|
|
CHRIST BUILDS HIS CHURCHEPHESIANS 4:7-16INTRODUCTION All of us, on more than one occasion, have joined with a group of people to work for a common purpose. Our joint efforts may be as simple as working with our immediate family to host the annual Thanksgiving dinner for our extended family or as complicated as working with 2500 people to assemble a couple of hundred Chevy Tahoes and Suburbans every day. Whether simple or complicated, the fact is that most human beings want to be part of a group that is accomplishing something of importance. There is no group that is doing more important work than that group known as the church of Jesus. The Christian Church is the most important human association in the world, bar none. The reason the church is the most important group in the world is not because of who the members are but because of whom the founder is and the goal he has for his church. Jesus Christ is the designer and builder of the Christian church. The church is significant because of who he is. This morning we are going to be talking about the process by which Jesus builds his church but first we need to see how the greatness of the church is rooted in the greatness of its founder, Jesus Christ. In our passage today Paul describes the greatness of Christ as the founder of the church. Notice in v. 7, after telling us that every member of the church has been the recipient of grace through the generosity of Christ he quotes Psalm 68:18. I want you to turn back there (page ___). This psalm is a description of how Yahweh has destroyed his enemies and saved his people (vv. 1-6). Specifically, it is a poetic description of God’s bringing Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, through the desert and into the Land of Promise (vv. 7-10). In vv. 17-18 God is pictured as having come from Mt. Sinai into his sanctuary, which historically would be the temple on the top of Mt. Zion, where Jerusalem is located. In other words, this psalm uses the journey from Mt. Sinai to Mt. Zion as a portrait of how God has victory over his enemies and then ascends his throne to rule over his people. Verse 18 is a picture of the victorious king ascending his throne. Remember, the king who ascends his throne is God himself. When he ascends his throne with all his enemies being led captive in order for him to pass judgment on them, he at the same time dispenses gifts to his allies, to the subjects of his kingdom (The NIV has "he received gifts from men" but the margin says "he received gifts for men." The discrepancy is due to the original Hebrew preposition which normally means, "in, with, to, among". The best literal translation would say "he took gifts to or among men."). In Ephesians 4:8-10, the apostle Paul says that this Psalm is about Jesus' coming to earth and by his death and resurrection, ascending his throne. He is saying that Jesus is Yahweh, the God of Sinai who conquered all his enemies and ascended the throne leading a host of captives and giving gifts to men. Paul says that just as Yahweh came down on Mt. Sinai to then ascend Mt. Zion and take his throne, so Jesus descended to earth when he, the eternal Son of God, became a man and lived for about thirty years on earth and then suffered and died (4:9). But then this same Jesus who descended from the throne of God to the earth has now, after completing his work on the earth, ascended to the highest place, not just the temple in Jerusalem but above all of creation so that he now fills the entire universe (4:10). He is the ruling King of kings and Lord of lords. There is no part of the entire creation that he does not rule over. There is no person or angel that will not bend to his will. It is this Jesus who is now building his church. Therefore, if you are a part of that church you are a part of the most significant organism and organization on the face of planet earth. It is the greatest association on the planet because it is designed and built by the greatest person in the universe. If you are a member of that church, understanding how it is that the sovereign Lord Christ is building his church is one of the most significant things you will ever understand. That is what we will be talking about this morning. MAIN POINT The victorious Christ builds his church by…I. Giving gifts (vv. 7-11) The emphasis in Ephesians 4:1-6 is the unity of the church. The church of Jesus Christ is one. However, verse 7 starts with a word of contrast. The point being made is that the unity of church is not due to the fact that every member of the church is identical in the grace they have received. The unity of the church is not because every member is the same. The members are diverse. The unity comes from another source, as we will see. Verse 7 tells us that each and every member of the church has received a certain measure of grace according to the will of Christ. Since Paul says in this same book that all of us are “saved by grace”, how can it be that Christ has given each of us a different measure of grace? This is a perfect example of how the meanings of words can only be fully understood in light of the context within which they occur. The grace being talked about here is not the same grace as that being talked about in Ephesians 2:4-9. Rather this is the same grace that is being talked about in Ephesians 3:7-8. Paul says there that he became a servant of the gospel of Jesus by “the gift of God’s grace”. Then in v. 8 he says “this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…” Paul is talking about God’s unmerited and unearned gift wherein he gave to him the title, the authority and the abilities necessary to carry out the task of being "the apostle to the Gentiles." In 4:7, this is not the grace of God that moves him to save us contrary to what we deserve but the grace of God that moves him to give us a job in his kingdom and the resources to carry it out. So grace in 4:7 refers to Jesus’ giving to each member of his body an assignment, a job description for how he wants us to serve in his church and the abilities necessary to carry out that assignment. This is confirmed by Paul’s quoting Psalm 68:18 in the next verse where we find out that Christ’s giving grace as he determines is the same as his giving gifts. So the sovereign Christ graciously gives to each Christian a place of service in his church and the resources needed to fulfill that work. But now notice, after he identifies Jesus as the God of Sinai who has ascended his throne in vv. 9-10 in order to conquer and rule over the entire universe, he then says that this Jesus is the one who gave “on the one hand apostles and on the other hand prophets and on the other hand evangelists and on the other hand, pastors and teachers…” Paul is telling us that the most important gifts that Christ has given to his church are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Who or what are these gifts? It’s not hard to identify the apostles. These are the twelve apostles appointed by Jesus minus Judas but including Matthais who replaced Judas and including Paul. These apostles were the authorized eyewitness representatives of Jesus. Paul identifies the importance and preeminence of apostles in 3:4-5. "In reading this then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets." So the first gift that Jesus gives to his church is the apostles and their teaching. The teaching of the apostles is preserved in the NT Scriptures. The prophets referred to here could be either OT prophets or NT prophets, like Agabus. We don’t need to know specifically who Paul is referring to in order to understand the point he is making. If you flip back a page in Ephesians to 2:20 you will see that the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church, with Jesus being the cornerstone. Therefore, the gift of the apostles and prophets to the church is for us the gift of the Scriptures, both the OT and the NT. We have been given the truth about God, about ourselves, about Christ and his saving work by means of these apostles and prophets and this truth is contained in the Scriptures. Evangelists are those people whose primary task is to go into places where the church does not exist and to teach the truth given by the apostles and prophets to people who have never heard, so that the church comes into existence in a place where it did not exist before. It is true that evangelism in the sense of preaching the gospel to those outside the church goes on even in locations where the church currently exists but the work of an evangelist is primarily the work of church planting in places where the church does not exist. Then pastors and teachers are those individuals within the local church who perform the task of teaching the truth given by apostles and prophets and helping the people in the local church apply that truth to their lives. Every pastor is a teacher but not every teacher is a pastor. Contrary to how most of the church uses the word "pastor" it does not refer to the one main teacher in a church; in our situation, to me. The office of pastor is referred to in other places in the NT as either an elder or an overseer. It is both an office or position in the church and a function that is carried out in the church. In our situation we have six officially designated pastors: Randy Benish, Dave Cullum, Brent Mitchell, Derek Perdue, Dave Joos and me. Again, while every pastor/elder/overseer is a teacher, yet there are many more in our congregation that perform the functions of teaching and pastoring than just those of us with the official titles. For example, every father and mother ought to think of himself or herself as a pastor and teacher in relation to his or her own children. There are several incredibly important implications that flow from v. 11. First, you must make it your ambition to know and understand the Bible better. Jesus gave the Scriptures to us, to his church as the foundation upon which we are to be built. Read it, memorize it, read about it, talk with others about it. You must work to know this book. Second, the only healthy churches are those churches that have at the center of their life together biblical teaching. The church is a center of learning about Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures. You cannot build a church that honors God on anything except for a growing knowledge and application of God’s word. This is why the “Foundations in the Faith” curriculum is so important and using the catechism and our Discovery Groups and other small groups are so vital to our progress as a church that honors Christ. Third, from a human perspective, the health of every local church is directly related to the quantity and quality of pastors and teachers that are being raised up within it. It is not enough that we have biblical sermons on Sunday mornings. Frankly, we are too dependent on me right now. We must work to increase the number of called and qualified teachers in our congregation and increase the variety of formats that these teachers have for teaching us. One of the main things the elders are working on for this next year is developing a method to identify, motivate, equip and support a growing number of called and gifted teachers. Fourth, we should give thanks to Jesus for the teachers he has given us and we should ask him to give us more qualified teachers, some of whom will also be elders/pastors/overseers. The victorious Christ builds his church by… Giving gifts
II. Setting forth a clear objective (vv. 13-15) Verse 12 tells us what is to be the result of pastors and teachers fulfilling their Christ appointed function in the church. Notice the end of that result is "the building up of the body of Christ." That word "building up" points to a process that has a goal. It is the word that is used to describe the building of a house or other structure. The building process is necessarily directed towards an end, a finished product. Building is not an end in itself. You build in order to complete or finish whatever it is you are building. In 2003 we hired an architect to design this building and then we hired a general contractor to build it. The builders are not still here because we completed what we set out to build. Verses 13-15 tell us what the finished product, the body of Christ, will look like. Verses 13 & 15 describe the goal positively while v. 14 describes it negatively. In v. 13 we can see that this verse is describing the goal that Christ is pursuing in his church by the word "until" and the verb "attain" or, as it is more usually translated, "arrive at". The building process goes on until a certain goal is arrived at. That verb arrived at is most often used to describe the destination in a journey, as in this sentence: "We left Janesville and arrived at our cabin in Minong, WI four and half hours later." Like in a journey we are in a process that has a destination, an end to which Christ is working. The goal is described by three different phrases. Each of these phrases helps us to understand something unique about the goal to which Christ is building. First, the goal of Christ's work in his church is described as "the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God." If we were to sit down over a cup of coffee and I asked you, "Who are the people in your life to whom you feel united?" What would you say? The sociology of deer hunting has always intrigued me. It happens without fail every November when I head up north to go hunting. The interstate is bumper to bumper with vehicles full of men and orange clothes. Everybody's smiling and waving at each other. You stop at a gas station and everybody is talking to everybody else. We are all complete strangers, but we are all united by our common affection for deer hunting. We have a common language and shared experiences that enable us to immediately begin talking as though we'd known each other for years, even though we just met. All of us feel united to the people who care about the things we care about, who share the same knowledge or at least an interest in acquiring knowledge of the things we value. Paul says that the unity that Christ is seeking to create is the unity that comes from "the faith." This is not talking about our personal faith in Christ but about the content of our faith in Christ. Our unity comes from the fact that we all trust the same Christ who is a real person. Our unity comes from our shared knowledge of the Son of God. We are in agreement about the basic shape of Christian doctrine. We share a common love for a common Savior. We share a common language and a common experience of being saved by Jesus and of life with Jesus. On occasion I've met guys with orange clothes on during the deer season and we'll begin to talk about deer hunting and I will suddenly realize that they are not talking about the same experience I'm talking about. They talk about getting drunk while they are on the stand and about how they shoot any animal they see while hunting deer. They tell how they outwitted a private landowner and trespassed in order to get their deer. In other words while they look like deer hunters and use some of the same language, they are not really deer hunters. I don't feel united to people who wear orange clothes, I feel united to people who love being outdoors and the thrill of outwitting a deer in its own environment and who are careful to respect the rights of others. Here is the challenge that his description of the goal to which Christ is working sets before us. Why do you feel united to the people you feel united to in this church? Is it because they are in the same socio-economic class as you? Is it because they parent their children like you? Is it because they have the same hobbies as you? Is it because they share the same politics as you? Is it because they school their children the way you do? If you don't feel united to anyone in this church, why is that? In the 31 years I've been a Christian I have regularly heard people say they can't find anybody like them in a particular church. All that statement says about you is that you don't think very highly of Jesus. The only thing that prevents you and I from feeling united to the people in this church is our preoccupation with things other than Christ. If your passion is to know Christ as he has revealed himself in his word then nothing can keep you from feeling close to the people in this church. However, if your passion is something else, then, unless you find others that share that same passion it is only a matter of time until you feel alienated in this church. We are to be united by our theology, not our sociology. The second way that Christ's goal for the church is described is: "until we all arrive at … a mature person." This goal takes on significance when we compare it to v. 14. In v. 14, the opposite of what Christ wants is depicted as remaining infants. The primary characteristic of infancy that is used is the instability of children. Children are notorious for having short attention spans, for not being able to persevere in one course of action for very long. They are easily distracted and turned away from the right course of action, like Pinnochio. They are in constant need of variety or they will become bored. A mature person then is a person who is settled in their minds and hearts as to what really matters. They are not easily distracted. They are not easily led away from a settled opinion. They are not open to every new fad that comes down the road. They don't demand to be entertained or stimulated by all kinds of diversions. The important thing to note is that this isn't talking so much about individuals in the church but about the church as a whole. Christ is aiming to create a community that is stable and level-headed and sticks to its convictions. We are to be community that doesn't give into every passing fad or need the next big event to keep us going. We are fixed upon Christ and he is enough for us. The third description of the goal is this: "until we all arrive at…the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Verse 15 contains a synonymous phrase when it says, "we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, even Christ." The simplest way to say this is that Jesus aims to build a church that is full of him and fully lives in him. He is fully alive in us and we are fully alive in him. The end for which the church exists is to experience and express the person of Christ. This does refer to the fact that people ought to see Jesus when they see us, as a community. However, I don't think the emphasis here is mainly upon the outward expression but first upon the inward experience. The life of Jesus is being experienced in our midst. This connects to Paul's prayer at the end of chapter 3. We, as a community are comprehending and enjoying in greater ways the love that Jesus has for us as his church. We are sharing that love with one another in acts of kindness and words of encouragement and expressions of vulnerability. The phrase, "to be full of Christ" is synonymous with being full of the love of Christ. You can see this not only because of Paul's prayer at the end of chapter 3 but also because in v. 15 we are to speak the truth in love and in v. 16 the whole body grows and builds itself up in love. The fullness of Christ in a community is our delight in being loved by Jesus and our delight in loving one another for the sake of Jesus, not because the people in the church are so deserving of our love. Jesus wants a growing sense of warmth and welcome and vulnerability and acceptance among us that is motivated by our joy in his love. This is his fullness. I was talking with a new friend the other day about the gospel and the church the gospel creates. I told him that one of the chief evidences of a healthy church is that the people are in the church not to have friends but to be a friend. The motive for being a friend is that we are so astonished that Jesus calls us friends. You will never be unhappy with this church if the thing that makes you happy is being a friend to others. You will not be happy for long in this or any church if your goal is to have friends. The victorious Christ builds his church by… Giving gifts
III. Enabling a process (vv. 12 & 15-16) Verses 12, 15a and 16 describe the process that Jesus is using to arrive at the goal for which he is working. The process begins with pastors and teachers in the congregation teaching the truth of the gospel and its application to life to all the members of the congregation. The aim of this teaching is to equip every member of the church so that they can perform a work of ministry. The idea of equipping is the idea of preparation for a purpose. The word is used for preparing nets for fishing. It is used of the process of education, where a student, through the "equipping" of the teacher becomes just like his or her teacher. It is used to describe what a potter does when he makes vessel, for a particular purpose. It is used to describe the process of helping a fellow Christian who is caught in a sin to extricate himself or herself from the sin and return into full fellowship with Christ. The purpose for which teachers in the church are equipping the members of the church is so they can do "a work of ministry." The use of the singular here does not mean there is just one job each of us needs to concentrate upon. Rather the singular points to the fact that ministry occurs in specific, concrete acts. Also, an act of ministry is not simply something I do in the context of our church. Ushering can be an act of ministry but so also can changing a diaper or calling a friend who is sad about a wayward child. One of the worst things that can happen to you is for you to think that only "religious" acts are a "work of ministry". The breaking of life into a spiritual, religious sphere and then a secular, non-religious sphere does not come from the Bible but from sinful human thinking. Every action I perform has the potential to be an "act of ministry." It all depends upon my motive and my goal. Notice that the aim of every act of ministry is the building up of the body of Christ. I do my work, whatever it is, as work necessary for the building up of the body of Jesus. Some of that work is directly related to the visible organization of a local congregation. All of us need to be helping carry out the functions and work necessary for us to be a visible local church. We have to take care of our building. We need to set up tables for our potlucks. We need to organize people to work in the nursery. We need to plan budgets and manage money and pay bills and organize church wide service projects and lead worship and host small groups and lead small groups. Every person who considers River Hills their church home should be involved in some of these "official" tasks. You may have noticed the posters in the foyer that outline the various tasks that are part of our church. Every person in here from thirteen and up who considers River Hills their church home should be involved in at least one of those tasks. However, the "acts of ministry" that "build the body of Christ" are not limited to these things. In fact, the emphasis in this passage is not so much on the actions we engage in but the words we speak. In v. 15, "speaking the truth in love" is synonymous with "work of ministry" in v. 12. The main work of ministry that we are all to engage in is the work of talking to and with one another about the greatness of the glory of Christ and how this good news affects our lives. Paul views the church as an organism that is sustained by the free flow of truth from member to member out of a heart that is full of the love of Christ and love for one another. According to the beginning of v. 16, this gospel speech is said to come from Christ himself and flows throughout his body, just as blood flows through the body giving life to the various members. The truth that is being referred to is not talking about being honest with one another. Rather we are to be a people taken up with the truth about Jesus and how his truth transforms our lives and then we talk with one another about this truth about Jesus. We must care about each other and we must do acts of kindness to each other to show we care. However, what I need and what you need is someone who will talk with us honestly about Christ and his gospel. The encouragement I need in my life is not just the encouragement of knowing you care about me but I need to know that Jesus cares about me. The only way I will know that is if someone will talk with me about the truth of his gospel in relation to the details of my life. What gives strength to the body and keeps us from being like unstable infants is when all the members of the church are so full of Christ that we can't stop telling each other about him and helping each other trust him and love him more. We are always on the look out for signs in each other that we are losing heart in our faith in Christ and seeking to help each other maintain a fervent love for him. We don't judge each other but we aim to infect one another with the joy of the Lord by listening to each other and offering words of truth to help each other. This doesn't mean that we just sit around and talk about doctrine, though discussing doctrine is part of it. This doesn't mean that we have forced super spiritual conversations. We're like a family that's been homeless for years and who have been given $200,000 to build a house of our own. We are so excited by this amazing gift and the process of building the house and all the things we want to be part of this house that we can't stop talking about it. We're like people who have been freed from a Nazi concentration camp and are being taken to the U.S. We are full of joy and can't stop talking about what it will be like and helping each other figure out the forms we have to fill out and how to find a job and all that will be required to live in this new country. We have corporate discussions and presentations by government officials and others who have immigrated before us. We have private conversations with one another to work out the particular details of our lives as we move to the U.S. When the church of Jesus gets together, whether in Sunday worship or small group study or in personal conversations, we delight to talk about how Jesus is changing our lives. We love to get to know each other so we can see how Jesus is working in each other's lives. We love to speak the truth about Jesus in love and out of love for one another and in this way build up the body of Christ. The victorious Christ builds his church by… Giving gifts
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
|