Christ's Purpose for the Leadership in His Church - Brandon Scalf

Heritage Church Tulsa

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All right, everybody, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.

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Ephesians chapter 4. And we will begin in verse 12, and we will look,

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Lord willing, at verse 12 and 13. Ephesians chapter 4, and today's message is entitled

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Christ's Purpose for the Leadership in His Church.

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So if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient

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Word. For the sake of context,

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I will begin reading in verse 1, and I will conclude in verse 16.

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Verse 1 through 16. This is the Word of God. Therefore I, the prisoner in the

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Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the

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Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one Body and one

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Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one

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Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

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But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

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Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

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Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?

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He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.

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And he himself 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 the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the

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Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, so that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

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But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is

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Christ, from whom the whole body, being joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen? Amen. Please have a seat and find verse 12.

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Find verse 12. As we have been studying the book of Ephesians, what we have really been studying is the doctrine of the church.

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In verses 3 through 14 of chapter 1, God is telling us how he makes

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Christians for the church, because there is no church without Christians.

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And so he goes back in eternity past and he looks at the workings of the triune

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Godhead, specifically as it relates to salvation.

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And then as we get to chapter 2, he shows how not only are we saved in an eternity past by a predetermined plan of an electing

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God, but that we are spiritually in real space and real time, resurrected to a newness of life, because we were once, all of us who bear the name of Christ now, spiritually dead.

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We were unable to respond to spiritual stimuli. We were unable to not be influenced by the world, governed by our flesh, and tempted by the devil.

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And in chapter 3, Paul paints for us the beautiful reality that not only has he reconciled us, that is those who are

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Christian, to God himself, but he has reconciled us to one another.

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That he has torn down the barrier that might exist because of our differences as it pertains to our geography, or even as it pertains to redemptive history.

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Because there was at one point in history where God displayed himself, made manifest his workings to a particular group, and excluded all other groups.

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And now, beautifully, wonderfully, and sovereignly, he has made one new man in Christ Jesus underneath a new headship, and that man, of course, speaking figuratively, is the church.

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The bride of Christ, as it would be called in Ephesians 5, the building of Christ, as it was called in Ephesians 2, and as we have been looking at chapter 4, the body of Christ.

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One of the beautiful realities that has been painted for us is that the church has been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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It is his body to do his bidding and to rest underneath his leadership.

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Not only that, but it is built by the Spirit and it is maintained by the working of the

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Spirit in the people that have been, by the Spirit, bound to the finished work of Christ and are now members of his body.

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And as we began chapter 4, we saw that it was, in fact, imperative that we guard and keep with tenacity, with fervor the unity that has been purchased for us, that we need to be humble, that we need to be gentle, that we need to be patient, that we need to bear with one another in the love.

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And then, of course, he told us that the reason for that, that we should do that, is because we are one.

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We are one, like God is one, and yet we are diverse, like God is diverse, because there is one

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God, yet three persons. And he began, verses 4 through 6, talking about this very reality, giving for us what would be considered maybe the first creedal statement in existence, and that is what he based our unity around, showing us that doctrine must be that thing that binds us together.

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Now, as we have seen, and as we often believe, especially as Calvinistically tethered people, we can agree with everything, mostly at least, with what

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I've just said, that God sovereignly orchestrated the church, and he did so wonderfully, beautifully, and in Christ.

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Yet, we often forget that Christ has not left that church that he sovereignly created to fend for itself, or we could say herself, which would be more accurate.

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But as we will see today, and what we touched on in large measure last week, is that God has given the church something far more precious than cool logos, than precious programs, than traditions, or a list of hobbies to rally around, but he has given us gifts, gifts in the body as it pertains to each and every believer, as it was pointed out in verse 7, but as we saw in verse 11, particular men gifts, men gifts.

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That is, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor -teachers, and as Christ's men gift to the church, he is working by his spirit for the church's spiritual good.

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Now, biblical leadership is something that has most certainly been debated over the course of the last 2 ,000 years, which is what makes

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Ephesians 4 all the more important. What is the church leadership for?

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Why does it exist? What are we to make of the fact that there are, in fact, elders, deacons, and how are we to think about what the pulpit is ultimately for?

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Well, of course, if you come on Sunday evenings, especially as of late, you will know that it's to preach the word, but in preaching the word, what is leadership ultimately to do?

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Well, God has appointed these men gifts for the specific purposes laid forth in this section.

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So today, as we look at Ephesians 4, verses 12 and 13, we will see that Christ gives to his church leaders for her equipping, for her edification, for her unity, for her instruction, and for her maturity.

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And he does that, yes, individually, but ultimately, corporately.

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So the first thing that I want you to see as we look at verse 12 is that Christ gave these men gifts for the purpose of equipping the saints.

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The purpose of equipping the saints.

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Look with me at verse 12. In verse 12, we pick up in the middle of an argument.

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We know this because of this proposition four. It is introducing to us a continuation of an argument.

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And of course, the argument stemming from the fact that he, that is Jesus himself, gave some of those who he has gifted as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastor teachers.

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And he did this specifically for the purpose of, firstly, the equipping of the saints for the work of service.

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Now, before we look at these specific words, we need to look at this sentence as a whole because there is somewhat of a debate, at least as of late, around what is being got at here.

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And what I mean by that is there are linguists and academic scholars, for instance, who want to put commas in places that would change the meaning of this verse in large measure.

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And so there are some translations out there. Some of them might even be in your lap that will put a comma after this word, saints.

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So it will say, for the equipping of the saints, comma, for the work of service, comma, to the building up of the body of Christ.

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And of course, you can see in the Legacy Standard Bible here that it says, for the equipping of the saints, no comma, for the work of service, now comma, to the building up of the body of Christ.

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Now, it should go without saying, but in case it is unclear, this changes the meaning essentially in one colossal way.

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If the comma happens after saints, that means that this is teaching that the pastors ought to be the ones who are doing the work of ministry.

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That is, that you all, to some degree, are not to do the work of ministry but to be the beneficiaries of the work of the ministry that the leadership puts forth.

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Now, I will not deny that reality. You are to benefit, and that is the point of this, from the ministry of the leadership in the church.

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But the question becomes, is that what this text is teaching? My assertion is, it is not.

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It is teaching the very fundamental reality that you all are to do the work of ministry.

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And it is my job as your pastor, it is the job of pastors all around the world to equip the saints, that is all who bear the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, have been purchased by his blood, to do the work of, and we will get into this momentarily, but the work of service.

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So do not let this word ministry hang you up because it actually comes from the word service, which is not altogether different from ministry, but it does make a little bit of difference.

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Now, let me prove what I'm saying. I will not be able to do so exhaustively, but I hope to do so adequately.

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The problem with the initial, or the talked about interpretation is twofold.

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To some degree it's more than that, but for the sake of time, it is twofold. The problem with it is the

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Greek. The Greek does not lend itself to the reality that there should be a comma there.

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More than that, if we put a comma there, we destroy Paul's argument in all of the book of Ephesians, particularly as it pertains to Ephesians chapter four.

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Now let me break this down a little bit more. As we look here, we can see that there are a series of prepositions in the

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English. This is the same in the Greek. You see four, four, and two.

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These are prepositions, right? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

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Now, in the Greek, you've got a series of prepositions that are not the same.

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That is, even the first two, though it says four and four in the English to help us wrap our mind around it, those differ.

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The first preposition in the Greek is pros, and the second two are ace.

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Now, all that means is that if we are to be good linguists, we need to ask the question, why is that?

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The question is, of course, or the answer, of course, is that these second and third prepositions act as a subordinate clause to the first.

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That's just a nerdy way of saying, for instance, that these pastor -teachers were given for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.

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The work of service is subordinate, is to the equipping, as well as the building up.

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You see what I'm saying? Now, that's not a slam -dunk argument, and the reason

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I say that is because people use language in different ways. But I want to draw your attention to the reality that Paul, if you haven't noticed already, though he uses a variety of prepositions, does not use them indifferently.

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Remember, prepositions in large measure, as well as articles and other things, are where the biblical logic is built, at least in Paul's mind.

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I mean, he's a theologian of insane measure. And so we want to make note of this, and we want to at least try to ascertain why he's doing that.

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So I think the Greek is clear here. There should be a comma, or there should not be a comma, rather, because to put a comma there would violate the syntax.

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But more than that, if there are some Greek scholars that want to argue that, okay, sure.

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But let's pay attention to the context. The context.

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To make such a distinction between clergy and laity, between leadership and the church, goes against the very thrust of what the book of Ephesians, particularly chapter 4, promotes.

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It's promoting the unity of the body of Christ. The letter, as a whole, has emphasized

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Christ's riches being received by all the saints, right? If you go back to chapter 1, verse 3, blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, who's us, you and me, everyone, who bears the name saint.

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And we know that because he says he's writing to the saints in Ephesus. He's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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And then when you get to chapter 4, he's telling us that we have been given this unity that we are to preserve, and that we've been given gifts by Christ to do just that.

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Every believer has been given grace to maintain unity. And as we finish out in verse 16, and this really is the clarifier.

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In verse 16, he's continuing the exact same argument.

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And his conclusion is that the whole body is growing from the head and, quote, as each part does its work.

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Did you catch that? As each part does its work. There is no such thing as a church where the ministers do all of the work.

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That couldn't even possibly be done. If it is only the leadership of verse 11 who are to perfect the saints, do the work of ministry, and edify the body of Christ, then this is a sure departure from Paul's usual insistence that every member of the body is called to love, be accountable to, and love the saints.

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Therefore, I contend that it is better to regard those enumerated in verse 11 as helping and directing other members of the church so that all may carry out their several ministries for the good of the whole.

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In other words, pastor -teachers, and all of the rest of this list, but particularly pastor -teachers, because they are the ones who continue in great measure, and evangelists do too, but with a slightly different emphasis, it is them who equip the saints for the work of ministry.

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We can see this, this varied gifts idea, as we look at Romans chapter 12, verses 6 through 8, for example.

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You, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy in agreement with that faith, or service in his serving, or who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with generosity, he who leads with diligence, and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

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You see, there are many gifts in the body, but there are specific word gifts, men gifts, given to the body to equip them, to equip them.

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You can see this again in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 28. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues or languages.

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Now, now that that's settled, let's look at the word equip. So, look at the word equip. So, it's talking about equipping the saints, or Paul is talking about rather, equipping the saints for the work of service, to do the work of ministry.

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This word equip here is essentially scarce throughout Greek antiquity. It's not mentioned often, it's not employed often, but it was used.

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And it was used primarily as a medical term. There's one particular book in antiquity that used it 47 times to speak about the work of medical practice, particularly regarding setting a limb or bone.

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More than that, and more precise, it's used to paint the picture of the restoration of a shattered shoulder.

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So, the idea of mending, putting together something. As we get into the

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New Testament era, and as the Bible presents it, it is often used of furnishing a room or preparation for a garment.

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In this particular form, it is only found here in the New Testament. However, the verb form is found quite frequently.

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And it means simply to adjust, put in order, restore, amend.

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And it can speak of that as it pertains to reconciling of political factions, as well as to furnish, equip, or to be instructed or trained.

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In other words, the job of the pastor -teachers is to make sure that the body is complete or fully prepared for the task ahead of her.

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That they would be ready. That they would stand ready to do what it is that they have to do.

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That they would be made complete. Of course, by the preaching and proclaiming of the word of God.

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This word is used in Hebrews chapter 13 verses 20 and 21. When the author of Hebrews says,

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Paul likewise exhorts in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10. He says, So the first purpose of the pastor -teacher is to feed himself on the word of God.

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And to feed his people and to lead them to feed themselves on the word of God.

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Equipping them for their service. To teach, to train, and to arm them with the word of God.

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This is important. God cares about this. You will not stand strong on the day of trouble.

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You would not stand strong against the world, the flesh, and the devil. If you have not been taught, if you have not been trained in, and you have not been armed with the very word of God.

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This is why Hosea 4, 6 in his prophecy says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

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Not lack of money. Not lack of cool programs.

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Not lack of fill in the blank, but knowledge. And to be equipped to pray.

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Being taught how to pray. Being models of prayer. So that they might engage spiritual warfare.

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That they might engage suffering. And by the way, that's where this is headed. Paul is going to end his letter by talking about how we are to stand tall.

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As the enemy throws forth his fiery darts.

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And we do that by resting in the truth of God's word. This increases then the reality.

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That you ought to want your pastor or pastors to live in the word of God.

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Too many churches want their pastor to be a CEO. They want him to be a professional.

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In the sense that there is a lot of teams and ministries that need to be orchestrated.

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In a way that is, well, quite honestly operating like a business.

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If it's not growing, it's his fault. If it's not growing, he needs to study trends.

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And he needs to study marketing. And he needs to make sure that there are more people in the seats every single week.

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Or he's a failure. That he needs to be a motivational speaker. That he needs to be so many things that the scriptures never tell him to be.

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But what he needs to be is a word -saturated, Christ -drenched man that is able to equip you.

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I mean, if he doesn't equip himself, how can he equip the saints for the work of ministry? If you have pastors, and this is crazy to me.

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I have so many friends that go through the treachery. Of sitting amidst a board of people trying to decide.

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A search committee trying to decide if they should be their next pastor. And all their questions are wrong.

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And all their priorities are twisted. How much do you care about you and your soul?

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How much do you care about your children? How much do you care about your friends sitting next to you?

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Then believe the scriptures. And press your pastors to care about the things that the scripture tells them to care about.

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Regardless of what the world says about how a church ought to be run.

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There's a reason, for instance, that Peter says in Acts 6, 4. When he installs the first deacons, we must devote ourselves to prayer and to the service of the word.

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So you want to know how a church can be stagnant?

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The surest road to a church's spiritual stagnation. To a pastor throwing in the towel.

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Or both. Is for the pastor to become so engulfed in activities and programs that have nothing to do with prayer and the study of the word.

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To equip, he must be equipped. And he needs to equip to a certain end.

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That is, for the work of ministry. That is, service. So as we look here, the second aspect of God's plan for the operation of his church's leaders is that they would equip the saints for purpose, the work of ministry.

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The truth is, friends, no pastor, or even a large group of pastors, can do everything that the church needs.

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Nor can he do everything that the church needs to do. No matter how gifted, talented, and dedicated a pastor may be, the work to be done where he is called to minister will always vastly exceed his time and his abilities.

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Leaders of the church cannot be at all places at all times.

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So the work then that he is to do is to equip and to prepare other saints for the work of ministering to one another.

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This word work literally means servant in its lima, in its regular form.

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Here, it's related to that same noun, and it's also used in 3 .7.

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Paul's reminding that he was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power.

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He was made a servant, and it is the servant's job to make servants out of Christ's servants.

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You see what I'm saying? That is the work of the minister.

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Here's what this means very practically. The entire church is to be aggressively involved in the work of the

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Lord. You need to be doing more.

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Well, some of you, some of you need to take a break because you're exhausting yourself. Actually, I take that back.

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Maybe some of you do. But I like to live by the George Whitfieldian phrase,

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I'd rather wear out than rust out. But nonetheless, the truth remains.

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Working for the Lord is bound up in the Christian life in an extraordinary way.

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In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58, it says, Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the

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Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the

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Lord. When you use your gifts for this church, when you use this gifts for the universal body, you're not wasting your time.

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You're not wasting your time. 1

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Peter 2, 5, Peter says, You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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Your work, your serving work, as you're being built up in the body of Christ, in the spiritual house, is spiritual sacrifice.

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Not only that, but this is contrasted by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 11, when he rebukes people for not working unto the

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Lord, not serving the people of Christ. He says, For we hear that some among you are walking in an unruly manner, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

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In other words, they were acting like they were doing a lot of work. They were acting like they were actually doing what they were called to do.

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They were acting as if, when they go home, that they are actually serving their family, and when they're at church, they're serving their church, but they aren't.

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A lot of smoke and mirrors. So, the pastor -teacher's subsequent work, if you're following the argument here, is to equip, and he's specifically to equip, verse 12, the saints for the work of service is simply that, to provide spiritual resources to cause believers to work unto the

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Lord, taking on the likeness of the Lord and Savior, through continual obedience to his word, and to provide a pattern or example of godliness to one another.

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Friends, this is important for you to grasp. This is essential to your

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Christian life. And I mean that because, if we've been saved by Christ, then we must understand that the church is not a theater filled with spectators.

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It is a training ground for Christ -purchased laborers, Christ -drenched workers, who desire to serve one another in the body.

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And the men gifts, the pastors, the teachers, the apostles and the prophets, through their word, and the evangelists who go out and procure a body, those gifts that God has given, are not to be eccentric entertainers, but earnest equipers.

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They're to bear, bring to bear, rather, the word of God, on every heart that sits in every pew, that they might be equipped to serve.

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And this serving is not merely for personal benefit, but for everyone in the body.

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And if every member in the body is to benefit from the work of the ministry, then it logically follows that every believer is called to be an active part of Christ's mission.

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Children, would you look at me? If you aren't listening, and you aren't taking in the word of God as it is preached, then it's kind of like you're a soldier who's been given a gun and sent out to battle, but not having been trained on that weapon, right?

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In order to get good at shooting a weapon, your parents have to take you out to shoot it, and you must become familiar with it, and you must be trained to do it properly and how to think about it as a weapon.

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In the same way, we must be willing to be equipped for the work of ministry.

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We must be armed. We must be taught. To everyone else, let me ask you a question.

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As you sit here today, are you seeking out or right now receiving the equipping that Christ intends for you through the leadership of the men that he has given to his church?

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Or are you sinfully content to remain ill -prepared?

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Are you sinfully passive and disengaged? Do you not trust that you will in fact be equipped, and so you are telling yourself,

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I refuse to be equipped here in this place at this time. Friends, might

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I remind you that this entire section of Scripture is God's provision for his church, and Christ has most certainly given men gifts, though imperfect men, who you will disagree with at times, to thoroughly prepare you for every good work.

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The second thing that I want you to see as we examine our text this morning is not only did

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Christ give men gifts for the purpose of equipping the saints, but he has also beautifully, wonderfully given men gifts for the purpose of edifying the saints.

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Edifying the saints. Look with me again at verse 12. Christ himself gave certain men for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to, here's that other subsequent preposition, showing purpose, which is to the building up of the body of Christ.

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The term translated here, building up, refers to the process of literally constructing something, literally brick by brick, piece by piece, slab of mortar by slab of mortar, and it means specifically building a house like that, which is wonderful because in many ways it's keeping with the theme of what

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Paul has been talking about, that we are being built up into a house, a living sanctuary, and that we are also a body, but he's still using these pieces of imagery here.

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In other words, Christ's men are given to the church to build her up, to edify her, to strengthen her in faith, to fortify her in truth, and to make her unpenetratable, to make her a fortress that would stand strong against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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This, of course, is Paul's aim. The body is built up externally through evangelism as more believers are added, but the emphasis here is on its being built up internally as believers are nurtured to fruitful service through the word.

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The idea here of us being built up or being edified is the idea that the church is not simply a loosely associated group of individuals.

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We are being built up together. It is a spiritual building, and every believer is a living stone.

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Once again, we saw this in Ephesians 2, verse 20, where it says, Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, this church,

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Christ Jesus himself, of course, being the cornerstone. And in 1

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Peter 2, 5, this building imagery becomes even more clear. You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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Friends, Christ has given gifted men to ensure that this building, that is, the people that make up Heritage Church, specifically here but everywhere, grow strong, stable, and unified.

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The goal is not just individual spiritual growth, but corporate strength.

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There's a reason that Jesus likens us to sheep, friends. We're not very strong on our own.

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Let me say this again. You are not very strong on your own.

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You need Christ. Now, that should go without saying. But you need everyone around you.

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And more than that, you need everyone around you to be strong, to be built up, to be strengthened, to have spines of steel and knees that do not buckle when the culture comes and tells you to bend your knee.

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And God has given men to the church to help you on your weakest days.

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And sometimes your weakest days are the days when you feel most strong and need knocked off that high horse that you so love to sit on.

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Sometimes building up looks a lot like tearing down, or you could say pruning.

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This is why 2 Timothy 3 .16 says when the word is preached, it involves reproving, correcting, as well as training and equipping in righteousness.

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To build something up, to edify it, is to point it in the right direction and to put fingers on golden calves.

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So the leadership, then, is kind of like, if you can think about it, a sub -architect under the master architect,

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Jesus Christ, overseeing the construction of a mighty cathedral. Every stone, every beam, every window must be placed in its proper location to ensure that the building's strength is unmatched, that its beauty is exquisite.

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The pastor, then, like the architect, must skillfully use the word of God to build up the people of God for the glory of God and the good of those people.

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It all begins here. That's what you equip with. Not quaint stories, not personal anecdotes.

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The word of God. You don't need to know what I did this week.

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You don't need to know what my favorite color is. You don't need to know what car

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I would like to get if mine goes down. You don't need to know what

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I think about a particular subject. You need a bucket of God's word poured down your throat lovingly, but pointedly, and sometimes forcibly.

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That's the job of the leadership in the church. Now, this is not in my notes, but I'm going to say it because I think it should be said.

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This is the job of the leadership in the church, but in no way does that mean that I am exempt from having you do the same to me in some capacity or Corey or any other leader that might be around here for that measure.

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We are not exempt from being wrong. We are not exempt from being not perfect.

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None of us are. We're all sinners in need of the same grace, but there are men who are given special gifts to do it in the context of a corporate body.

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As each stone of the building is properly placed, it contributes to the strength of the whole.

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The more strong bodies we have, the more spiritually strong our muscles become, and it's the pastor's job to essentially give you spiritual protein shakes so that you might get all of those spiritual

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BCAAs and EAAs and all that sort of stuff running and coursing through your muscular tissue.

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Thirdly, not only did

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Christ give men gifts for the purpose of building the body up, edifying it, but thirdly,

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Christ gave men gifts for the purpose of uniting the saints.

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Uniting the saints. He goes on, look with me again at verse 11, or verse 12 rather, for the equipping of the saints he gave these men for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith.

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Until we all attain the unity of faith.

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Now in some measure we already looked at this word unity when we looked at verse 3 of chapter 4.

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And if you remember, this idea of unity is one where essentially we are functioning as one.

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Christ being the head, the rest of us being the body. Just like your body.

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Your body is working together in perfect harmony except for those of you who might have certain ailments.

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For instance, when I go to turn to this page in my Bible, I didn't have to stop and argue about that in my head.

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My hand knew what it needed to do because my brain told him to do it. Told it to do it.

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Didn't mean to personify my hand there. That's some sort of weird horror movie that I'm like remembering.

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What is that? We'll talk about that after the service. In the same way, the body should so work.

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We are not divided on everything that we have to do or everything that is said. The main things are the main things and the tertiary things are the tertiary things.

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We should all be moving forward in harmony. Christ gives men to the church to lead the saints to a unified faith.

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Right? The unity of the faith. And you remember, we talked about a few weeks ago the difference between subjective faith and then the one true faith handed down once and for all to the saints.

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The truth of God's word in other words. The content of our collective and corporate faith that points to Jesus Christ the righteous.

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This is why Paul lays down in verses four through six this dogma.

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This creedal statement showing us what is most important.

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That God is one. That we are in one body under Jesus Christ the head.

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That there is one spirit. That there is one Lord who gets to tell us what to do. One faith that governs what we believe and think.

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One baptism which we are baptized into the body. One God and Father of all who is over all and through all and end all.

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This doctrine here is what produces our one unified faith.

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One faith not many. We are called to have a shared in other words unified belief in the core truths of what the

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Bible teaches. Notice I said core truths. There are many things that we can disagree on in the body and still carry on.

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Still love one another and not make a habit of challenging everybody on every single thing that they say.

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You cannot have a unified church if you have a spirit of disunity and clamoring about about words.

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Or prioritizing your own gifts over everybody else's gifts and thinking that your gift should be the gift that everybody else does if they are in fact to be faithful.

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It would be insane for me to get up here and say if you guys were not gifted to be an elder and we don't have you in the eldership pipeline that you're unfaithful.

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That you're not contributing to the unity of the body. That would be crazy. Or if an evangelist said if you're not out on the street corners every single time your eyes open and every time you have a free chance you're unfaithful.

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No, there are people gifted for that. Although everyone should be evangelistic as they live their life.

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But if you missed that you'll need to go back and listen to the message that was given during our evangelism training.

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Or music. Or hospitality. Or the list goes on and on.

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Oneness and fellowship is impossible. I want you to hear me say this. Oneness and fellowship. Unity in the faith is absolutely and utterly impossible unless it is built on the foundation of commonly believed truths.

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Now that doesn't mean commonly in the sense of whatever's out there that's common. No, it's what's common to this book.

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It's what's common to this book. Churches far too often suffer from division.

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Whether over preferences, personal agendas, or secondary and tertiary theological issues.

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But the unity that Christ has purchased for us in the spirit, by the spirit, applied by the spirit in the church is not based on human opinions especially on specific little nuances in the

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Greek. Unless it really matters, they rest on the solid foundation of biblical truth.

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As gifted men teach and preach faithfully and shepherd as they are called to do, the saints are drawn together in a common confession of faith.

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And so if you are at Heritage, my challenge, exhortation to you is maybe don't think you're right all the time and listen.

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Don't always have an argument ready. Now you might come out on the other side of something and disagree with something that's been said.

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But maybe trust the people who you have covenanted to that have been given the gift to steward this church theologically.

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Right? Once again, that does not mean I'm infallible. It doesn't mean that pastors are infallible. It doesn't mean that they don't need to be checked from time to time especially if they wind up saying something stupid.

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But there is a proper way to go about that. And we will go over that when we get to 1st, 2nd

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Timothy and Titus and other things like that. But it's the pastor shepherd's job to make sure that we are in fact like a symphony orchestra and brought about by the

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Holy Spirit. Each member is like an instrument. And each instrument must follow the same sheet of music and the same conductor for the performance to be harmonious.

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Notice I said harmonious. Remember because I said multiple weeks ago that it's not about conformity.

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It's about diversity. Diversity and unity not uniformity.

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Each of those instruments is a different instrument that makes a different sound and yet it's harmonious.

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It's working together. And so if each musician plays his own tune his own way ignoring the sheet music the result is chaos.

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Have you ever seen a symphony where people do that? Me either. And there's a reason for that.

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The church must follow the same biblical truths to achieve unity.

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Let me ask you this question or series of questions in closing for you to maybe do a little bit of heart examination.

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As you think about these truths do you contribute to the unity of the body?

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You get what I'm saying? When you think about your life when you think about your actions and when you think about your words is it contributing to the unity of the body or do you foster division through petty disagreements through little subgroups who think about certain things that might war against some of the things that the church is for or do you make it a habit to continually find issues under every single rock that you willingly and not casually but aggressively turn over?

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The unity of the body is found when the church submits to the word of God as it is taught by men who have been gifted by God for that task.

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This is the work of church leadership and he's going to go on to say in the next few verses that Christ gave men gifts for the purpose of instructing the saints that he gave men gifts for the purpose of maturing the saints and that he gave men gifts to the church because he loves the church and he is not going to leave them by themselves because he purchased it.

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He purchased it by the blood of his dear son, Jesus Christ of the righteous.

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Friends, if you do not know Jesus, if you have not submitted your need to him and you are sitting here this day, let me implore you.

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Let me implore you to consider the Christ who has been talked about in the book of Ephesians so far, that has paid our ransom, who has united us in the spirit, who has taken on our rebellious debt that we might be built up and edified by people, by people, by one another, and by a leadership.

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And before we walk away thinking, man, that was a really haughty sermon about how awesome leadership in the church is, let me remind you something.

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The effectiveness, the helpfulness, has nothing to do with how meritorious any leader is, but by Christ who makes provision for his leaders.

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I, Corey, nobody else at this church, nobody at any other church, can do what this text is telling us to do apart from the gracious work of the

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Holy Spirit. And just like that, nobody can listen, be trained, and be helped apart from that same work of the

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Spirit purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so to submit to Christ and to submit to his church is not to submit yourself to men who think highly of themselves, it's to submit yourself under the leadership of who?

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The head. The head. The head, from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies according to the properly measured working of each individual part cause the growth of the body for the building up of the itself in love.

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If you don't know Christ, you need to remember this is the only institution that God has ever promised to bless.

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Everything else is burning, including your future soul if you do not repent and believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ this day. Repent.

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Believe the gospel. Church, saints, labor to be equipped and to minister to one another.

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Amen. All right, let me pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for today. We thank you for the many blessings that you have given us and we thank you for your word.

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We thank you for your word offices. We thank you for your men gifts that you have given to the church.

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Imperfect men that have sought to love your people. And we ask that you would continue to use the leaders here at Heritage to equip our body for the work of the ministry.