Equip
Notes
Transcript
Claim - Christ uses leaders to equip people to build up the church body in Christlikeness
Focus - We all are gifted and expected to serve in building the body
Function - to inspire all to pray and plan how they can be equipped for greater service
Pray
No-one deisgns something and wastes their time adding parts to there design that do not play a part.
An engine doesn’t have unnessersay components to it.
No one adds an extra cylinder or spark plug, or push rod, or drive belt that isn’t connected to everything else to imporve the engine - or atleast to add cosmetic appeal.
Ahh - you might be thinking, but We’ve all got or had cars with a few blank button on the dash board.
Why did the designer include those?
Well they also have purpose - you just haven’t thought about it...
This one for the rear demister,
this one for the hazard lights,
And this one blank one to remind you that someone with more moeny than you has a heated seat.
And so it with in the church body - Everyone has a purpose:
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
We all have roles and gifts and responsibility towards the whole church, the rest of the body of Christ, so that we all work togetehr towards maturity in Christ.
Christianty is a team game - have a listen to last weeks sermon again if you need reminding about this,
There are no pointless parts,
not even any blank buttons,
everyone plays a role,
and no-one can exist without the rest of the body.
What were considering this week is the next minisrty stream -
Show on screen
Equip.
And the aim of the Equip minisnrty is to ‘Equip the committed, the church, to serve.’
The fuller vision statement for the Equip ministry reads like this:
Believing in an ‘every member ministry’, those established in the foundations of the Word (see establish ministry) will be encouraged ‘according to their gifts’ to be trained in and serve in one of the various ministries in the church.
There are 2 big assumptions in that statement that I would like us to consdier today from Ephesians 4,
and I hope will therefore encourage us to respond in service in the church
The first assumption is that we believe in an
1 - Every Member ministry
1 - Every Member ministry
The second is that
2 - We all have Gifts to Serve
2 - We all have Gifts to Serve
1 - Every Member ministry
1 - Every Member ministry
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
The ‘One’ word running through this verse is a powerful way of saying everyone is intergral to the church body, the whole.
If i was to say to a rugby team:
Every individual needs to play their part - it’s not a bad pep talk - and you’d hope they would all do that - but there may be some who think their individual effort may not make much difference.
there are still 14 other players.
But if I were to say,
You are One team, with one goal - well now if an idividual starts to neglect their part - there is a greater sense of damage and higher sense of failure for all - for we are no longer whole, but are a collection of fractions, or even factions!
That’s the idea we get from Paul writing here about the church - the body of Christ.
We have one body united by the one common Spirit of God living in each of us.
One hope, the sure sucess of Jesus in his future return and his eternal reign ,
One Lord, our captain, our King, our Lord Jesus who as the head of the one body.,
One faith - in our saviour - who died and rose from the cross, to defeat death and bring us forgivenss,
one baptism - where we partake in the death and resurection of Jesus symbolically,
One God and Father - not a mixture of God’s and faiths and ideologies that all lead to God, no - One God with one team His Body, the church, with one captain, the Lord Jesus.
How encouraging for those who believe in the One and only true God the Father,
who we can know only through the one Lord,
into the one
sure and eternal hope.
We belong to this same body - this same team - with one goal.
If we behave as if we are anything else, - then we create fractions and factions.
Paul goes on to reinfforce this quite celarly in v14-16
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
We’ll come back to v11-13 where Paul explains how the mechanics of this one body operates
- but for now we can know that it enables the one body to avoid being tossed back and forth by the worlds lies,
and instead, have a look at the shared duty and goal of every member of the body in v14 -
Speaking the truth in love - as this is what Grows the body!
That’s a huge statement!
The church body - we, the one body - grow to become more and more like Jesus , how?
As we each speak the truth in love towards each other.
This is how crucuial you are to the body!
We grow when we speak truth in love to each other.
If you don’t take part then you will have an impact on the whole body,
but you will also be cutting of the very nutrients that can help you grow.
So what is Speaking the Truth in Love?
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
To speak the word of truth is to remind each other of the gospel of salvation.
That Jesus loved you enough to die in your place,
That he did not save us becasue we were sorted but becasue we were lost,
We can come humbly before him, for restoration and love again,
and as he first loved us, we can then love others.
We can play our part in the body - an every member minsitry - because as Paul puts in v 16,
our power stems from the head.
16 From him (JESUS) - the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
The New International Version. (2011). (Eph 4:16). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
We are intimately sewn togteher, ligaments connecting our life blood to the Lord Jesus our head and each other -
He is our strength, our guide,
and he empowers us to play our part.
And as we each play our part in the one body - the body itself grows!
What a great priveldeg and encouragement!
So, if we believe in an every member minisrty -
Where Jesus empowers each of us to play our part,
by ‘speaking the truth in love -
does that mean we are all the same?
One big familiy of identical siblings?
No -
2 - We all have Gifts to Serve
2 - We all have Gifts to Serve
There are 2 subtle subpoints to make here.
1 is that we all are gifted or designed if you like to serve the body, the church.
It’s not like some are gifted and some aren’t!
And the second is that we are all given different types of gifts.
In other words we shouldn’t all expect or want to be the same as each other,
or good and the same things.
What a huge encouragement to know that you have been gifted by Jesus to serve the church as much as anyone else,
But also your gifts will be different,
Thankfully you don’t all have to be like me!
You will have you own gifts to serve.
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
Notice that immedietly after really ephasising the ONE body, ONe Lord, ONe Hope,
Paul reminds us that while Unity as ONe is the key to growth in Christ,
That does not mean there is not wonderful diversity within the body.
Christ aportions grace to each of us. Not a big ‘G’ grace of salavtion - we all receive that,
but small ‘g’ grace - grace of
(‘according to the quote he applies from Psalm 68 here.)
gifts.
And then he goes on to give examples and fuller explanation of this diversity of gifts of grace.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Do you see the diversity?
We all recive these gifts by grace, But we do not all recieve the same gift -
We are all different, all unquie, all valuable to the church body,
(Not becasue we are uniquly special or talented
- as if we should be praised for our contribution to the church body
- for these are gifts - the giver is to be praised!)
BUt we are to be used by him in service
- becasue Jesus has gifted us by his grace to be different ,
unique and valauable to the rest of the body)
So - no-one ought ot boast or be proud about the gifts they have been given - for Jesus the head is the giver of gifts.
If you like - we become the channel for God’s soverign power to be at work to His church.
as we already saw in v16
The New International Version Chapter 4
16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
What a humbling priveledge to know that Jesus uses us his people to grow His church.
There are other passages about gifts for the body - but this one makes clear that we ought to be deliberate in equiping others for serviuce as a church.
Remeber our vision statement - ‘Equiping the committed church to serve’
It seems a core aspect of those gifts that include ‘teaching the word’ -
is to utilise their gifts of teaching to ‘equip all of us for service.’
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
And so that is why we have an Equip ministry.
But teaching the word, pastors, evagelisst, teachers are FAR from the only gifts mentioned in the bible.
In fact the
The New Testament contains five such lists (Rom. 12:6–8;
1 Cor. 12:8–10, 28–30; Eph. 4:11–12; cf. 1 Pet. 4:10–11)
which between them number more than twenty different gifts.
Each list diverges significantly from the others.
None is complete,
but each is selective and illustrative,
with no effort to force the various gifts into a neat scheme.
Even together all five do not present a full catalogue of gifts.
In other words - do not underestimate what God has gifted you with.
If it’s admin - then use that to build up the church,
If teaching the word - then teach,
if hospitality - then host and help others host.
Of course we will all need to do aspects of many of these -
the point is that we should look to utilise our gifts,
not all be the same,
and not all try to do what ‘seems’ more important.
Perhaps this is a freeing idea for you if you feel stuck serving in an area you aren’t very good at!
If that is you - or you aren’t really serving the body much at all -
then I’ll end in a second with a way forward.
So finally, I wanted to give us a way to forward to think about where we each might be gifted by jesus,
and therefreo how you can serve the body,
and indeed make sure you are serving in the right place.
Firstly - Pray.
Pray for humility to recognise what Jesus has enabled us to be good at.
And ask Him to help you recognise who you can serve using your gifts in the church
Secondly - Think about what you’re good at.
If you’re useless at admin, the chances are - it’s not your gift! - so don’t offer to help organise rotas.
If you’re not a good musician (however much you might enjoy it) don’t offer to sing, or play the banjo.
If you are good at hospitality, then keep having people to your house after lockdown and think if you can help organise the catering or decorations, or front of house at church events - or help develop our welcoming on Sundays etc.
If you find evangelsism easier than most, then think how you can perhaps help, or encourage others to do the same.
And think about where you currently serve and if your gifts match that service area
So thirdly - Act
There are all sorts of ways you can already serve, as most of you do,
but there are also ways we havne’t even thought about that would serve the body. So talk to us.
If your gift is realted to Community care and love (Engage) or evangelism - talk to Tim.
If it’s related to desipleship, teaching the word, fellowship then talk to me or Adam.
If it’s related to management, training, talk to me about how you could help in Equipping.
If it’s HR, or communications, or you’d consider going into paid ministry here or abroad - then talk to me about Enlist - which looks after gospel workers we’re linked with both here and abroad.
If it’s teaching or caring fro Children, talk to Tim, or Youth, then Adam...
Why should we pray, think and Act?
Not becasue we are individuals, or fractions or factions,
But becasue we are ONE
body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Pray