Scripture:
Ephesians 4.11-16
Translation: 11And He gave the
apostles, and the prophets, and the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers, 12for
the sake of getting the holy people completely ready for the work of ministry,
for the edification of the Body of Christ, 13until we all attain to
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man,
to the measure of the full-growth of the fullness of Christ, 14so
that we won’t be babies any more, who get thrown around and carried around by
every wind of teaching in accordance with the trickiness of men, in accordance
with the deviousness aimed at the scamming of deception, 15and [so that] by being truthful,
we will grow in love with respect to all things into Him, Who is the Head, Christ,
16from Whom the whole body that’s joined and united together through
every ligament of support according to the in-working in a measure of each and
every single body part achieves the growth of the body resulting in the
edification of itself in love.
Interpretation
1.
Structure
a.
Eph. 4.7-16: Gifts to the
Church
i.
Gifts to believers in the
church
ii.
Fulfilling Scripture by
Christ giving gifts
iii.
Gifts to the Church
(vv.11-16)
1.
Extended
11And He gave the apostles,
and the prophets,
and the evangelists,
and the pastors and
teachers,
12for the sake
of getting the holy people completely ready for the work of ministry,
for the edification of the
Body of Christ,
13until we all
attain to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a mature man,
to the measure
of the full-growth of the fullness of Christ,
14so that we
won’t be babies any more,
who get thrown around
and carried around by every wind
of teaching
in human trickiness,
in deviousness aimed at the deceptive
scamming,
15and [so that]
by being genuine in love, we will grow with respect to all things into Him,
Who is the Head,
Christ,
16from
Whom the whole body \/ \/ \/ achieves the growth of the
body
that’s
joined
and united
together through every supporting ligament
according to the in-working
in a measure of each and every single body part
resulting
in the edification of itself in love.
2.
Simplified
A Main
action: Jesus gave the apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, and teachers
B Main
intention:
Negatively:
so that we wouldn’t be immature and duped into false teaching
Positively:
so that we would grow into Christ to become fully mature and loving
2.
Themes
a.
Love
b.
Growth, maturity,
perfection,
c.
Body/Body Parts
d.
Gifts
e.
Church
f.
Delegation/training/equipping
g.
Truth vs. deception
h.
Edification
i.
The Parts and The Whole
3.
Doctrines
a.
Jesus is generous and gives
the church not just individual gifts but corporate gifts
b.
Jesus wants His Body to be
healthy, mature, and growing
c.
Pastors are not supposed to
do everything, they are supposed to get the church ready to do everything
d.
All believers should
benefit from all other believers, that is all believers have ministry to do
Applications
1.
You need the church to grow,
because you need pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets,
a.
It’s kind of awkward for me
to preach this, but the truth is you need the church, because you can only get
pastored in the church. In fact, the church as a whole, Christians in general
would not grow into mature Christians or in a mature Body of Christ without the
gifts that Jesus gave to the church, the gifts are the people He gave, the
Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
b.
God have me, and others
like me and others with different callings than me to the church for the sake
of the church growing to become strong, healthy, and mature. You need these
people, so that you don’t get sucked up into bad and blasphemous theology and
lies and deceivers
c.
But He didn’t just give me
and others like me to protect you and make sure you don’t stay baby Christians
forever, but so that I can help you and me together grow as the church in
loving one another and becoming mature in every way, in resembling Jesus in all
aspects of our church and lives.
d.
But the way that Jesus made
us, and the way He wants us to do that, is not by doing everything on our own.
Or just leading the charge, per se, but by equipping you and training you and
getting you ready to do the work that Jesus wants you to do by the Holy Spirit
for God’s Glory.
e.
My job is not to do all
your jobs. My job is to help you know what your jobs are and how God wants you
to do your jobs and how you can maybe even get better at your job. A pastor is
not a one many band, He is a music teacher or conductor
f.
For the record, apostle is
not a role you can have today, regardless of what some people want to call
themselves, and regardless of whether they can do miracles or not, it is a well
established Christian understanding that while there are in some respects
people who can be understand to have replaced the apostles, they are not
apostles. Apostles were special men called personally by Jesus in the flesh to
preach the Gospel and start the church, not start churches, but start the
church!
2.
You need the church to
grow, because you need other readied believers
a.
The whole point of Jesus
giving the church pastors and teachers and evangelists and prophets and the
apostles was for you and me to get prepared by those men to serve Jesus in a
ministry, and ministry that will include ministry for the saints
b.
Sometimes when you are
young like you are, in middle school, highschool, or even in college, it is
easy to let pressure, and what other people think about you or about Jesus, or
even sometimes what you think would be cool or impressive keep you from
embracing how God has created you, and the ministry Jesus has give you, and the
gifts the Holy Spirit is empowering in you. look, I know, I was in Junior High
too at one point, and I let what I thought would be cool, and what I thought I
wanted to do control me far too much. Maybe you’re really outgoing and people
love you, but people mock you for it, or someone you think is cool is not like
that, embrace being who God made you, do your ministry.
c.
And it is true that all of
you, all of us, have ministry to do both outside and inside the church. Now
while you may have a different ministry to do at different times in your life,
God has called each of you to tell people about Jesus and help bring them into
the family. So, today in small group, there will be two questions, one will ask
you to talk about whether you feel like you have been prepared and are ready to
go tell people about Jesus, invite them to church, etc.; and the other question
will be whether you feel called to a particular ministry, and how I can help
you get ready to do it, if you’re not ready yet, and how I can help you get
better at it, if you can do it, but you want to get really good at it.
d.
You need the church,
because you need to be ministered to by other believers. You need them to serve
you, to encourage you, to strengthen you, to teach you, etc. you can become a
mature Christian without other Christians, Jesus has structured the Christian
life to require us to benefit from one another.
3.
You need the church to
grow, because you are part of the church
a.
You are not just an
individual believer, you are that, but you are more than that too. You are a
believer that is part of a bigger whole, called the church. You cannot grow in
all areas of your spiritual life and development by being alone—some you have
to be alone for, but not all. Because on a deep, deep level of your being you
are connected to something bigger, something greater and more alive than you
are on your own.
b.
You are like a cell, it is
alive and it does lots of things on its own, but it is not the body all by
itself, and it actually can’t live by itself either, it is totally dependent on
many other systems and cells for much of its survival.
c.
You can’t be a person who
is growing in what it means to be a part of the body, if you are not a part of
the body
4.
Questions
a.
Do you feel ready to share
the Good News with your friends, neighbors, family members, co-workers and
others? If so, what are you doing to share the good news? If not, what could
the leaders do to help you get ready and do it?
b.
Do you feel called to a
specific kind of ministry inside the church? If so, what is it? And how can the
leaders help you to do it or get better at it? If not, what kind of ministry
would you like to try out?
c.
Do you feel like you are
growing in your spiritual life right now? how could the leaders help you grow
more? how could other church members help you?
d.
What would you like to do
as a group in the coming weeks and months, in terms of fun stuff, service
projects, or evangelism opportunities, or some other cool stuff?
e.
What would you like to have
sermons on in the Fall? What about for Bible Studies? Or training for different
ministries?
Illustrations/Explanations
1.
I knew this girl, she was
always really happy and smiling, it was great. She was blessed with a happy
disposition, and that was a beautiful thing, but people always got on her case
for being happy and smiling all the time. Today, I don’t know if she still
smiles all the time, but I’ve seen plenty of people who stop acting and even
being happy around people, just because of what other people are saying. And
that is actually a terribly sad thing. I mean really, what’s wrong with being
happy. Seriously, just because you’re not happy, doesn’t mean you should get
annoyed at people who are. In fact, a couple weeks ago, we talked about that,
Christians celebrate when people are celebrating. Don’t take your hard
situation out on others, invite them into your hard situation so that they can
empathize and grieve with you, but don’t crush their joy so you can feel better
about yourself. Uh…selfish much…no?
No comments:
Post a Comment