Body Life - What Was He Thinking?

Good morning. We're going to be doing a one-month special series here, and it'll be focusing on the life of the body among us in the body of Christ. And schedule goes like this. We'll spend today in Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, as Courtney read for us, and then continue on next week, verses 14 through 16. and then move on to 1 Corinthians and Colossians. In this passage here that Courtney read for us, we are admittedly kind of jumping into the middle of the book, but we'll give kind of a quick orientation. It'll be a little bit like starting off in a jet dragster, you know, and you're just sort of, okay, get ready, set, and that's kind of how we'll go here. So, fasten your pew belts, okay? Alright. Just to give you some introduction, in chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians, the first 16 verses can be summarized like this.

Verses 1-6 is an appeal by Paul for the believers to walk consistent with their eternal position in the Lord, the position that they have in Christ, because they are indeed in Him. The next verses, 7 through 10, are Christ's actions that result, as we see here, in spiritual captives, and this is interesting, spiritual gifts, but not In this passage, referring to gifts that each believer is given, although scripture does make reference to that, but Christ gifts to the church. It is these gifted men who are gifted to the church. And verses 11 through 16 will be our particular passage for study this week and next. Specific gifts given in God's intended process and the results. What does that look like in the church? Anyway, that's the big picture here for chapter 4. We're looking at just one verse at a time, so just one step at a time here as we step into the Jet Dragster. Okay.

Now, in Ephesians 4.11, there's this phrase, some as, and let me read that verse again so we have context, and he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. This some as gets across this idea. He used the phrase Because even though he's referring to oneness in the church body, the passage that he just talked about referred to the oneness of the body, here we have spiritual gifts that potentially convey a diversity in the body.

How am I going to have this oneness and I have these gifts that potentially take people in different directions? Different gifts. Doesn't that sound divisive? And what does he do? He says all these varied gifts, these gifted men given to the church, these varied gifts have one particular direction and intent. That's what he's pointing to here. Even though we have a variety of gifts given, and he identifies them, there is still one ultimate purpose and intent. the Lord has in mind. In 1 Corinthians 12, that we'll be touching on just a couple weeks from now, Paul presented the same truth another way by asking questions. The some as idea implies that there are some that have the gift of apostle and prophet, some that have the gift of evangelist, some that have the gift of pastor and teacher. And he does it and addresses that some as idea by asking questions.

Are all apostles? And the answer is no. Are all prophets? No, etc. And he goes through with that kind of line of reasoning, essentially coming to the same conclusion. There is a distribution of these spiritual giftedness. Okay. Now we have apostles and prophets in the book of Ephesians, and this is again, this is part of the jet dragster phenomenon, so hold up under the g-forces here, okay.

Ephesians 2.20 talks about having been built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.

So here's the Apostles and Prophets the first time. Next chapter, he talks about truths which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as has now been revealed to his holy Apostles and Prophets. So here's the Apostles and Prophets mentioned now for the second time. And here in this passage, for the third time in the book, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets. So now we have the third time where these apostles and prophets are mentioned together. Now, these apostles and prophets in 4.11, the apostles, what are they?

They are special messengers. They are messengers sent by and appointed by the Lord, specifically for conveying the gospel. to convey the good news of Jesus Christ. Not only the gospel of salvation, but the gospel that you grow on. Okay? Both of those. Prophets served an interim role in the churches. The churches had the Old Testament but not the New Testament until it had accumulated to the point where they actually had that. And so these prophets served an interim role where they would make specific revelations to help address issues and things that came up in the church and answer questions that the New Testament letters were not yet able to answer because they hadn't been produced yet or they weren't circulated sufficiently.

Now we're going to squeeze that. OK? All right. The squeeze goes for this reason. It's the first purpose of those apostles and prophets was as a foundation, the foundation for the church. They're the ones who are going to do the initial evangelism, the initial teaching, to get the churches started, and begin things, and then write the New Testament so that you have everything necessary to solidly found the church. Next, these apostles and prophets had truth revealed to them that was unique, and they also were involved in God's revelation of that truth to others that was unique.

At this passage here, Ephesians 4.11, we're looking at here this morning, we have these apostles and prophets involved in edification. It has nothing to do with a guy named Ed.

This is building up. That's the idea. Building up the body of Christ. So the foundation serves, why? For edification. The revelation serves for edification. The apostles and prophets from the very beginning all the way to the end of the task that God assigned to them were for building up the body of Christ. That's what it comes to.

Next you see in verse 11 these evangelists. Now the name of one evangelist in the New Testament that we have clearly recorded for us there in Acts was Philip. He was first recognized as a deacon, and the Lord kind of sent him off on other tasks. And evangelism was one of those things. We have pictured here his instance with the eunuch from Ethiopia.

And one example, Paul wrote to Timothy, and this is 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy was the last letter that Paul wrote to Timothy. Matter of fact, that's the last letter that we have from Paul at all. And this chapter 4 is the very last set of words that he was writing that we have any record of. Paul shortly after these, that verse right there, is going to write, I'm just about poured out. My life is done. I'm just about through with everything here. And so what does he do? He's giving the last important information to Timothy and he says, do the work of an evangelist. People need to have the gospel. Timothy, be sure you do that, okay? Evangelists gave the good news of Jesus Christ personally. One of the things that has happened in our modern world is evangelism has taken on a couple of different senses that were not there in the New Testament era.

And one of those is we tend to think of evangelism as something you do in a stadium. It's got to have a stadium. Well, let me tell you, the Romans had no idea that they were going to rent out the Colosseum or anything like that for evangelism. That was not in their thinking at all.

And the other thing that evangelism has tended to get associated with is these guys on the television that ask for money every five minutes. And they get called televangelists. Well, the interesting thing is, is neither of those modern concepts were what we see in the New Testament.

What we find is very personal evangelism. One person to another frequently. Just like we read of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. One person to another. Evangelism was personal, not electronic. Evangelism was personal, not en masse. The en masse phenomenon was actually, as we see it in scripture, rather unusual. Probably the day of Pentecost where 3,000 were added in one day was certainly an unusual case, but even seemed to decline in terms of the number of people who were appealed to at once as time went on.

Pastors and teachers is the next one. This Greek word for a shepherd here is translated as pastors. And what's interesting, this is the only place where that word is used as a noun describing the spiritual gift of the New Testament. We tend to use the word pastors, we even use it as a title. But this is the only place, this passage right here, where it's used as a noun for this particular role. What's interesting is the only place that that word is used as a title is for Christ. the chief shepherd. It's the only place that's used as a title.

Pastors, who are also called elders and overseers in the New Testament, must be able to teach. That's a requirement. Absolute requirement. What are you laughing at? Anyway, okay. and to provide for the care of God's flock in other ways. There is actually a fairly lengthy list of the things that pastors are called to do in the church body. Then there is this pastors and teachers. There's also the gift of teaching. It doesn't require that a person be gifted as a shepherd. So a shepherd must be able to teach. A teacher doesn't necessarily have to be a shepherd.

It's an interesting thing about this. I use this word pastor here. The truth is that pastors, as we have culturally defined them, are really a tough lot. Let me give you a few statistics and you'll get an idea what I mean. One of the things that pastors are frequently called to do is marriage counseling, right? But you know what? As an occupation, it is the number three divorce occupation. After policemen and doctors, it's number three. What are they doing doing marriage counseling? It is a tough occupation.

For every 20 guys who start off being a pastor by age 65, 19 of them are dropped out. Whoa! That's bad. Statistics vary because I'm not sure what pastors will admit to. Somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of them will admit that they're over the line in their sexual relationships. And I mean, you know, that can be various things. And one reason why the statistic varies, it is a rough occupation. In any one year, 80 percent of the pastors consider quitting.

And why would I say all these crazy things? First of all, they're true. But aside from that, it is key to look at and say there is a difference between what society calls for a pastor to do and what the Lord has called for a pastor to do. And so I've done the craziest of all things. Left this great engineering career. with all sorts of opportunities in front of me to be a pastor. Why?

I love it. I love it. Now, this teaching, what is it? Teaching is explaining the meaning of the Word of God so that all of us in the body of Christ have a livable understanding. Notice I put the word livable. It is intended to be lived. It's not just, here's spiritual data and information. It is intended to be lived out. We are, because of the teaching, to be ever more clearly beholding Christ through His Word. Ever more clearly beholding Christ through His Word. That is what is to come to you. So now, are you ready? I need to know if you're prepared. Okay, all of you? Are you ready? I hope so.

Because we're about ready to go into the next verse. In verse 12, he's about to tell the purpose for Christ giving these gifted men to the church. The purpose for giving these gifted men to the believers in the church. This is going to be an important insight.

Why? Why would we say that? We're about to see why we're meeting here this morning. Why are we doing this? We're going to see why we're going to maintain fellowship with one another. What's this for? Why do we do this? Why do we gather here? It's interesting, probably for most of the people here, coming here is voluntary. Why do we gather? What would be the reason for doing that? He's about to tell us.

In verse 12 he says, here's all the giftedness for what? For the equipping of the saints for the work of service. The equipping of the saints for the work of service. This giftedness of those whom Christ gave to the church is intended to equip all the people in the church and that equipping means actually military outfitting.

I was talking to Matt Kirby, who just recently made a shift from the Army into the National Guard there. I said, that's military outfitting. He says, oh, that means you've got your kit. Okay, all right. It means you've been given everything you need to carry out the tasks you've been given.

Not only that, but to know how to use it. Why do we have pastors and teachers? Oh, just to fill up 45 minutes on a Sunday morning, right? No. We have pastors and teachers to equip the body for the work that the body is to do. Or to use Matt's term, so that you've got your spiritual kit. To prepare all of the people in the church for the work of serving.

That's what this is pointing to. This Greek word here that's translated service in the King James is called ministry. And in other places in the King James and in other translations, ministry is the word that's used. So one of the points there is that we typically would say, oh, Verne's in the ministry. No. Guess who's in the ministry? You're in the ministry. My job is to equip you for the ministry. That's what's going on here. You are the ones who carry out the ministry. I'm just to get you ready for it. That's all.

This to the building up of the body of Christ. Equipping all these people for the work of service. Why? To the building up of the body of Christ. Building up the body is what it's for. That's why we're gathering. That's why we meet together like this. Building up the body of Christ. That's the focal point. That's what this is for. You know, it's interesting.

We come into these walls in here and, you know, I'm sure that the Lord is glad that we're gathering together, but this is no special piece of real estate. It doesn't warm the cockle of God's hearts to have it just come into this piece of real estate, right? He doesn't say, oh, they went inside the walls. Oh, that's so good, right? There's nothing like that. No, what's going on, it's not about the building, although I'm glad for it, okay? It's not about that. It's not about just meeting together and signing off that you've been here and then going home.

It is building up the body of Christ. That's what is going on here. We're gathering together, and even when we're apart, it's about building up the body of Christ. So that we don't lose sight of what that means, Paul is going to spell out what that means. In full detail, everything we need to know about it in verse 13. This is the very next verse.

I don't have to break the eggs out. You guys are ready for that, right? Okay, alright. It's so that the saved people, that is all of us here who are saints, are being built up. He is not talking about the building. He is not talking about the organization. It's the organism. It's the organism. A key distinction, and we made that distinction here in the elective in this room right beforehand, is an organism, not just an organization.

And that is true because there is the life of Christ in every believer here this morning. It's the life that we share that makes the difference between this just being an organization and our meeting together to have organizational meetings, and the organism with the life that is the very life of Christ.

To get the picture of what he's intending here, it is God's intent that every single believer And this is truth, this is not just what the Lord desires. Every single believer has the life of Christ within. There is also the life of Christ through every believer. And then what he's spelling out here, the life of Christ between and among all of us here gathered here this morning. The life of Christ in and through and between and among. That makes it an organism, not just an organization. So, here's what it means to build up the body of Christ. With every contribution to Holly Hills Bible Church, you'll receive an annual membership at the gym of your choice. Is that what it means? No, not so much. Here's what he's going to do to spell this out in verse 13.

Until we all attain. This word, until, tells us these points. It tells us that what God is doing among us is a process. He doesn't come and just go BANG! Alright, we're done. Instead, there's a process going on that is His very intent. This is what is the outcome from building up the body of Christ. We all is included here, and that sounds like I'm from Texas or something. We all means that every single one of us is included. Every believer is included in this picture. It's not some special group here.

Oh, we've got our Ephesians 4.11-16 group over here and they grow and do this stuff. No. Everybody is included. There isn't some special group and there's also nobody that's excluded from this if you're a believer. For every single believer, this we all means we're all included. Until we all attain, this attainment tells us a couple of really important things.

One is that it's going somewhere. It isn't, hey, let's get together and see what happens. Let's get together and see how it ends up. No. It's not that hang loose. It's going somewhere and the word attain also communicates something else. It's for real. It's not hypothetical. It's not just, we're headed in this direction and who knows, it may never get there. It is intended to be real. It is intended to be reality. Okay. to the unity of the faith. Now first we're going to start with the faith. We're going to do this backwards. But believe me, it'll come out frontwards. First we're going to start with the faith.

What is the faith? Is the faith that you just believe something? No. It's the specific set of doctrines taught by the apostles. The things that the apostles taught. This starts in about Acts chapter 6 and continues on into the book of Revelation. There, you've got this on page 2 on your handout. The faith in the New Testament is a specific set of teachings used again and again and again. It has a definite article, often in the English and certainly in the Greek, is this specific set of things that the apostles taught. Why is that important? Is it important everybody just kind of get the data down in their head and okay, we all agree to the set of data? No. It is the things they taught because those things are the truth.

And through God's Word, which is the written truth, we behold Christ, who is the living truth. Our aim there, as we look at this, includes the unity in that set of doctrines. That's where we're headed. It is not a matter of saying, well, you know, we're really into unity in our church. We disagree to disagree. Until we all attain to the singular unity in the singular faith. Wow! That's amazing stuff. We're going to see in verse 14 that there's a description of what that doesn't look like.

But for now, It's not just spiritual data. It doesn't even mean that we have some common experience. It is what the apostles taught. Building up the body of Christ is defined in part by unity in the faith and not diversity. Here is the exhortation that Paul gave to the church at Corinth, which was very divided. And by the way, very immature.

He says, and I specifically quote the King James, and we'll see here for a reason. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing. A lot of our translations will say agree, but it's specifically all speak the same thing. It is not just that we agree and then keep quiet about it. But whatever we're saying and teaching and communicating with one another, those are all a consistent set of truths. And it all comes from God's Word, because that's what He intended to reveal. And that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

That translation that comes across, perfectly joined together, That's used in the medical literature of the time for a broken bone that was set so that it was straight and healing properly. It was used for mending nets that had been torn and ripped up. He's saying, you guys have some big problems, put it together. Put it together. Heal this thing up. That you all speak the same thing.

Now, the next part here is of the knowledge of the Son of God. Now, interestingly, he parallels these. The unity of the faith, and then right next to that, parallel with it, is the knowledge of the Son of God. And it is not just, I know something about Christ, here's ten facts. It is personal knowledge, and it's intensive and deep. The particular word that he chose there is deep, intensive, personal knowledge of the Son of God. is of course the person of Jesus Christ.

When you read in the Bible, son of, because you read son of God and also like son of disobedience, son of, and it will be used with various things. It means to be closely related to and like in character. Closely related to and like in character. That's the son of God, Jesus Christ.

All this is what we're doing this morning is aimed at knowing Him. And I don't mean superficially. And I don't mean facts and information about Him. Knowing Christ deeply and personally. That's what we're meeting for. Knowing Him. Knowing the written Word of God is for knowing the living Word of God. That's why we study this. It's not so that we can get really good grades on the test that you'll have at the end of the service. It is for knowing Jesus Christ. That's why we study this.

For knowing Him. You see, all the books and binders and papers and Bibles and study software and sermons and all the electives that we have are absolutely worthless. Unless. Unless they bring us to know Christ more deeply. That's the value. I have a picture of a bridge that kind of goes off into nothing.

And that's because all the things that we do and study and learn, if it isn't about knowing Christ, it's like a bridge that goes off into the fog and disappears. It is about knowing Christ. That's what all this meeting and gathering and studying is all about.

If all these things and all of our gatherings together really bring us into more deeply and intimately knowing Jesus Christ our Savior, then they are priceless. Priceless far beyond what Visa knows anything about. Because that will be worthy forever. He will be worthy forever of our praise.

In verse 13 it then says, to a mature man, And so this word mature, what does it mean? What's he saying when he says, to a mature man? He's saying that the body of Christ, that is the church, with Christ as the head, is to be growing towards maturity together, not just each one apart. It is not referring to just individual spiritual maturity, but our maturity together as a church body. There's individual spiritual growth and then there is spiritual growth as a body. Both of those are God's intent.

Colossians 1.28 is the verse that really focuses on each individual believer growing and maturing in the Lord. This verse looks at the growth of the body as a whole. A single organism, not just an organization.

Now, why would I have a picture of a bunch of babies here? One of the things that Nancy found out, initially this baby thing we hadn't really talked through, and then finally, I think we'd had three, and she asked me, in your heart of hearts, how many kids do you want? And I said, six. And she never asked about that again. But, I mean, because I just love these little kids. Oh, just one after another. Just every single one of them. I just was crazy excited about every single one. I just wanted to keep having more and more kids.

But you know, as much as those kids are just as cute as can be, the Lord's intent is that we grow and not stay there, spiritually speaking. And not just as individuals, but also as a church body. It is God's intent that this church body grow. Yeah, all of us grow. That's what God has in mind. Ah, here is now How is the church body growing? What does the church body look like when it is maturing in Christ? To the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

So how do you measure maturity? Should we get all of our heights and add them up and keep track of them on some chart in the back of the room? Should we just add up our ages and figure that'll work? Christ, as this says here, is the measure of maturity. What does maturity look like? Christ. Christ is the measure of maturity. The full measure of maturity isn't just some percentage of Christ, or some part of Christ, the fullness of Him. That's what maturity looks like. Maturity looks like Jesus Christ. If someone were to come in here that had their spiritual eyes open, would they walk in and say, well, those people look like Christ. The church I was at in Palo Alto years ago used to have an evening service that they called a body life service.

And interestingly enough, when the people would gather together, they'd have a roving microphone and people could just stand up and share whatever they wanted to share. And there was a lady who was in the back about where Margaret is. And that lady stood up and grabbed the microphone and she said, I've just come here. And she says, I've got to have what these people have.

Do they see Christ? That's the measure. That's the measure of maturity. Christ is the measure of maturity. If we compare this verse, Ephesians 4.13, with 2 Corinthians 3.18, let's look at this, but we all, here's the we all again, right, with unveiled face, and without going into the context there that has to do with without trying to look at and live by the law, Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and there are three places in the New Testament where the word mirror is used, and in each of the three places, this included, it means the word of God. the Word of God, through the Word of God, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed, and God does the transforming, into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. We behold the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word and He does the transforming and the growing.

We don't look more and more like Jesus Christ by trying to. I don't want to see anybody around here going, What are you doing? I'm trying to be more conformed to Jesus Christ. No, that doesn't work. It is God's job to do that transforming. What do we do? We behold the Lord through His Word, just as we're doing here this morning.

I'll leave it to you to read through the expanded and explained. This is sort of an expanded description and understanding of the passage we've just studied here. So you can look at that at your own time here. But just to kind of sum this thing up and look ahead to next week's passage, as we look at here, this is why we're gathering.

This is why we're called together as believers. Not because brownie points because you showed up or not because the Lord gets really excited when we show up on this piece of real estate, but because the Lord has a process that He is doing. He's the one pulling it off, the transforming that He has in mind. Because every single one of us here is intended to be a part of that process. We are an organism We have His life in each and every one of us. In us, through us, between us, and among us. His life.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. You have just given and given and given and given. And Lord, it expresses your love so immensely. We thank you for it. We thank you for the insights that you have provided through your word and your love shared with us. We just pray these things for Thanksgiving. In Jesus' name, amen.