’s also used in a general sense. Jesus himself was called an apostle of God. And if we come over to Acts chapter 14, verse 4, we find that Paul is called an apostle because he’s one of the 12. But it also tells us that Barnabas was with him, and Barnabas was considered to be an apostle.
So we had Paul in the very specific sense that was an ambassador sent by Christ. And Barnabas was in a general sense also an ambassador of the words of Christ, but not with the same authority that Paul and the other 11 had sent. If we go over to Acts 16:7, depending on your translation, Andronicus and Junius were also called apostles there in that text, but they weren’t apostles in the same sense of the 12. Not all believers in the New Testament were called apostles, though Acts chapter 11:1 refers to the apostles and the brothers and the sisters. So here we have a group that’s called apostles, and over here we have brothers and sisters who were not apostles.
In Acts 15:4, we hear about three different groups of people. The church, the, the general members, the apostles and the elders. Were there three different groups. Not all of them were apostles, not all of them were elders, but they were all part of the church. I’d also like to point out there’s no command anywhere in Scripture that we’re supposed to appoint new apostles today in the church.
Now, that’s not true of elders and pastors and teachers because Paul told Timothy, go out and and appoint elders in all of the churches. And we also find that with that process of appointment, Paul gave a very specific list of qualifications that elders, pastors, teachers and even deacons are supposed to have. But we don’t have a list like that that we go by today because we’re not appointing apostles in the church. Now, is there anything similar today? To an apostle, I would say yes.
Not in the specific sense, but I believe that missionaries that are going out to places where the gospel has never been shared before are doing a similar job to what the apostles were doing. They were pioneers, they were entrepreneurs that were going to places where no one had been to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those are the apostles. Let’s talk about prophets in the strictest sense. We don’t have any prophets like there were in the Old Testament today, because they’re not needed anymore.
Because what do you have? You have the written word of God. But those prophets in the Old Testament, they weren’t just given to the Old Testament, they were given to the New Testament. And we find also in the New Testament that John was a prophet, Jesus himself was a prophet. But now that the canon, the complete word of God is here, we have all of Paul’s letters, we don’t need people to stand up and say, this is what God is telling you you must do today.
And as with the apostles, so it is with these prophets that were sent by God. If we have anyone today that says, I have a new word for God that is just as important as what we find here, that person is not a prophet in the biblical sense, and you need to flee from that person. Now, does that mean we’re not going to have any prophets like this again? No, because In Revelation, chapter 11 there, it talks about that there will be two prophets that God sends, that during the tribulation, they will speak words of God that are as important and equal to Scripture. Now, we can’t confuse prophets, however, with the gift of prophecy, because when we get over into the gifts that the Spirit has given us, people today can still have the gift of prophecy.
Now, they’re not prophets in that they say, this is the word of God is as important as God’s word, but they have a different role in the church. And how do these people use their gift? Well, it’s a speaking gift, and it’s similar to the way that prophets spoke in the Old Testament. They were very black and white in pointing out the problem of sin in the church. They were also there to be very confrontational, to tell people, hey, what you are doing is wrong.
This is the person that you don’t always like to have over for dinner, because when they sit down with you, they get to the point if they see something that’s wrong in your life. And our church needs that in people today. They pointed out sin, but they were also very interested in upholding the holiness of God and Making this clear distinction that God is completely white, and it doesn’t matter how good we are. We are completely black in every way because we’re inundated with sin in our life. But because we have the written word of God, these people cannot say what I’m saying to you is important as God’s word.
Neither can they predict what is going to happen in the future as God’s word does. Now, the prophet might not be someone that you always enjoy being with, because they will step on your toes. Thank the Lord. God sends his other group of people that balances them, and they’re the evangelists. And the word evangelist comes from the euangelion.
It means the gospel. It means the good news. Whereas the prophet shared the bad news. You have a problem, and it’s called sin. The evangelist comes along and says, yes, you have a problem at sin, but praise the Lord, I have good news for you today that Jesus Christ came and died on the cross so that your sin problem can be taken care of.
In the new Testament, example of this was Philip in Acts chapter six. He’s one of the deacons. But when we go over to Acts chapter 21, he was also given as an evangelist to the church. Evangelists always emphasized the solution to the sinfulness of men. Now, Timothy was a pastor teacher, but he was told to do the work of evangelists.
And what that tells us is that none of us as members of the body of Christ can say, well, I don’t have to share the gospel, because that’s just for evangelists to do. What that verse tells us is we might not be gifted in evangelism, but we still need to do evangelism. And we can watch people that are evangelists that are gifted in that way, and they’re a living example to us of how we can evangelize. I would say in our church that Hunter has the gift of evangelism. I mean, an atheist walked up to him and said, I want your popcorn, but I don’t want to hear anything because I’m an atheist.
And Hunter, his first thing was, well, what are you going to do about your sin problem? And I almost melted thinking, I would never say something like that. And you know what the guy did? He stood there and talked to Hunter for 15 minutes because Hunter is gifted in evangelism. But we can all learn by watching Hunter how God works in us and can use our words to present the gospel.
Apostles, prophets, evangelists. Then we come down to the pastor teacher in the church, Kind of a dual role. The word pastor Comes from a word that means to shepherd. And we think about shepherds. They’re protectors, they’re leaders.
They don’t drive the sheep like you drive cattle. They lead the sheep. And they’re also administrative that they take care of things. And so as a pastor, teacher, those are things that I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to be here to protect, here to lead.
I’m here to be an administrator. But let’s think about how it is that a shepherd protects the sheep. The first thing that the shepherd protects the sheep from is our wild animals. The wild animals are outside the flock. Hopefully you don’t want them inside the flock.
And I would compare to these. To people outside the church, they’re antagonistic to God, and they let you know it. They’re atheists, they’re people in the media, they’re leaders, and they’re continually teaching you information that is contrary to the truth. And as a pastor, in my teaching, I should be protecting you from those people by helping you to learn how to see what they’re teaching is wrong. But the pastor doesn’t only protect the sheep from wild animals outside of the flock, but sometimes he has to protect the sheep from wild animals that have gotten inside the flock.
And we would call that a wolf in what, sheep’s clothing? They’re antagonistic to God. Their purpose is to bring about disruption in the church and to destroy and to hurt the sheep. But they don’t want you to know that. So they put on a sheepskin to look as much as they can.
But as a pastor, it’s my responsibility, again, to help you to see when we have people in the church that they. They may look wonderful, they may be doing all types of great things for the church, they may be giving significant amounts of money, but their intention is not to glorify God. They’re just wheedling their way in so that they can destroy the sheep. Protection from wild animals outside. Protection from wild animals inside.
But sometimes the pastor, teacher, the shepherd has to protect one sheep or all the sheep from another sheep. Because sometimes you just have one sheep in the bunch and they’re there, they’re biting the other sheep, they’re kicking the other sheep. I’m not sure what all they do, but there becomes this pecking order that can’t continue on. The shepherd has to step in and do something about that sheep that is treating the others in the wrong way. It’s not the most pleasant part of a shepherd’s job or my mind.
But what we’re Talking about here is church discipline that when you have a sheep that’s hurting another sheep, my first encouragement is, y’ all need to talk to one another and work this out. Now, if they can’t do that, then I need to step in as the shepherd and, and help them to resolve the issue so that one is not hurting the other. If that doesn’t solve the situation, Scripture says, I go with someone else. And lastly, we might have to eventually go to the church to discipline one of the sheep, because if they continue to hurt and to bite and to disrupt and cause division, it needs to be dealt with. So the pastor, teacher is a protector, but they’re also a leader.
And what they are doing is they’re continually leading the sheep either to food, or they’re leading them to water, or they’re leading them to shelter. So when you think about a shepherd leading the sheep to a place, the shepherd goes in advance and they check out the grass. And if there are poisonous things there, they’re going to pull those out because the sheep sometimes indiscriminately are going to eat something that’s poisonous. So they. They go and they look for the best pastures and they prepare those pastures so that they’re safe for the sheep to come and eat.
In the same way that the shepherd provides quality food, the pastor is supposed to provide quality food for the members. And where do I find the food that you’re supposed to eat? It’s where it’s in God’s word. And not only do we find food, but we’re also to provide water for you that’s clean and that’s pure. And we even have to do like shepherds sometimes.
Sheep don’t like running water. It scares them. So they have to make a little dam or they have to block it off so that the water is still. So it is. A shepherd provides food that is safe, it’s quality, but it’s also accessible for the sheep and the people in the church.
Now, you have to picture something here. The shepherd is supposed to provide the right pasture, and the shepherd is supposed to provide the right water. But once the sheep get there, does the shepherd pull the grass and stuff it in their mouth? No. Does he hold their head back and force feed them water?
No. The sheep have a responsibility. To do what? Eat the. The grass that the shepherd has provided.
They have the responsibility to digest it. So it is with me that when I’m providing God’s word, you shouldn’t come here and expect me to stuff it in your mouth. You shouldn’t expect me to make it more palatable for you by adding extra sugar. Or I guess it’d be maple syrup. Here in Wisconsin, God’s word is what it is.
It’s what we need, need. And I provide it. Teachers provide it in the church, but it’s your responsibility to study and to learn and to read. I also want to point out that there’s a lot of stuff in God’s word, so it would take me at least three Sundays to preach the whole thing. Right.
It takes a long time. Now because of that, we got to jump around. It’s kind of like a cafeteria line. All right? You go down and you get your salad and you get your meat and you get your vegetables.
If your wife is telling you to eat your vegetables and then you get some dessert. Now, if you went to a church and all they serve is dessert all the time, something that’s really delicious and palatable and wonderful, what’s going to happen to that congregation?
They’re not going to grow. They’re going to get sick. Sick and weak. Now, you can have the other extreme, too. You can have a church where all they do is serve green beans all the time.
Now, that may be your favorite vegetable, but if all you ate was green beans, comparing that to church, church would start to get what kind of dull and boring, and you wouldn’t have a balanced meal. So it is the shepherd and a pastor needs to provide appropriate, nourishing, accessible food to the flock. But we don’t force feed it. You have to choose to what, eat yourself, and you have to choose to drink yourself. What is the purpose of these gifts?
Let’s go to verse 12 in the text. The purpose is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ. We have two, two jobs here. The pastor is supposed to equip, and the saints are supposed to do what? Works of ministry.
It’s not the pastor’s job in the church to do all the practical works of ministry. Some pastors want to do that. No, no, don’t. Don’t do that. I’ll take care of that.
No, no, don’t do that. I want to change the light bulbs. No, no, don’t do that. You know I’m going to do everything. A pastor that does that in the church, he’s keeping other people from having joy.
And he certainly can’t do what everybody can do if they all work together. Pastors need to focus on equipping people and helping them so that they in turn do works of ministry, pastor equips. The people learn and study, the pastor equips, and the people do the work of ministry. What does this word equip mean here? Well, in the New Testament times, it was used in a couple different ways.
The same way that pastors do things. It was used to describe the act of setting broken bones or for putting a dislodged joint back into its place. Part of a pastor’s job in order to equip people for works of service. Sometimes they’re broken. There are things in their life that need mending, and the pastor is can come along and help them with that.
But the term here to equip was also used in the political arena. It was used when it was talking about bringing people from this side of the table and telling them, hey, you got to work with people on this side of the table. You may have some different ideas here, but let me help you to come together, because we all benefit from different opinions and we can work together. The word equip also referred to fishermen who were repairing their broken nets. And again, pastors have to work at working broken things that are in church to restore them.
And it was also used in Galatians 6 when it talks about restoring people to fellowship that had been disciplined, that the idea is not to push them out of the church, but to restore them. That’s what equip means. Now, on the other hand, what does this work of ministry mean?
The work of ministry here comes from the word diaconia. We get the word deacon from that. And the word diakonia means practical acts of service. So when we talk about deacons in the church, there are people that are doing practical acts of service in the church. And we go back to Acts chapter 6, where the widows were complaining because their needs were not being met.
For some reason they were distributing food. And the widows, maybe they were kind of shy. They were standing back in the corner and the younger moms were running up and grabbing the food for their babies. But the widows needed food too. And so instead of the apostles giving up their time of study, giving up their time in prayer to meet these needs, we had deacons that were appointed in Acts chapter 6.
I mentioned Philip earlier. They met the practical need of that day that the widows had so that the pastors, the apostles, the elders, and the teachers could study and pray. Now, the deacons did that. But it also tells us here it’s not just the deacons who do these practical acts of service. It’s all of the saints in the church.
The pastors equip the members do works of ministry. And this is all so that the body of Christ, it tells us, will be built up brick by brick. Every person in any of their ministries, they help the church to grow. And if anybody decides, well, I’m not going to do any type of practical service in the church, I’m not going to use my gift, there aren’t going to be enough bricks to complete the building that Christ wants to do in a body of Christ. Let’s go on to verse 13 now and see further purpose of these gifts.
In verse 13 it says, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ fullness, this equipping by the pastors, this work of ministry, when it happens together, it develops unity in the faith that everybody comes to the point that they all agree upon what God’s Word says, that we’re supposed to believe. And we all grow in our knowledge and we become united in our knowledge of God’s Son, who He is, what he’s done for us, how powerful he is, and our allegiance that we owe to Him. And this continues to grow until we all become mature. And it doesn’t mean necessarily old there. It says that we’re supposed to be mature, being measured by Christ fullness.
One thing that we need to get out of all of this is when do these things actually happen in the Body of Christ? At what point are we all completely united in everything that we believe that so that we all understand what God’s Word exactly says? Do you feel like we’ve reached that point, we consider the whole body of Christ? No, that is not going to happen until we see Jesus Christ face to face, that he returns and takes us to heaven. And we completely understand all things.
We continue to grow in our knowledge of God’s Son, but we’re not going to completely know him until he returns and he takes us to be with him in heaven. And until all of us get to the point that we can say, I’m completely full, I look exactly like Jesus Christ, these jobs of equipping and these jobs of doing the ministry must not come to an end. Now I hear people sometimes say, well, I served in the church when I was younger, but I’ve done enough now. It’s time for another generation to step in and, and do the work. I’m just going to come and I’m just going to sit and enjoy it.
When people have that attitude, my question is, do you look exactly like Jesus Christ today. Do you know everything about Christ that you’re supposed to know? Because according to scripture, if you don’t look exactly like Jesus, you need to continue in the work that he has given us to do. We’re all responsible to equip to do works of ministry until there’s complete unity in faith, there’s complete unity in our knowledge of God’s Son, there’s maturity where we fully represent Jesus Christ and we’re so full of him that you just can’t squeeze in any more of Jesus. It’s like your Thanksgiving meal and you’ve eaten everything and you’ve got just one more bite of your favorite pie on the plate and you just sit back and you say, what?
I just, I can’t eat that one last bite. If you get to that and your knowledge of Jesus Christ, then you’ll know that, okay, I don’t have to do works of ministry anymore. But we’re not going to be there, I’m telling you, until he comes to take us home. Pastors must be faithful in equipping, but members must be faithful in works of ministry. Let’s go on to verse 14.
Now continuing about the purpose of the gifts. What does it result in when this happens? As people are equipped and they do works of ministry, as they truly feed and they drink on God’s word, it says, then they will no longer be little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. What we’re talking about here is say you have a four year old and you tell them, don’t talk to strangers. But then they go out on the street and the stranger has a really cute little puppy dog and they say, you want to pet my dog?
Okay, what’s that little kid going to do if mom and dad aren’t there? They’re going to be really tempted to go and play with that dog or someone else does something special. Then as they grow older, mom tells them at home, you know, this is what God’s word says. Then they go to school and the teacher says, no, this is what you need to believe because this is what science says. And the kid is like, okay, well mom and dad said that, but then my teacher said that.
So I’m tossed between the two. Who do I believe? Or maybe they watch one of their famous people on YouTube and it changes their mind. It’s the picture of these children that don’t know exactly what they believe. If a pastor is equipping, if people are feeding.
If people are doing their work, they’re not going to be like these children, tossed back and forth on what to believe and who to believe. They’re going to say, no, this is what God’s word says. It doesn’t matter what my teacher says. It doesn’t matter what the newspaper says. It doesn’t matter what the president.
Doesn’t even matter what my pastor says. What we’re going to do is, is go walk the straight line that Jesus Christ has given us in his word. Because Scripture tells us here that this every wind of teaching, it’s accompanied by human cunning, by cleverness, and by all these techniques and deceit. In other words, there’s all this propaganda that the world uses to try and cause us to deviate from the truth. And church members easily do that if they’re not in God’s word.
Little children need encouragement to eat healthy. How many of y’ all would agree with that? If they have it? Usually if they have a choice between candy and green beans, what are they going to choose every time? So, as your pastor, I need to encourage you to eat the right foods, but you still have to choose what you have to choose to eat those right foods.
Paul complained because he said there were many in the church, but he was in Corinth. He said that all you want is milk. You’re so lazy, you’re not even willing to chew up the meat that’s being offered to you. Now, if you’ve had a good steak, is it worth chewing on it? Yes.
And people that have never had a good steak, if they just drink milk all their time, they’ve got to choose to feast on what is best and healthiest for them. You need to learn to chew God’s word and to feast on it, or you’re never going to be so set in your knowledge that you know this is what God wants. You’re going to continue to be blown back and forth. Verse 15 gives us some more results of what happens when you have proper equipping, proper ministry, proper feeding tells us that then there’s going to be speaking the truth in love. You know the truth.
But with that maturity also comes the ability to present the truth in love. And when you can present the truth in love, yeah, it hurts some when people step on your toes, but you know they’re doing it because they love you. It certainly helps if you add a little bit of sugar to the medicine. It makes it, what, more palatable. So it is that love with truth.
So the body of believer that’s that’s growing. People don’t get offended when they hear hard things because they know that there is a love among them that causes them to stick together speaking the truth in love. Now, the scripture tells us that we, us, we continue to grow in every way. So when these things are properly happening, all the individuals in the church continue to grow in every way. But as we go down into verse 16, not only does the individual grow in every way, but it tells us that the body, the whole church.
So there’s this individual growth that goes along with the corporate growth of the whole body. Speaking the truth in love. Let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ from him, from Jesus Christ. This whole body, meaning all of the believers. He’s fitted us and he’s knit us together with all these supporting ligaments.
But then it says that it’s not Christ that promotes the growth of the body, but it’s the whole body by them doing what they’re supposed to. The whole body is what causes the church to grow together. What you do individually, as far as knowing Christ better, feasting on the Word and doing works in ministry, you don’t just benefit yourself, but you’re benefiting everyone here in the body of Christ. The growth of the body for building itself up in love. And this happens by, again, it’s this emphasis.
It’s the proper working, not of some, but what does it say of each individual part? If every church member is continuing in ministry and they’re continuing in growth, we’re going to see love and growth of the body and growth of individuals. What will the fruit or the end result be if a pastor teacher doesn’t equip the members in the way he’s supposed to? If the pastor teacher doesn’t do that, then people aren’t going to be equipped to do works of ministry and there’s going to be no growth for individuals and no growth for the body. Individuals need to grow in every areas of our lives.
When that happens, the congregation also grows. So I’ll leave you with three questions today. Are you being equipped to the point that you’re eating? We try to provide lots of opportunities at church, and not just my teaching here, but in Bible studies and in small groups. All of those things you need to find the ones that you need to be involved in.
Don’t expect someone to force feed you God’s word. You have a responsibility to take what is being offered to you. Next question is, are you maturing in your knowledge of Jesus or are you saying, I know everything I need to know about God’s word. I’ve been coming to church all my life. What I’ve done is sufficient up to this point.
That’s not what scripture says. There is no retirement in the church of Christ. That we come to a point that we don’t need to learn anything else and we completely stop doing all things. And the last question is, are you doing some type of work or works of ministry in the body of Christ? Again, there is no retirement.
We must all continue to strive to to work in the body to benefit ourselves and others. And the only time that we can retire is actually when Jesus Christ returns. We know him fully, the church is complete. And then we will spend eternity with him. Now, I don’t think we’re going to actually retire in heaven.
That’s another sermon. I think we’re just going to have greater works to do because I would get bored sitting watching TV all day long. Maybe some of you want to do that, but I’m looking forward to doing, doing more and greater things in heaven someday. May we bow in prayer in closing. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Help us to take advantage of all the opportunities that you provide for us to grow. In your word. Give us a desire to continually want to know more about Christ. And Father, show each of us the things that we need to do. The works of service within the body so that we might grow and that our church might grow also.
In Jesus name, amen.