The Pattern for this Church’s Ministry

Transcript

GRM 571
4/26/1998
The Pattern for This Church’s Ministry
Ephesians 4:11-16
Gil Rugh

There are some familiar passages on Sunday morning that really are foundational to the ministry of the church in these days. And I want to direct you to a passage this morning which is probably the foundational passage for our ministry as a local church. It’s found in Ephesians chapter 4. And I try to make it a practice at least every couple of years for us to come back and look at Ephesians chapter 4 together because it is this chapter that really sets forth in a concise way what is our theology of ministry or philosophy of ministry as some might call it. What is Indian Hills about as a church? What is its pattern for its ministry? How do we know if we are on track or not on track? This has basically guided me in my years of ministry from the beginning and has shaped what we do and don’t do as a local church.

Ephesians chapter 4 marks the break in the two divisions in the letter to the Ephesians. You’ll note the chapter begins with verse 1, “I therefore.” That word “therefore” indicates he’s building on what has preceded. “Entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” The first three chapters really dealt with the calling with which we have been called. Starting in chapter 1 with a very crucial, foundational consideration of the sovereignty of God in election, in our calling to salvation. And that has been discussed through the first three chapters. Now, how are we to walk as God’s people? What is to be the conduct of our lives in light of the salvation that we have received in Christ? So chapters 4, 5 and 6 talk about living out in our daily walk the relationship we have with Christ.

Going to start the chapter, and we are just going to highlight the opening parts of the chapter and focus on the central section beginning with verse 11. But verses 1 to 6 talk about the unity and oneness that characterizes us as the people of God. You will note that he says in verse 3 after exhorting us to walk in humility and gentleness, patience, forbearance, love, we are to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We are to preserve or keep the unity of the Spirit, the oneness of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There has been a relationship established by the Holy Spirit of God that’s brought us into a relationship of oneness with God and oneness with one another. That would have been covered in the opening three chapters. Now we are to be sure that we are conducting ourselves in such a way that we are maintaining that unity and preserving the bond of peace that God has produced in our lives.

Back in chapter 2 verse 14 Paul said, “for He, Himself,” referring to Christ, “is our peace, who made both into one,” “both groups into one” You note the two concepts. Christ is our peace; He made both groups into one. He said in chapter 4 verse 3 “being diligent to preserve the unity” or oneness of the Spirit, “in the bond of peace.” The two groups that have been brought into a relationship of peace and oneness in Christ are Jews and Gentiles. So, both Jews and Gentiles have been brought together into a relationship of oneness in Christ and in His body which is the Church which he went on to elaborate in chapter 3 of Ephesians.


This fulfilled the prayer of Jesus Christ in John chapter 17. Turn to John chapter 17. On Jesus’ last night shortly before His betrayal, the betrayal occurred in the opening verses of chapter 18. And chapter 17 of John’s gospel contains a prayer that Christ offers for His followers. Note verse 20 of John 17. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” So I am not just praying for these disciples who are present with Me now, but I am also praying for those who would come to believe in Me as a result of the word given through these disciples. And you and I are in that line. Through the Word of God given through the apostles, it has come down to us. We have come to believe in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. So we are included in this prayer, “that they may all be one even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may also be in Us.”

Now that was fulfilled because those who had believed through the words of the disciples and apostles came to formulate or make up the Church. Jew and Gentile were brought into a relationship of oneness. That’s why Ephesians 2:14 said, “He is our peace, and He has made us one,” why chapter 4 does not tell us to create unity but to preserve the unity and oneness. We have been born into God’s family or in the analogy that Paul is using we have become part of the body of Christ. We are one family physically when we are born into the family. We are part of that family. The parts of the body are part of one body as a result of having been born as a human being in the human race. So the picture here is Jew and Gentile now form one body in Christ.

Come back to Ephesians. We are going to come back to John, so you might want to leave a bulletin or a marker there. Come back to Ephesians 4. He stresses the unity and oneness that we have. Beginning with verse 4, “there is one body, one spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, over all, through all and in all.” This is the oneness that characterizes us. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and He is your Lord and Savior, then you are a member of the body of Christ. There is only one body. You are either in the body or out of the spiritual body of Christ.

There is one Holy Spirit who works in the lives of those who belong to God. You came to be member of the Body when you were baptized by the Spirit at salvation and thus placed into the spiritual body of Christ and so on. So, there is a unity and a harmony that exists among us. We need to keep that before us in our relationships with one another, in our functioning with one another. Sometimes we have to correct one another, discipline one another, rebuke one another. It is always to be done in light of the context of our relationship as members of Christ’s body, a oneness we have. It’s always for the good of the person, for their growth and development and spiritual well-being, never to be destructive and harmful. Out of this love we relate to one another.

But the fact that we are one in Christ does not exclude the fact that there is diversity and difference in the body of Christ. In verses 7 to 10 he talks about the differences in the body. Verse 7 says, “But to each one of us.” So, each individual person of the body of Christ, to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. And just as the body has many parts, each serving its own unique purpose, All the parts are one body, they make up one body, they function in harmony for the good of the body. You know you are going to fall down; you put your arm and hand out to catch yourself. The arm and hand don’t pull themselves out and say, “let the head fend for itself.” I mean I’m not going to put my hand out. The hand doesn’t say, “I’m not going to get scraped. Let the nose get scraped.” That’s not the way the body works. The body works together for the good of the other parts. And sometimes the hand gets scraped protecting the nose so to speak. And so it goes. But “to each one.” So we have to be careful. The gifts aren’t just dumped on the body as a blob. But each one is given God’s grace, and the grace is the gift. And the grace is given to the church in the form of the people who are gifted. Every time a person is saved the Spirit takes up residence in them, they are added to the body. And they are added to a local church someplace, and the functioning of the body goes on.

Now in this context of verses 7 to 10, and we are not going to do the details, these gifts were given as a result of the death, burial and resurrection and ascension to heaven of Jesus Christ. That’s what he says in verses 7 to 10. Verse 8, “when He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men.” His ascension is recorded in Acts chapter 1. Turn back to John’s gospel again and look at chapter 14, John 14 verse 6. Jesus is speaking to the disciples, and He says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever, that is the Spirit of Truth.” Note, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. His ministry always takes place in the context of truth. “Whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Now the Holy Spirit was already present. “He abides with you,” Jesus said to His disciples. But He also said, “I will give Him to you,” in verse 16, and His relationship to you is going to be changed. “He will now dwell in you.”

Look over in chapter 16 of John’s gospel, verse 7. “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” The death, burial and resurrection and ascension of Christ to Heaven was essential for the giving of the Holy Spirit. I take it this is talking about when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost and the Church began. From that point on the Holy Spirit dwelt in a permanent way within each person who comes to believe in Jesus Christ as His Savior. He cleanses us from our sin, He comes and dwells within us. When He does, God’s grace is given to us in the form of a special ability to function as part of the body of Christ. Some are gifted to be a finger, some an arm, some an eye, and all the parts in the spiritual analogy that Paul draws out in 1 Corinthians 12-14.

So when you come back to Ephesians chapter 4, that is what he is talking about in verses 1-10. There is a unity, there is a oneness, but within that oneness there is diversity. It is when all that diversity functions together in harmony under the authority of the head, Jesus Christ, God’s purposes are accomplished for His people. And in verses 11-16 you have unfolded, in a very simple and clear way, God’s plan for the maturing of His people in His body, the Church. And we want to have this pattern clearly set down. He is going to be continuing what He started in verse 7. “Grace was given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” “Gifts were given to the men,” at the end of verse 8.

Verse 11, “He gave some as,” so He selects out some of the gifts which are given by Christ. And here it is in the form of gifted individuals, gifted men in verse 11, “apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers.” The selection is made in verse 11 of gifts that are involved in the communication of the word of God. So what about the gifts mentioned in verse 11 together? It is the fact that all of these were involved in the proclamation of God’s word. In 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, you don’t need to turn there. But Peter said all the gifts are to serve the body, but then he breaks them down into speaking gifts and serving gifts. So some of the gifts are particularly focused on communicating the Word of God. The other gifts are given to serve the body and enable the ministry of the Word of God to accomplish God’s intended purposes. So here Paul points out speaking gifts, gifts that have to do with the preaching and teaching of God’s word.

Now we can’t deal in detail with the gifts in verse 11. We’ve done that at other times. Apostles and prophets are gifts that aren’t present today. They involve the proclamation of God’s truth, but they also involved receiving direct revelation from God, new material from God that comprised our New Testament. Back in chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 20 Paul says we are those, “having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” So we are not being built upon, but we are building upon a foundation, the foundation is the apostles in Christ. We are studying the letter to the Ephesians, written by the apostle Paul. I don’t stand before you are saying, “I have new revelation from God.” I stand before you to teach the revelation given through the apostle Paul. So in that sense we are continuing to build upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The truth that was revealed by God through these individuals and added to the Old Testament, that comprises our Bible, Old and New Testaments.

Evangelists, pastors and teachers are the other gifts mentioned. Evangelists, pastors and teachers carry on the ministry of apostles and prophets. For example, apostles went about in other places, like the apostle Paul did, and proclaimed the gospel and founded churches and built them up in the ministry of the gospel. Evangelists did the same thing. The word “Evangelist” is simply Greek word for “Gospel.” They are “gospelizers,” literally. It is used rarely. It is used in the book of Acts with Philip the evangelist. Timothy was told to do the work of an Evangelist, to do the work of gospelizing, if you will, of sharing the gospel. I take it evangelist are primarily those gifted of God in the outreach of the church and carrying of the gospel to the lost, and the training of God’s people to do that. Because these gifts are in the context of equipping the church for the ministry God has for the church. So, it is not just that they do the ministry of evangelizing, but they are involved in training the body of Christ for that ministry as well.

Pastors and teachers, each of these gifts has a definite article before it, except the last one, teachers. And so it connects the last two gifts, “pastors and teachers” closely together. It seems to indicate here that the pastors here are also teachers. But it would also mean that all those gifted with teaching are also gifted as pastors. In other places you have the gift of teaching mentioned. Here you have the gift of pastors who are also teachers. The pastor is a shepherd; the Greek word here is “a shepherd.” He is responsible for the oversight and care of God’s sheep, God’s people. That means their nurture and feeding and protection. That occurs in the context of teaching the Word of God. It is the food that nourishes our soul. Like newborn babes we long for the pure milk of God’s word. So God’s people are to be nurtured by the Shepherds God has provided. In the Old Testament the picture of Shepherd’s, the leaders of God’s people is used, and they are condemned for not feeding the sheep, God’s people. So that is the picture here, people gifted in the communication of God’s Word and the leading of God’s people, are for the equipping of God’s saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

And take the bottom of the bulletin or a piece of note paper; I want you to make note of a progression here. Start out and we are going to make about. . .one, two, three, four points connected with arrows. You can do it sideways, that would be easiest probably. Start out and put P-T, we will call them Pastors/Teachers. We will just take the last gift for summary. Pastors/Teachers, then put a little arrow and write equipping, or equipped. Then put an arrow from that and write the word “work.” And an arrow from work, to build, or mature, abbreviate that, so you have pastor teachers equipping for work for maturity. And that summarizes what the plan and pattern that God has set down for His purpose for His church, His people in our day. It’s that His Word be ministered, so that His people are equipped and prepared, to do the work that He has for them in serving Him which will result in a people who are mature in Christ. It’s not a complicated plan. But it’s one from which the church continues to drift.

We need to be careful. If the foundation is not correct, the ministry of the word by gifted men, then you won’t get the rest accomplished. If you lose sight of what the real goal is: The real goal is the maturing of God’s people. If you replace the goal with numerical growth. So instead of spiritual growth you have numerical growth. That will drive you to go back and change the beginning point because then you begin to become pragmatic and say what do we do to get numerical growth. Well the simple ministry of God’s truth will not accomplish numerical growth the way we might like it. So we begin to replace the foundational point with what will enable us to get to our goal: numerical growth. With good intentions we begin to corrupt the plan that God has for His people. The pattern He set down, we are going to walk through it simply here, is the spiritual growth of His people.

Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He said, “Some sow the seed of God’s word, some water the seed of God’s word, but only God produces growth.” And when I decide that God is not getting His part of the job done, therefore I’m going to step in and do it for Him, the church is in serious trouble. My role is to sow the seed, to water the seed. God causes the growth. Now if we decide the reason we exist is to produce growth in and of ourselves, that always gets translated to numbers. Then we decide what do we have to do to get the numbers we want. Now I’m not saying we don’t want to see people saved. I praise the Lord for every one of you. But the goal of my ministry is not to produce numerical growth. I cannot do that. I can create counterfeit growth, because the only genuine growth, true maturity is what God produces through the ministry of His Word and the functioning of His people. I can produce a counterfeit growth that sometimes is misinterpreted, but even a good counterfeit is still a counterfeit, is it not? Why is it a counterfeit? If I in my basement I come up with a plan and I produce the best counterfeit twenty dollars bills that have ever been produced, no matter how good they are, they’re still counterfeit. Why? They were not produced in the proper way, by the proper people. So all I have is the best counterfeit that was ever done. I don’t have the best genuine that was ever done. Only God can produce true spiritual growth in a life. Only God can save a lost soul. I can increase the crowd, but that’s different than true church growth.

So let’s look at the pattern here. Gifted men are given for the ministry of the Word of God for the equipping of the saints. The word equipping is a word that means “to render fit,” “to prepare something for use-ability” if you will. In the gospels Matthew 4:21 the word is used of many nets, fishing nets. What are they doing? They are fixing them and working on them so they will function as they should. In Hebrew 11:3 it’s used of God preparing the world in creation. He prepared this world so that it would be fit to serve His purposes. Galatians 6:1 “If you see a brother overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one.” Bring him back into proper and right function. Same word. The idea here is the ministry of the word is to equip the saints. To render them fit is the idea. For what? Unto the work of service. So, it’s for equipping the saints unto the work of service. That’s what they are being equipped and fitted for. For service, for ministry, for the work of ministry. The gifts are given in the ministry of the word to equip the rest of the body to exercise the gifts that God has given them, to be a functioning body.

Now you note here in the process and I’m glad for everyone God has brought to this church. But you understand God has brought many people here, and the purpose of attending a large church, if it is a true New Testament church, is not so you can hide and not have to do anything. Because then you’re not part of the functioning church. You sit under the ministry of the Word so that as you submit to that truth and the ministry of the Spirt you can be rendered fit for working in the service of our God. And you can’t take the word “work” out of there, it’s part of inspired scripture. For “the work of service”. The work of service.

You ought to feel a healthy biblical pressure if you attend this church to be involved. It’s sin if you’re not. So there ought to be a pressure in a good sense. Members of the body ought to be looking at other members of the body. How could God use this person? Where do I see they might be used in the body? And there’s joy in serving the Lord. There is satisfaction in serving the Lord. There is blessing in serving the Lord, but in all of that I don’t want you to fail to understand it is “work” to serve the lord. We’re being equipped for the work of serving.

Somebody will have the idea that they try something and not’s fun. They don’t want to do it any longer. I mean the choir ministers to us; the musicians play. They had to work to do that. I want to teach you the word. I have to work at it, and on it goes. There are people working with the children now. They are working. It’s not because that’s easier than coming in and sitting and being taught and enjoying the fellowship here. But that is part of their commitment to the body as God has equipped them to work in serving. On it goes if you go out to all that is done in the body. It is work. I have to encourage you because sometimes it seems like it is drudgery work. I do it because God has called me to do it, not because I feel like doing it or I am up for it today. I do it because it is part of my service to God.

Now note here, “we are taught the Word, nurtured and nourished on the Word, so we are rendered fit for service for the building up of the body of Christ. That is our fourth step as we unfolded it. “To the building up of the body of Christ.” Maturing, the word building, edifying, we are talking here about the development of the body.

Turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. There are a number of places where this word is used but we’ll just take these verses out of 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14. It is talking about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians as well. Note verse 12. 1 Corinthians 14:12, “so also you, since you are zealous with spiritual gifts,” note this last statement, “seek to abound for the edification of the church, for the building up of the church.” There is our word, again, that we are talking about in Ephesians 4. “To the building up of the body, of Christ,” the church. That is what our goal is. Not self-satisfaction, not personal enjoyment, but what can I contribute to enable this body to grow and mature and function. Some people are gifted in the ability to tell us what is not happening. That is a gift of limited value. You know if God gives you insight to what is wrong, you ought to ask him for the additional insight, how can I help correct it. Maybe that is the first step in knowing where God might use you. You see a weakness in the body, you see something ought to be done. And you say, “well I can step forward and help the body grow in that area.” Down in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 14. Just look at the last statement for our time, “let all things be done for edification, for the building up of the body.” Everything we do ought to be done in this context. How is this contributing to the building up of the body of Christ. That is what we are talking about.

Come back to Ephesians chapter 4. This process goes on “until” verse 13 says, “we all attain to the unity of the faith.” Four things that are spoken of here. “We all attain to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to a measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” They are all basically saying the same thing. All dealing with our maturity. “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith.” The faith here is referring to the truth of God and the unity that comes from being united in the Word of God. Well maturing brings us unity in that. You know we sometimes think that the knowledge of the Word divides us. But it doesn’t divide the true church that is growing to maturity. Because the more we are growing in the unity of the faith and then take the second statement, “and in the knowledge of the Son of God, the more the oneness of Christ is evident in our relationship together. Because we are bound together by the Spirit of truth. That is why any unity that is exhorted on the basis of minimizing truth is artificial. Because we are talking about a unity that takes place as people mature in the faith, have an increasing knowledge of the Son of God.

Just a reversal of the way it is produced today. We want to go to the lowest common denominator. What is the minimum a person has to know? What is the minimum that you have to be committed to in the faith? And then we can all work together. Rather the work of God in the church today is to build maturity and with that maturity comes an increasing harmony of oneness in the body. Is that not true in the physical realm? Keep in mind he is using simple analogies like the body. A baby is born immature, young, childish, you will see that analogy in a moment. What happened? The parts don’t work together quite right. We all laugh at them as they what? Learn to do certain things, but they still don’t have it together. And the parts won’t work, but you know if they still aren’t working when you are twenty there is a break down in the body. There is something seriously malfunctioning. But somehow we have turned around the very analogy God uses and say “less maturity ought to be the unifying factor.” We are trying to pull it down rather than pull it up. And since new babies are born without an ability to use all the parts, all of us ought to function as if we didn’t know how to use the parts. We say, that would be ridiculous. And it is just as ridiculous spiritually.

God’s pattern here is simple, growth, maturity, development, and every person that is saved by the grace of God is added to the body which is manifested in the different local churches so that they might get into that process of growth to a mature man, a perfect man, a complete man. One who is everything God intends you to be as His child. “To the measure of the statue which belongs to the fulness of Christ.” What a growth, what a goal. So that you are more like Christ, and that is always relative just like our physical maturity is always relative. I am more mature than some people and not as mature as others. The important thing is I am growing and developing. And the standard here is not other people. The standard here is not other churches. The standard here is Jesus Christ. And we are talking about growing in the fullness of His character, so the beauty of His person, the fruit of the Spirit, of Galatians 5 for example, are what are being produced in my life.

Now you see what happened here. The word is ministered through gifted people, so we are rendered fit to function as God intends us to function and carry out the work of ministry so we are growing to maturity as the Body is built up. Simple pattern.

Another verse that would address it is 2 Corinthians 3:18. You don’t have to turn there, but write it down, 2 Corinthians 3:18. “As we are beholding in a mirror,” and the mirror is the Word of God there, “we are beholding in the mirror of God’s Word, the glory of God.” “We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” You see in 2 Corinthians 3:18, he has condensed it by just mentioning the first point and the last point of the four we have developed out of Ephesians 4. “We are beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we come together, we study the Word.” The Spirit of God uses the Word in our lives, and we are growing into the image of Christ. I understand this process now is further elaborated in Ephesians 4 because it is not just the ministry of the Word and my growth, but the ministry of the Word and my growth enables me to function in the Body so that the Body continues to mature. The process is clear. We are never done. No matter how long we have been a believer you are not perfectly like Christ yet. I am not perfectly like Christ yet. But I need to be continuing to grow and mature in my relationship to Him. How does it happen? The pattern is set down.

As a result, look at verse fourteen of Ephesians 4. He’s going to give a negative and a positive outcome in this which really goes over, in one sense, what he has said. “As a result we are no longer to be children,” so you see the analogy, the immaturity, the baby state. “Tossed here and there by waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.” It’s characteristic of children, of immaturity. What? They are easily deceived. When you are entertaining your kids, your grandchildren, what? The younger they are the easier they are to trick. So you do all kinds of silly things. You just have to move things around and you fool them so you can play games without doing much. But you can’t play that same game with them when they are twelve. And when they are twenty they have outgrown a lot of that. So here it is spiritually. A characteristic of immature Christians is they are easily deceived and deluded. Why? They don’t know the faith very well. They don’t know Jesus Christ very well. So false teaching and false doctrine, if it has a veneer of genuineness can deceive them. But a person who is mature in Christ, mature in the word, what? They don’t have any problem. They say, here is what’s wrong, and they can show you in Scripture. There has to be growth in that.

The church has become terribly undiscerning today. Why? Evidently it’s not maturing like it should have been because it is a characteristic of a mature body of Christ that it is not easily be deluded. Is not driven by the waves of the sea.. I picture it like a piece of driftwood on the waves in a storm and it just gets tossed around wherever the waves are going. There is no stability. “Carried about by every wind of doctrine.” Every new doctrine that comes around, they say, “Wow, maybe that’s what I need. Maybe that’s what I ought to look into. Stability as God’s people ought to characterize us as a church.

Now if you were going to undermine the stability and you had God’s plan for His church and its maturing set out as simply as you have in Ephesians 4, what would you have to do? Very simply. Let’s just start with the ministry of the word to men, the ministry of the word, and let’s get them to do something else. Not something wrong directly. Let’s not get them to attack scripture. Let’s just get them to do something else. Like you go to a restaurant, and instead of the chef preparing a meal, he comes out and entertains you with a magic trick. In a beautiful restaurant, with great magic, then you go home and say, “I loved that restaurant.” Well, something was wrong. Something was missing. The food. If you keep going to that restaurant you are going to have physical problems unless you find another place to eat.

So, the process is not so complicated. It’s when we decide that the goal is not the spiritual maturity of God’s people, the goal is to get a bigger group. Then I have to swing back here and say, well the means to getting to that end is not ministering the word and yet 1 Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes long for the pure unadulterated milk of God’s word that you might grow with respect to your salvation.” We have the same kind of thing here in 1 Peter in condensed form. What? The ministry of the word. The pure unadulterated ministry of the word to produce spiritual growth.

So, what he has developed here is to show how all the parts functioning together in the context of the ministry of God’s word contribute to that growth. The same pattern. How does a church keep getting off track. I mean when you give your kids four simple instructions and you come back and they’ve done something totally different, what do you tell them? Didn’t you read what I told you? Didn’t you pay attention? Well, I thought it would . . . . wait a minute, I didn’t ask you to think, I told you to do. All these people that have all these great ideas. God, I read Your word and You know it says here, follow this pattern. But look at what I came up with and it works far better. Is that not the height of arrogance? Whose church is this?

Look how it goes on. Incidentally, a word at the end of verse fourteen. “Craftiness and deceitful scheming,” words used of the devil and his deceitful working in 2 Corinthians 11:3, for example. But in contrast, “speaking the truth in love,” and there we are back to where we started with verse 11 with these gifts that involve the ministry of the Word. We are to be “speaking the truth in love.” Love. Love becomes an environment in which we live. A love for one another. A love for Christ’s body. A love for our Savior. We minister the word. “Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head.” Christ is the goal of our growth. He is the source of our growth as we will see in verse sixteen.

So you know, I as a pastor teacher better keep my focus where it ought to be. I want my church to be bigger. It’s never big enough. I want to be more popular. Well, He never asked me what I wanted. He told me what I am to do. I am supposed to be in the work of service. I’ve created a new plan. It’s like I’ve come into this, and I’ve decided it’s going to be something different. I have good intentions. I’m sure He’ll be pleased. It’s like the servant, you know, where the servants were entrusted. We won’t go into the details; the master comes back and one servant had a better idea. I hid it. He knew it would be safe. You’re an unfaithful servant. I don’t do what I’m told. I’m not called to produce my own results, my own work. If enough people tell me I’m doing wonderfully, I begin to believe it. I have to come to the word of God and find out. Am I doing what the Master said? “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part.”

You note the importance. It is a false humility. It is the height of arrogance for you to say, “I am a believer in Jesus Christ, but you know I don’t have any gifts.” “They don’t need me in the Body.” That is not humility. That is arrogance. To declare yourself as superior to God is arrogance, not humility. I know I am gifted of God. I may not know how I should function, how I fit in. I may have to say, “Can you help me out?” I really want to be used of God. I don’t have any idea what I should do. Be honest. That’s fine. But don’t parade around here and claim you belong to Him. Now if you don’t belong to Him, you are not part of the Body, you have not been gifted, you are right, you don’t fit. We are happy to have you here to hear the gospel. I assume there are people who attend here regularly, who over years do nothing but come and hear but are not genuinely saved because that is not a mark of a transformed life. When you become part of the Body, you function. The people who come week after week, month after month, year after year and their contribution is they take up a spot. I am glad the unbeliever comes and hears the Word. I am concerned they become hardened in the hearing of the Word over time. But genuine believers are functioning.

“Each individual part.” If you are a genuine believer and you are opposing the will of God, you are hindering the growth of this body and you are not functioning. That’s serious sin. Each individual part has to function properly. That causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love. There is the built in super-natural work of God. The Word of God is ministered to God’s people. They are equipped and rendered fit to do the work of serving God. And as the body functions together with each individual part doing as it should as it is nurtured and nourished in the Word, the body matures and becomes more like Christ. It’s not difficult. And I say that to you not because we have not been through this before but because we constantly need to remind ourselves of the program that God has said. Because the drift comes you know little by little by little.

I won’t stand up here some morning and say you know; we need to get more people in here. And we are going to change some things. We won’t be preaching from the Word as much. I wouldn’t say that. We are going to subtly do things. And I don’t want to create the kind of critical environment that every time we make a change somebody is jumping up saying, “Oh, there’s our departure.” When I start preaching less than 50 minutes, you will know we are fading. You know we do want to be careful though we are on the biblical track. Everything we are doing relates to this point. The ministry of the Word of equipping the saints to do the work of service so the body can be built up. The spiritual development of the body. And I trust through the ministry of the Word and the leading of evangelistically gifted people, new people will be added to the body. I hope and pray that results in greater attendance, but God has to cause the growth, and only He can produce a true, genuine growth both in the addition of the lost through salvation and the maturing of those people.

I want to be careful I don’t decide God’s not doing His job right, so I am going to make adjustments in the responsibilities He gave me to help Him out. We need to be sure that the gospel is being given forth with the desire that every man, woman and child would bow in faith before Jesus Christ. But only God can do that in a heart. And come together to give forth the Word that we might be nurtured and grow and mature. How privileged that we should be those called of God to grow to be more like His Son, Jesus Christ. Could there be any higher or holy calling than to be like the Savior “to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ?” That’s what we are about as a church. And they ask you, “Why do you do what you do at Indian Hills? What is the ministry at Indian Hills all about?” You ought to be able to sit down and say, “Let me show you.” And use short steps. Everything can be tied to this simple plan. Ministering the Word for equipping the saints to do the work of serving to building up the body of Christ. Let’s pray together.

Thank You Lord for the Church which is the body of Christ. Thank You Lord that You have called it into existence, that it is Your creation, it is Your work. All growth of all kinds that take place in the body that have been genuine must come as a result of Your work in hearts and lives. Lord, we desire to be faithful as Your people in these days. We commit ourselves to carrying out, with every ounce of our strength, the responsibility You have given to us and doing it in the way that You have set down before us, that we might mature and grow that You might be honored and glorified by our lives individually and by the testimony and life of this church. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.