We're glad you're with us. If
you have your Bibles with you, open up to Ephesians chapter
4. Somebody asked me over the break, what happened to Ephesians?
Well, it's back, baby, and it's on this morning. So we're back
in Ephesians chapter 4. Obviously, we had taken a break
over the fall. and try to highlight some distinctives of Placerita
Baptist Church, now Placerita Bible Church. And now that we're
kind of heading into the new year, finishing up a four-part
series on worship, we're gonna head back to our verse-by-verse
exposition of this great epistle of Ephesians, which is all about
the church. It's all about Christ. It's all
about who we are in Christ and how our conduct To match our
calling. Hopefully you'll remember a few
of those themes as we dive back into Ephesians here in our study
together this morning this morning We're gonna pick up in that passage
where we left off in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 through 16
and he gave the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the
shepherds and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of the
ministry and for building up the body of Christ until we all
attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed
to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine
by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes rather
speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way
into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body
joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped
when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it
builds itself up in love. Pray with me if you will. Father
thank you for this morning. Thank you for the joy of getting
back into this great epistle of Ephesians. Thank you for the
reminder of who we are in Christ, that we've been blessed in the
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Thank you
for the challenge that you give us, that those of us who are
in Christ have been urged to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which we've been called. As we dive back into this passage
in Ephesians 4, I pray, God, that you would teach us great
things from your word, that you would give us a deep conviction
to follow the message that we hear today as written through
the Holy Spirit by the Apostle Paul, and it's in Jesus' name
we pray, amen. Well, you see there in your bulletin,
if you're taking notes in your outline, we've entitled the message
as God's Growth Plan for the Church. And the subtitle for
this morning is The Equipping of the Saints. Now, you may not
remember we were in the middle of that series, but I actually
began a three-part series on God's growth plan for the church
back on August the 3rd of last year. And on that Sunday, we
talked about how all kinds of churches have tried all kinds
of things to make their church grow. Towards the end of the
20th century, there was an unprecedented growth of megachurches like the
world has never seen. Churches began to move away to
some degree from the purity of the gospel as the main attraction
to pragmatic experiments that would make people want to come
and maybe attract people to any given church. We talked about
how one church decided to open their services with a new kind
of call to worship. Instead of a familiar hymn or
a Christ honoring worship song, this well-known church opened
up to the theme song of the then popular TV show, Friends. Talked about how another church
made it their goal to interview a different celebrity on any
given Sunday and have conversations with them that would be similar
to what you would see on The Tonight Show or on Good Morning
America. Still another church hosted a
motocross competition on a Sunday morning. in the main sanctuary
for some high-flying entertainment. I know of a youth group in Texas
who every Wednesday night at youth group gave away an iPod
for free for a special student who would attend their ministry
weekend and week out, someone different each week. And so the
question is, as we think about these things and these different,
what I call growth gimmicks that we see in the church today, the
question that we're asking is, is that the best way to grow
God's church is the best way to grow a church to be innovative
to do is the best way to grow a church is to learn from successful
marketing schemes how to promote your product and hopefully get
people to come is the best way to grow your church is to look
for something popular in the culture and then bring it into
the church and maybe with that people will come and attend your
church now just to be clear Here at Placerita, we are interested
in church growth. It's not as if we want our church
to shrink or stay stagnant. Few things can be as exciting
as a vibrant, growing church. We just want our church to grow
according to God's growth plan for the church. And get this,
when I say grow, I don't mean necessarily numerically. Every
time you talk about church growth, people think, oh, so you want
the church size to double in five years. No, I don't. I want
this church to be exactly what God wants it to be. And my greatest
concern with our church is that we grow spiritually, into spiritual
maturity, to become more like Christ. Now, as we're becoming
more like Christ, And as we're reaching out to our neighbors,
and as we're serving our community with ministries like the Biblical
Counseling Center, I suspect we might see our church grow. But the main point is, is that
we want to take care of what God's called us to do, and it's
really not a secret when it comes to church growth. It's not some
formula. It's not some blog of some famous pastor who writes,
here's the six ways you can grow your church. It's right here
in this text that we're looking at this morning, it's God's growth
plan for the church and so in the first sermon when we open
this topic back in August we talked about the gifting of the
leadership look at verse 11 and he gave the apostles the prophets
the evangelist and the shepherds and teachers and so first in
God's growth plan for the church we talked about how basically
God gave gifts to grow his church. And the gifts that he gave were
people. He gave gifted people to grow
his church. And we talked about how the apostles
were appointed by Jesus and how they planted churches and how
they then appointed elders to oversee local congregations. And then we talked about how
the role of the New Testament prophets, which were those people
who functioned, more as local pastors who spoke the divine
word of God and strive to build up and courage and console the
body. Next we looked at that third
type of gifted person, the evangelist, who is doing the work of evangelism
and winning people to Christ and also active in missions.
Planting churches in the states and planting churches around
the world is something that an evangelist ought to be active
in doing. And in the New Testament, that's
exactly what evangelists did. You had apostles and prophets,
which have all now passed on the responsibility to the elders
and to the deacons of the church, which those offices continue.
And so I described for a long time about how an evangelist
I would see as someone like a church planter or a missionary and someone
who's elder qualified. They're just more on the cutting
edge of doing a new work. instead of what the pastor teacher
is doing, which is an established work continuing to take the church
deeper. And so that was the last gift
really, shepherds and teachers. They're kind of two words that
describe one and the same office. There's a close connection in
those two words there with the connective chi. So the shepherd
teacher or the pastor teacher is to feed the sheep. He is to
lead the sheep. He's to know. each and every
sheep under his care. He's to help protect the sheep
from false doctrine. And so the first step in God's
growth plan for the church was the gifting of the leadership. The second step, which is what
we're gonna be talking about this morning, is our subtitle.
It's the equipping of the saints. And we'll be looking at verses
12 and 13 this morning. And then the third step in God's
growth plan for the church, we'll look at next week, the building
up of the body. And so I wanna give you three
headings this morning that will help us fully understand the
shepherd, the pastor-teacher's role of equipping the saints. Okay, so here we go with our
main heading number one. We're talking about gifted leaders
equip the saints. Now, if you have an NASB in front
of you this morning, you'll read where it says, and he gave some
as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some
as pastors and teachers. for the equipping of the saints
for their work of service. And so in the NASB, we see the
word equipping. In the ESV, we see the word to
equip the saints. And so let's talk for a moment
about this word equip or equipping. Basically, you need to understand
that there's a special meaning and there's a couple of different
ways this word is used in the New Testament. And the first
thing about this word I want to point out to you is that the
word here in this verse is actually in the noun form. It's in the
noun form. It's the only time in the New
Testament where it's used as a noun, not as a verb. However,
the form of this word is used as a verb often throughout the
New Testament. In fact, it's found at least
13 times, and it has various meanings, such as to adjust,
to put in order, to restore, and to mend. And so let me give
you six ways this word equip or equipping is used in ancient
Greek literature. And the first one I'm going to
give you is from just secular literature and the other five
will be from the New Testament itself. All right, you're seeing
where we're at number one on your outline under the meaning
of the word equipping. It was a medical term for the
setting of bones. That's how the word was used,
kind of in the secular culture. It was just a word used actually
in ancient medical textbooks to describe the practice of setting
a broken bone. I think you know that if your
bone is broken, and certainly if it's out of place, a doctor
has to take that arm and set it. In the old days, you just
kind of said, hey, bite this stick while I fix your arm. And
today they can give you some medication, make that a little
easier. Oftentimes they might even want to take you to the
operating room to put a pen in there to get it straight. So
the idea is so that your bone heals straight. And this is one
of the usages of this word to equip. It means to set the bone,
to set it straight. Now these next five, two through
six are all in the New Testament itself. So you can turn with
me if you want to Matthew 4, 21. And we see here that this
word is used to mend fishing nets. It's actually used in more
of an occupational way of mending fishing nets. Matthew 4.21, and
going on from here, or from there, he saw two other brothers, James,
the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with
Zebedee, their father, here's our word, mending their nets,
and he called them. So we've seen it used occupationally.
a medical term for mending a broken bone or Setting a broken bone
now here in a fishing term to mend the broken nets That's what
it means to equip part of what it means to equip is to set it
straight and to mend it if it's broken Turn with me now and look
at Luke 640 if you will Luke 640 and number three is this
it's to instruct or train you to instruct and or train you
Luke 640 Jesus speaking says a disciple is not above his teacher
but everyone when he is fully trained that's our word equip
when he is fully trained will be like his teacher so part of
the idea behind the idea of equipping is to help make that pupil that
individual that disciple to be just like the teacher that that
is trained he's instructed that he would be like the teacher.
And then next we see the word used in Galatians 6.1. Turn to
Galatians with me towards the end of the book, the last chapter,
chapter 6, verse 1. And we see here number 4, this
word equipped could be used this way, to restore a fallen brother. To restore a fallen brother. Brothers, if anyone is caught
in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore
him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest
you too be tempted. So I love the word equip here
being used with the idea of restoring that fallen brother. It's not
a time to chew them out. It's not a time to kick them
while they're down, but it's a time to come and point out
God's truth. You remember the goal here is partly to mend them,
to help set them straight. And Galatians 6,1 says that we
ought to do that in a spirit of gentleness. Now look at Romans
9, if you will. Romans chapter 9. We'll look
at verses 22 and 23. And this is number 5, to prepare
ahead of time. The word equip could be used,
at least in this context, to prepare ahead of time. Romans
9, 22 and 23. What if God, desiring to show
His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much
patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make
known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he
has prepared beforehand for glory. Well, I don't know about you,
but verse 22 kind of shakes me up a little bit, but then verse
23 makes me so grateful to know that for those who are in Christ,
he has prepared us for glory. you're either going to be going
to heaven or going to hell. And according to Romans chapter
9, those that are vessels of his mercy are placed on contrast
with those who are vessels of his wrath. And for every repentant
sinner who turns to Christ and who believes in the Lord Jesus
Christ and his life and his death and his resurrection, is gonna
be a vessel of mercy. And guess what? God, according
to this verse, prepared beforehand you for his glory. It was a work of God. God equipped
you. He prepared you for eternity
by regenerating your heart through the gospel. That's the sovereign
grace of God. And then last, Hebrews 13, number
six, the word equip is used this way to complete you. to complete
you look at Hebrews chapter 13 verses 20 and 21 this is the
end chapter of Hebrews part of the benediction and so the writer
of Hebrews offers this at the end of the book Hebrews 1320
now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of
the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you
may do his will working in us, that which is pleasing in his
sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever,
amen. You see it there, the first word
of verse 21, that may this God, this Jesus Christ, the bearer
of the eternal covenant, equip you. With what? With everything
good, so that you may do his will working in us, that which
is pleasing in his sight. So God has completed you, and
part of God completing you in Christ is so that you would be
busy working to accomplish His will. And that really fits in
well, doesn't it, with our context here in Ephesians 4.12, that
it's these pastor-teachers that are equipping the saints for
the work of the ministry, that we are working hard to prepare
you. that the elder, the pastor is
called to be doing his function and his role again of feeding
the sheep, knowing the sheep, of protecting the sheep, of coming
alongside the sheep so that the sheep may be active in the work
of the ministry. And so really we see from all
of these various usages of the word equip in the New Testament
that equipping is a multifaceted thing. It's a serious thing.
It's an occupational type thing. For the pastor teachers to appropriately
equip the saints for the work of the ministry, it takes a lot
of time. It's not something that just
kind of happens overnight or in one sitting. It takes an extraordinary
effort and it takes a relentless resolve for the pastor elder
to carry out his responsibility. Well, now that we've learned
a little more about the word equipping, let's now look at
the appropriate method of, well, how do we do this practically?
How do we equip? So let's talk B here about the
method of equipping. And number one, I think is obvious.
It takes the word of God. It takes the word of God. If
the pastor shepherd, the teacher is going to faithfully equip
the saints for the work of the ministry you begin right here
you don't start looking for some some other form of growing leadership
you look to God's Word and you come to the Word of God and you
know what 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 says but you gotta turn there
actually gonna have to just see it again one more time with your
own eyes but this verse tells us all scripture is breathe out
by God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction and
for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
equipped for every good work. And so we see for the pastor
teacher to do his job rightly, it starts with coming to the
word of God. The word of God is the book,
it's the manual, it's the Bible, it's what you teach to those
that you're instructing and those that you're discipling. I believe
it goes without saying that this is the most important part of
equipping in order to be effective shepherds and in order to be
purposeful pastor teachers we must teach you from God's Word
in order to do that rightly we must first believe that the Bible
is inspired by God You see the word there in 2 Timothy 3.16,
that it's inspired by God or it's literally breathed out by
God. It's God's word. It's the divine
word of God as opposed to the opinion of man. In other words,
in order to really give respect and to give the due the Bible
deserves, you gotta understand that it's God's holy word. And
so we must believe in the inspiration of scripture. But not only must
you believe and have a conviction about the inspiration of Scripture,
you must believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. The idea that the
Bible is inerrant. It is without any error at all. In fact, this is such an important
concept, a theological truth, that the Shepherds Conference
at Grace Community Church has focused its entire conference
this year 2015 calling it the inerrancy conference because
the truth is this if you believe that the Bible has error in it
then you're not going to teach it to other people or you're
only going to teach parts of it the parts that you like are
the parts that you believe are true but if you take the whole
Bible as being true which it claims itself to be then you're
going to teach every part of it having great confidence that
not only is it inspired by God that it is an inerrant book And
then not only do we believe in the inspiration of Scripture,
the inerrancy of Scripture, we also believe in the infallibility
of Scripture. And that simply means that the
Word of God never fails. Anything God's Word says is true
about the present, about the future, obviously about the past,
that means there's no error in it because what it has is true,
but it also means what it says about current these current days. I was about to say current events.
I don't think that we can track necessarily current events with
the Bible until the rapture happens or the second coming happens.
And then you know, bam, there it is right there because it's
pretty obvious. But the idea is simply this,
is that God's word never fails. And because we believe that here
at Placerita, We place a high value on expository preaching. That's why when you come in here,
week in and week out, it's open your Bibles to such and such
text, and then we try to get busy unpacking God's word. That's why at Placerita, we place
a high value, not only at big church, but we place a high value
on God's word in every ministry, the youth group, They're learning
from seminary students and from interns and from godly men who
teach them the word of God in the children's ministry. We've
done our best to secure godly curriculum. straight from the
Word of God to instruct our children. Everything that we do in Placerita
at our women's ministry is they study through the Psalms, our
men's ministry, which is broken up into a couple different things,
but we study God's Word in Mighty Men, and we try to read books
that help us better understand God's Word in our Iron Man, small
men, small group studies with our Iron Man. And so the idea
is that everything must come and start with the Word of God.
Now, lest you think that, okay, well that's for the pastor teachers.
They're the paid professionals. They teach the Bible. I'm not
really responsible. Let me just remind you that every
father or every designated leader of the home, if you're a single
mom, is responsible for doing just that to your children every
day. It is your responsibility, men,
to teach your children the word of God. It's the pastor teacher's
responsibility to teach the whole church And now we're teaching
you that as fathers, you have a responsibility to train your
children from the Word of God. For some reason, I don't know
why, I have been on a avid rampage about doing that with my kids. Maybe it was just one of the
goals we set over the Christmas break is that I wanted to personally
sit down with my children with the Word of God and teach them
to have a quiet time. to teach them to read the word
of God and to have the joy of explaining to them. I'm not going
to be dependent on the Sunday school teacher. I'm not going
to be dependent only on the youth pastor. I love youth pastors.
I was one for seven and a half years. I love Sunday school teachers,
but I love being a dad who has the privilege of teaching and
instructing my own children from God's word. And so I want to
encourage you dads this morning that that's a practical application
for you in case you're sitting out there and saying, I know
that you're supposed to teach and the elders teach and all
that, but I'm not really a teacher. Yes, you are. Pick up the Bible
and begin to teach it to your children and God will bless you
and your kids in amazing ways. And you can start with something
as simple as a good study Bible. I love to use the MacArthur study
Bible simply because I believe it's the most helpful tool to
help study God's word and to help teach it to someone else. All right, well, let me move
on. The second thing we wanna keep in mind when we talk about equipping,
so we're talking about really some tools of how do we practically
equip the body. One is through the word of God.
The second one is the ministry of prayer, the ministry of prayer. Just listen, if you will, to
this passage out of Colossians. It was Epaphras, who was one
of you, a servant of Jesus Christ, greets you, always struggling
on your behalf in his prayers. that you may stand mature and
fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness
that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and
Hierapolis. I love this brother Epaphras
who was always struggling for fellow believers in his prayers. He was praying specifically that
the believers would stand mature and fully assured in all the
will of God. Now, as an elder team, we are
far from perfect in shepherding and eldering you perfectly. But
one thing that we've been growing in, I believe, as an elder team,
is this discipline of prayer. And I just wanted to encourage
you that at our elders meetings, we have a designated time to
pray for you. We pray for every church member.
We pray for every regular attender by name, several times a year. And I'm not saying that to try
to somehow pat us on the back or puff us up. I'm just letting
you know, we are trying to be diligent to pray for you. At
our elder meeting, it's not just a business meeting where we sit
down and we talk about this is how much money we have or here's
some issues going on or do we want to change this or change
that or whatever. We sit down and we spend time
giving what we call a shepherding report of various individuals
and we pray. We spend time in prayer because
we know that's what God's called us to do, is that we would pray.
That's part of how you're getting equipped, is we're praying that
God would help us equip you and that you would be, in many ways,
equipping yourself as you study God's word. It's what the scriptures
teach in Acts 6-4, right? That the apostles were gonna
select some deacons, and so they said that we will devote ourselves
to prayer and to the ministry of the word that's what the apostles
were to be about prayer and the ministry of the word so that's
another way we're actively trying to equip you praying for you
by name that God would bring change in each one of our hearts
to make us more like Christ a third way we try to equip the Saints
is this number three it's the opportunity to labor for the
Lord. It's our desire to not do it
all, but rather to give you opportunities to labor for the Lord. In fact,
turn with me, if you will, to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter
10, starting in verse one, gives us a great example of how Jesus
did just that gave an opportunity for his disciples not just not
just the 12 apostles but for 72 others to do the work of the
ministry again luke chapter 10 after this the lord appointed
72 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two into every
town and place where he himself was about to go and he said to
them the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few Therefore,
pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers
into his harvest. Go your way. Behold, I am sending
you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money bag,
no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever
house you enter, first say, peace be to this house. and if a son
of peace is there your peace will rest upon it but if not
it will return to you and remain in the same house eating and
drinking what they provide for the laborer deserves his wages
do not go from house to house whenever you enter a town and
they receive you eat what is set before you heal the sick
in it and say to them the kingdom of God has come near to you But
whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into
its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings
to your feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this,
that the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, it will be
more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town." Well,
what we see here is that Jesus, the infinite God of the universe,
Him who's totally capable of teaching and instructing and
healing, decides to give up if you will, some of his own ministry,
not only to the 12 disciples or apostles as we often think
of them, but to these 72 others. And he tells them, I want you
to go into the highways and the byways, right? I want you to
go into these towns and into these houses, and I want you
to heal the sick and obviously to bring the message of the gospel
that the kingdom of God has come near to you. And so he was giving
them opportunities to get involved, which is why here at Placerita,
we have a lot opportunities for you to get involved. We have
lots of opportunities in our college ministry and in our youth
ministry specifically for teaching the Word of God. We have interns
who kind of help oversee those ministries. We have elders who
are involved in providing oversight to those ministries. But we have
lots of opportunities for you to be involved in teaching both
in the college group and in the high school group. But guess
what? We also have opportunities in our children's ministry. Constantly,
we're always looking for more teachers who could fill slots
and be available even at a moment's notice to teach the Word of God. And so we want to give those
opportunities to you. As elders and as pastors, we
don't want to do it all ourselves. So then notice, stay there in
your passage in Luke, and then look at number four, that with
this equipping comes the follow-up instruction and discipleship. I love how Jesus responds to
these 72 when they return from their mission. Look down at verse
17, this 72 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons
are subject to us in your name. So these guys are excited, man.
They're coming back and saying, man, Jesus, when we went out
and did what you told us, even the demons had to submit to us
when we were using your name. And he said to them, now this
is Jesus's follow-up with the 72. He said to them, I saw Satan
fall like lightning from heaven. Pretty Pretty picturesque words. I mean, Jesus is saying, hey,
there was spiritual warfare going on and I saw Satan falling like
lightning from heaven as you did the work that I asked you
to do. Then he says this, verse 19, behold, I have given you
authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the
power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Pretty amazing
again. Encouragement would you say these
are encouraging words from Christ? He's like, hey, I'm gonna be
with you Nothing's gonna stop the message of the gospel and
then he says this verse 20 nevertheless Do not rejoice in this that the
spirits are subject to you but Rejoice that your names are written
in heaven You know what? Jesus is saying It's not about
your ministry. It's not about the success of
your ministry, what you do that takes off, whether it be Kids
Fest, or the youth group, or VBS, or the women's ministry,
or the men's, it's not about that. You rejoice in the gospel. You rejoice that Jesus Christ
came, and he lived a perfect life, and he died, and he was
raised again, and because of that, your name is written in
heaven. This is discipleship. This is
equipping the saints. He's reminding them of what it
is they need to be most excited about. And whenever we get our
focus off of that which is the main thing, the cross and redemption
and the atoning death of Christ and his resurrection to secure
for us our salvation for all eternity, then we begin to rejoice
in other things. We begin to be a little bit too
focused in a pragmatic ministry to grow by numbers and grow by
involvement instead of grow in conviction and following of the
cross. This is great discipleship of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's one thing I'm learning
as a new pastor is the idea of following up. You know, sometimes
it's easy to bark out those orders, if you will, that sounds kind
of gruff, but you know, the idea of like, hey, we need this, you
need to do this and you do this and you do this. And then you
just kind of assume it's going to be done. Well, if you've got
kids and you've ever given orders to them, do you just assume it's
going to happen? No, you got to follow up with them, right?
You got to wait. Wait a second. Did you clean your room? Did
you really brush your teeth? Come here. Let me open your mouth.
Let me look in there. You know, you got to follow up with your
kids. Well, it's the same way in ministry.
You need to follow up and that's okay. We all need, I need to
be followed up on if the elders asked me to do something. I appreciate
the fact that maybe at our next elder meeting, they might say,
Hey Adam, did you, did you get this done yet? We all need accountability,
right? And that's part of equipping
is that we've got to be willing to be equipped and to be challenged.
I mean, maybe the best analogy I could think of would be a sports
analogy. The idea of, you know, being
equipped for a certain game. You know, I don't know about
you, but growing up I played pretty much all the sports our
school offered. In junior high I played football. In high school
I played baseball, track, cross country, tennis, basketball,
sat on the bench on most of those. That's why I ran. All right,
so he's running, they can't put you on the bench. You get out
there and you run, right? But the idea is that our coach always
prepared us. He always prepared us. If it
was football, there was that day where you go to the locker
room and they pull out all the equipment and they size you up.
These shoulder pads, this helmet, this is what you're gonna wear.
We gotta make sure you have the right equipment. And then they
send you out there into the game. They give you an opportunity
to play the game. And when you do well, you get
an attaboy and a pat on the back. And when you don't do so well,
Like I saw this week, the bowl game of UCLA Bruins, there was
a defensive penalty on some guy and they come off the field and
the coach, Jim Moore, he just like walks over to that player
and gives him a mouthful of good instruction. That's discipleship.
Gave him a mouth, you gotta tell him, hey, when you mess up, this
is what you did wrong. When you do well, hey, this was
a great thing. Look, if we're too soft as a
church, and we never ever come along somebody when they drop
the ball to help them out graciously, gently, and loving, just like
we would with our own kids, then we're just being a little bit
too soft. And there's opportunities for
us in equipping that sometimes, remember again, mending that
bone or setting the bone? That didn't feel good. Doesn't
necessarily feel good to set that bone right. Sometimes it's
like, ow! And then it's like, ah, now it's
gonna heal straight. I want to prepare you. Be ready
to be equipped. With that comes great excitement.
With that comes opportunity to play. But with that comes responsibility. With that may come Jim Mora coming
over and getting in your grill, pulling your helmet, saying,
hey, don't do that again. All right? So that's the way that
we want to grow. Is that OK if we grow that way? Because that's
what equipping is all about. You don't seem too happy. All
right, let's move on to number two, OK? The first one was all
front loaded. These last couple points will
be fairly quick. But look at number two. Equipped
Saints, so if it's our job to equip the Saints now We're talking
about equipped Saints and we've been talking about this a little
bit already They do what they do their work of the ministry
back to Ephesians 4 12. It's our job if you will to equip
the Saints for the work of ministry as you think about what all this
looks like there are some false ministry patterns that some churches
run by love what the late John Stott gave in his book one people
he gave these three false ministry patterns that some churches fallen
to the first when he called clerical is a Clericalism kind of a big
word there, but we're talking about the clergy, right? The
idea here would be that a church that functions this way would
say well the pastors are to do all the work I mean we hired
our pastor and we pay him good money to do the work of the ministry
So we don't want to get too involved going to the funeral home going
to the hospital making meals spending time counseling setting
up chairs and tables and helping run events and camps and retreats
because that takes a lot of time. And by the way, don't we pay
Adam and Steve and Josh big money? I mean, did you see the budget
this year? The majority of the budget always
goes to paid staff. So you pay big money for these
guys. Don't they need to do those things?
Why should I? I mean, I give to the church and I don't really
have a professional training. like maybe these guys do. And
so it's all about maybe this idea would be like we hire the
pastor to do all the work. Or a second false ministry pattern
would be anti-clericalism. This would simply be that the
congregation does all the work. So it would kind of be the flip
of that. We may have a pastor, we may not, but it's our job
as the people to do all the work. And so some churches like that,
for example, there's some brethren churches in New Zealand who either
don't have a pastor or would only have one pastor, and all
the rest of the people would do all the work. Now, I'm not
saying that's all bad, depending on the size of the church and
the needs of the church. We love the idea of saints doing the
work of the ministry. That's part of what this whole
sermon is about. But there's always a balance to it. We don't
wanna have it be all the pastors and elders do all the work, neither
do we want it to be like we don't have any paid pastors or we don't
have any elders because the congregation is doing everything The third
mistake would be the idea of dualism. Dualism. The clergy
and the layman responsibilities, they rival each other. In other
words, only the pastors can do certain things, only the lay
people can do certain things, and it becomes a little bit too
territorial. Now it is true that pastors do
tend to do certain things such as preach and oversee communion
and church membership and there's obvious things that we wouldn't
necessarily have just anybody do because we believe in these
appointed offices of the church that have responsibilities clearly
spelt out in scripture but at the same time there's a healthy
balance of everybody doing a little bit of everything and so if you
look at the next little sub point there we're talking about faithful
ministry pattern and you can pull out this sub sheet here
if you will this half sheet where it says philosophy of ministry. And maybe here's what we're aiming
for. We don't want to fall into one of those three mistakes we
just read about. Rather, we want to look at this idea of a faithful
ministry pattern. I got this when I was actually
an intern at Grace Community Church. This was one of the things
we used to help train our staff. And so, it's been used in lots
of different places. Sorry about the reading. Can
you read that? Well, you get the idea though
when you look at it. Let me give you the first one, the first
scripture where it says in the middle you have the love for
God. the glory of God in the very middle and then love for
God and then just above that it says the great commandment
and if you'll look in your outline where you're taking notes that's
your next blank there the great commandment and so the passage
for that obviously is Matthew 22 36 through 40 and we're looking
at what a good ministry would look like and it's basically
the great commandment as you know is where Jesus says you
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind and so as that's the great
commandment then the elders and the pastors are trying to maybe
help that with the ministry of the word, the ministry of worship,
and the ministry of prayer. It's part of exalting the Savior,
teaching you, as we teach ourselves, to love God with all our heart.
Now notice to the right side, or number two on your outline,
there's also the great commitment, the great commitment. And that
just happens to be our passage that we're talking about right
now in Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. The idea of these gifted
pastor teachers equipping the saints for the work of the ministry,
and then we all work together for the building up of the body.
That's the great commitment. That's what we're trying to accomplish
faithfully as a part of loving God and loving others. And if
you look to the left on your wheel, our number three in your
outline, it's the great commission. Matthew 28, 18 through 20, all
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all that I command you. And behold, I am with you
even to the end of the age. Now, what I want to point out
to you is simply this, the great commandment, the great commitment,
and the great commission are given to all believers. There
is not this great segregation of only the pastors can do this
and only the lay people can do this. In a sense, we're all working
together as one body in this wheel of ministry to accomplish
exactly what God's called each one of us to do in a way that
would help us secure a biblical balance that's what we're always
looking for the biblical balance and when we find that biblical
balance which i think this will kind of helps put it in a in
a picture format if you will then it helps us find the true
biblical result and that's what number three is all about the
result of this the equipping of the saints and now equipped
saints doing the actual work of the ministry then we see the
result is the building up of the body look there at verse
12 if you will the rest of the verse says basically to equip
the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the
body of Christ and so if you're in Christ then you're part of
his body now we would wish that you would become part of this
local body so that we could better identify who's with us serve
you disciple you and have you plugged in but this passage is
talking about the invisible church, the idea of all those who are
in Christ. And so this is the result, is that the whole body
of Christ gets built up. And then notice there, A, your
first sub-point, is that that leads us to the attaining of
the unity of faith, to the unity of the faith. Verse 13, until
we all attain to the unity of the faith. And so there's this
goal here that all of us, all the time, are attaining, are
coming to, arriving at a great unity of the faith. And this
unity of the faith is not referred to trusting or believing, but
rather to the whole body of Christian truth. By and large, it refers
to the Christian doctrine of salvation in Christ alone, by
grace alone through faith alone. And so what he's saying here
is that once the elders and teachers are doing what they need to do,
the congregation is being properly equipped, we're gonna be building
each other up into that same doctrine of truth, that same
body of truth. That's what the result will be.
Also, B says that part of the result will be that we're growing
in the knowledge of the Son of God. So there in the middle of
verse 13 again, we're attaining to the unity of the faith, and
the knowledge of the Son of God. And so there we see a great focus
on the second result of following God's pattern for building his
church is attaining this greater knowledge of the Son of God.
I don't think Paul here seems to be talking about salvation
knowledge only, but also the deeper knowledge of all that
the Bible contains. He uses the word epignosis. this
emphasis of this experiential deep great knowledge. This kind
of knowledge is a lifelong process of faithfully studying and applying
the Word of God in your life. So it starts with salvation,
but you never get over salvation because you're constantly growing
in your knowledge of the Son of God. And then third, or C
there, the result leads to maturing into the fullness of Christ. So this is all about spiritual
maturity. There at the end of verse 13,
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. One
commentator states, quote, the third result of following God's
pattern for his church is spiritual maturity, a maturity to the measure
of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. God's
great desire for his church is that every believer without exception
come to be like his son, manifesting the character qualities of the
one who is the only measure of the full-grown, perfect, mature
man. That's what God has called us
to. It's God's desire that we all attain, that we all work
towards either equipping or being equipped. And as we do so, we
will build each other up. We will all be doing the work
of the ministry. We'll all be active in doing
exactly what it is that God has called us to do. You know, this
year, Steve already mentioned something about New Year's resolutions,
which is kind of a common cultural way of saying, what can I do
better this year that I didn't do last year? And the number
one New Year's resolution every year, you know what it is, it's
to lose weight. The number two New Year's resolution
is to do more exercise. So how are you doing? You guys
doing all right so far? All right, so we were talking
about this with our kids over the break, and I kind of realized
they don't really understand the concept of a Christian perspective
of a New Year's resolution. My kids, when we were talking
about this with them, were saying, well, I want my New Year's resolution
to be to keep a cleaner room or to do my homework, which I
would say both of those things are fantastic. So I'm happy that
that's things they want to work on. But then I started saying,
hey, what is a way that you could honor God with some maybe new
effort this year that would help you. So they start kind of tossing
out things, and all of a sudden, Hudson, my three-year-old, soon
to be four-year-old, said, I have a New Year's resolution. And
I said, Hudson, what's your New Year's resolution? And with a
big smile all the way across his face, he said, Jesus. And I just said, hey, you know
what? That's awesome, buddy. That's a great New Year's resolution.
Hopefully that we would grow in the knowledge of the Son of
God, that everything we do as a church would all be about Jesus. It would be about loving Jesus.
It would be about serving Jesus, equipping each other and serving
together. And so maybe I could just ask
you, what is your New Year's resolution? What spiritual changes
would you like to make this year? Maybe we could take it right
here from this text. Shouldn't the New Year's resolution of
our church be that our pastors and elders would be equipping
the saints for the work of the ministry so that you would be
built up in the faith, that you would be growing in the knowledge
of the Son of God and maturing into the stature of Jesus. We want to grow together looking
at Christ. Maybe just a couple of practical
take-home thoughts would just be these questions. In what ways
are you being equipped at PBC? In what ways are you being equipped?
Again, we have God's Word being taught Sunday mornings, Sunday
evenings during our Sunday night schedule, in our men's ministry,
our women's ministry. There are so many opportunities.
Are you taking advantage of really being equipped, maybe it's you
being a part of a small group this year, that you've not been
in a small group, but that's the way to go to the next level
to sit under the discussion and instruction of the Word of God.
Secondly, maybe I could ask, as the whole point of equipping
is to prepare you to help straighten you out, so to speak, so that
you can do the work of the ministry. And so number two is, in what
ways are you serving at PBC? Again, just a reminder, it's
our goal that every member of our church has an identified
ministry that they serve in. And it's always amazing to me
to know how many church members truly aren't serving. And so
that's just a little effort I'm giving to equip you, all right?
I'm gonna set a few bones straight, all right? So the idea is that
if you're here and you're a member of our church and you don't serve
anywhere, let me encourage you that maybe your New Year's resolution
is that while we're trying to be faithful in equipping you,
you would be more active in the work of service. And then number
three, in what ways are you building up the body at PBC? We're gonna talk more about that
next week. That's kind of our third message in God's growth
plan for the church, the building up of the body. Are you active
in helping build up the body? Now, let me tell you what's gonna
happen. I'm closing in prayer. Our worship team is gonna come
up and we're gonna start doing a closing song, Lord willing,
at the end of the service. And so after I pray, you get
ready to sing our closing song and then you'll be dismissed.
Let's pray. God, thank you so much for the
opportunity to look at this power-packed text of the great commitment
of you calling pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work
of the ministry. I pray, God, that we would never
get over this text as it's really even included in our mission
statement as a church here at Placerita Bible Church. I pray
as well, God, that in all of this focus and emphasis on equipping
and on working and building the body up, that we would remember
that at the end of the day, our New Year's resolution is Jesus. Would you help us to love Christ
like we've never loved him before? Would you help us to rest in
Christ and his accomplished work on the cross? And would you allow
us to labor to serve Christ with all of our might and count it
a true joy to give some blood, sweat, and tears to serve the
Savior who died for us. God, transform our church into
a church that would honor you, serve you, follow you, reach
our community, reach this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And may it start this day and throughout this year. May we
receive great spiritual blessings as we seek to exalt you. In Jesus name we pray, amen.