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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Rev. Steven Swets > Equipping Unto Service | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) *Song of Adoration: Hymnal #103E: 1-2, 5 “O Come, My Soul, Bless Thou the Lord” Song of Confession: Hymnal #42A “As the Deer Pants for the Waters” *Song of Preparation: Hymnal #406: 1-4 “Jesus, with Thy Church Abide” Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-16 Text: Ephesians 4:11-16 Message: Equipping Unto Service *Song of Response: Hymnal #422 “We Rest on Thee” Doxology: Hymnal #488: 1-3 “May the Mind of Christ, My Savior” |
Beloved Congregation in the Lord Jesus Christ:
We continue this morning our series in Ephesians concerning the unity of the church. We have seen that we are bound together in unity because we, as the church, have so much in common. Last week, we saw that God has gifted the church with gifts from the ascended Lord Jesus Christ. This week, we will see that God is equipping or training the church so that she can continue the work of ministry.
As we look at our text, let us take a bit of self-assessment this morning. Examine your heart. What is your role, responsibility, function, and goal of the ministry of the church. As you think about that, ask yourself, are you growing in that? How might you use the God-given resources to become more equipped?
That is what we will see from our text this morning under the theme: Our Lord equips us to function as mature members of Christ.
- The Preparation
- The Warning
- The Result
I. The Preparation
We are being prepared. Our training is taking place week in and week out. As we learn we grow. Our preparation is extremely important. If you are a builder and you are going to build a house, you don’t just tell your guys, okay, we should begin with the foundation and then we should decide where we want to go from there. No, because at that point, it is already too late. A builder must work from a blueprint, otherwise the first question the worker will ask the foreman is, “okay, well, what is the size and specs of the foundation.” So it is with the church. There must be preparation to take place.
But, what exactly is the church being prepared to do? They are being prepared for ministry. And you think, oh no, maybe the pastor and office bearers, but not me. No, you as well. Look at verse 12, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.” The saints refers to all those who believe. So, if you are a Christian, you are included here. Even if you are in elementary school, you are included as well, because we are speaking of a life-long maturing process. The word that is used in the NT for ministry is the same word used for deacons...it is diakonia. This literally means to serve somebody. If you go to someone’s house for coffee and apple pie is on the menu, the person who brings you the pie is serving you or ministering the food to you. We are all called to be servers.
You might not have realized that you were called to the ministry. As you minister, you are continually being trained in your labors. Many workplaces offer “on the job training.” Well, our training or preparation is kind of on the job, but it is probably better referred to as “in the church training.” How so? Because verse 11 lists those who are to train...they are the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. These are all unique offices that God has in time ordained for his church. The only office in this list that still remains today, strictly speaking, is the office of pastor (who the pastor and teacher) It could be argued that elders, ministers, and missionaries all fit here. Let us quickly go through this list.
First we see the apostles. The apostles were those who were directly commissioned by Christ for the purpose of being the foundation of the church as vicar/representatives of the risen Jesus Christ. There were originally the 12 of which Paul was later added. Timothy was not an apostle, Titus was not, Silas was not, even though Paul would mention their name with his in the same breath, only Paul of those men was commissioned by Christ. Paul therefore had more authority than a non-apostle. This is why a few times in the NT he defends his apostleship.
The next is the prophets. In the restricted sense of the words, prophets are as W. Hendriksen calls them, “occasional organs of inspiration.” Like Agabus was in Acts 11. On the other hand, all believers are prophets, but Paul is referring to the unique office of prophet.
Then comes the evangelists. Though today you might think that there are evangelists, they are different than original evangelists in that original evangelists like Paul was not commissioned to minister to one church or congregation. He was to go through planting churches for others to pastor.
Finally comes the shepherds and teachers. Pastors are teachers. There is the article “the” before shepherds to show that shepherds/teachers are the same person with two responsibilities. Pastors are called by God to publicly proclaim the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. A pastor is a unique office in the word of God. These offices are gifts of Jesus Christ to the church.
The pastor has a unique, important, and weighty calling. He is to represent Christ. The honor given to a minister is not because of who the man is so much as to what his office entails. The minister has many particular tasks, but the two primary ones are listed in these titles: he is to shepherd and teach. In fact, godly teaching is part of the work of shepherding.
There is a false view of the ministry that looks like this. The church hires professionals who do the work of ministry. This view is sometimes called clericalism. You hire a preacher, an evangelism pastor, a youth pastor and leaders, an administrator, and a pastor of visitation. They can do all the work of ministry. Now, I have no problem with multi-staffed ministries. I saw the fruit of that in my last charge. But, according to our text, the task of the ministry in the preaching and teaching ministry is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. You are the saints who are being equipped.
There is something of an immediate and ultimate goal in this work of equipping. The immediate goal is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. We are all disciples. We are all in training. This can take shape in volunteering in the church, but it also takes place in simply living a Christian life of love and service. When you see a need, you fill it. If someone is sick, you bring them a meal. If someone is lonely, you visit them. If someone is lost, you point them to the way to be found. You grow at this in time. This is part of the “on the job, in the church” training.
There is an ultimate goal mentioned in verse 13. This is maturity. We will see this more in our third point, but note that this is the end of discipleship, the equipping of the saints for ministry.
There are a couple of things that flow from this. First, and I preach this to myself first, but we must recognize the need to hear sound, deep, theological, and practical, applicable preaching. The pastor does not have to hold your hand each day as you wade through the Christian life. But, in the preaching, he ought to guide the listener to connect the dots from the foundational teaching of the Bible to the practical application of that truth to life. This is not easy to do, and every minister will admit that he is still trying to do this consistently.
The next thing that flows from this, is the importance of faithfully be in worship and actively engaged in the preaching of the word. In order for the training from the pulpit to impact your mind and shape your thinking, you have to be engaged. That isn’t always easy. In order for the teaching to impact and shape your heart, you need to be prepared for it. This time prayer, time, reverence, a calm heart, etc.
Three practical ways to help this. First, pray over the text of what will be preached before the day of the sermon and work through the sermon text that was preached after the sermon. Let it sink in your mind and heart. A second way, is to make sure you are seated on time for worship. Sometimes lateness happens, we have all been there. But to fly in to worship like a whirlwind can’t be the best preparation. If you are able, come in, sit down, bow your head and do what you need to do to prepare for worship. The third practical step is to commit to faithfully be in worship twice on the Lord’s Day. View it as the most important part of your week. We are speaking in this text about training into maturity. Just set aside the primary part of worshipping of drawing before God as living sacrifices. But, if the preaching is what equips you, and it is a means of grace, you will grow stronger under the word. Imagine if your kid only goes to school every other day. I assure you, that they will be less equipped by the end of the semester. Even if they do the readings and quizzes they miss, they will miss the classroom interaction with their teacher and that is important. In the preaching, it isn’t merely an interaction between the minister and the saints, but between God and the saints. This is the great weightiness of preaching. The minister is a mouthpiece for the Lord. Heed the call to worship, by the God-ordained elders of the church who we submit to. Now, we all know of people and churches who make two service attendance the end all and be all of the Christian life. They might think, as long as I am in worship twice, things are okay. Don’t merely go through the motions. Embrace the call to worship and use to be equipped for the work of ministry.
Well, that is the preparation, let us look secondly at the Warning.
II. The Warning
The warning of this passage comes to us in verse 14 (read). Here Paul uses two illustrations to warn against what some wicked people will attempt to do. These are things that some would seek to do in order that the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we are called to carry on, will be thwarted or damaged. How can this be done This is done by human cunning (craftiness) and deceitful schemes (plotting).
So, how do we keep ourselves from this? Well, let us look at these illustrations. The first says that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves. This is a reference to a small boat that is on rough waters. Back in Paul’s day, when this letter was written, there were obviously no motors on boats. If you were out in a small fishing boat and a storm came up quickly you might be in trouble. I’ve been deep sea fishing when a good storm has come up and our relatively little boat was thrown all over the place. A few people got sea sick because the boat was going up and down. I’ve also been on a boat that was 300 feet long and you couldn’t even hardly tell that you were on a boat unless you could see the water. We must be like that second boat. No longer tossed to and fro.
The second illustration is similar, “carried about by every wind of doctrine.” This is referring to grain that is easily blown around. People who are like these are very susceptible to danger. All is well and good until something new comes along. These people are quick to jump on a new idea without looking deeply at it first. In that sense, they are not mature. They are as children tossed to and fro. (Some conspiracy theorists are this way)
Beloved, it is so vitally important to be firmly rooted. This isn’t only the case before you go out...but this is the case through your whole life. Elders and deacons as well, must ensure, time and time again that they continue to grow in grace and knowledge. We must be immersed in the word of God. That is the warning. Let us look thirdly at the result.
III. The Result
The result of being prepared and being firmly anchored is that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the church, is edified. How does that happen? Well, we become mature. We essentially, grow up. As we grow together, verse 15 says that we speak the truth in love. We might think, oh yes, easy enough. Speak the truth. But, notice that little phrase, “in love.”
This means that we are to speak and live in such a way that we desire to see the growth of others around us. We are called to be sources of weekly encouragement to our brothers and sisters. See, over the last number of weeks we have seen our calling to live in unity and what we are each supposed to do, in a sense. But, from the broader perspective, this is the calling of the church as one body. All of us, to be sure, make up this body, but we cannot function outside of the body
Beloved, we are in this together. We are in a process of maturing and growing. Each is involved, from the young child to the grandparent in the pew. We are “joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.” But, everyone is involved in the ministry of the church.
Our calling is to grow. We must grow first individually. This does not mean that the number of people who join our church goes up so much, the Lord causes increase and growth. We must never remove ourselves from that obligation. If you want an oak tree to withstand a might wind storm, you had better hope that its roots go deep. Then it can be called a mighty oak. We must grow deep before we can grow out. But all growth must be done for the edifying of the body, for the glory of God, and leaning completely upon the grace of God.
God has given the church the gifts for ministry. All of us are called to be servers and God prepares us for that work. We have been given a warning and we have seen the result of such growth, all under the authority of God’s word. Now, may we strive, as a body, as a church, to reflect God’s desire His church, the bride of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Steven Swets, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2024, Rev. Steven Swets
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