GIFTS THAT EQUIP THE SAINTS (Eph 4:11-12)

in your house and worship you this morning. We don't deserve all of the goodness and all the kindness that you bless us with,

Father. I'm so grateful, Lord, that you have saved me.

I praise you for my salvation this morning. Lord, we long for the day,

Lord, when we will be with you, Lord, in eternity.

When you come, we will rise with you. It's so awesome, Lord. I just pray this morning,

Lord, as we continue this service, Lord, I pray that you would be with the Word as it's boldly preached this morning,

Lord. Lord, open our hearts, open our minds. Lord, clear out any distractions we may have this morning,

Lord. Lord, I pray that you would bless this offering. Lord, we love you, we praise you, ask all these things in your

Son, Jesus' precious and holy name. And all of God's people say, Amen. Oh, how unwavering our hope, that one hope that we all share in, the hope of glory that is guaranteed by the indwelling

Holy Spirit, that was accomplished by our Savior, Jesus Christ. For we serve a risen

Savior. Amen. Amen. Well, let's go ahead and open your copy of God's Word to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians chapter 4, our primary text today will be 11 and 12, but just as we've been doing,

I want us to start in verse 1 of chapter 4 and read all the way through to get our minds in line with the context of what the

Apostle Paul is telling us here in these couple of verses. Ephesians chapter 4, starting in verse 1,

Paul says, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the

Spirit in the bond of peace. For there is one body and one

Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

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

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

This is the reading of God's inspired words. Let's stop for a moment, let's ask that the

Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and hearts to this truth. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you once again and we acknowledge our frailty and understanding at times.

We acknowledge our laziness and not digging into the context as we ought.

We acknowledge our sin of seeing ourselves in Scripture instead of seeing our

Savior in Scripture. But we ask right now, we ask

Holy Spirit that you would help us, help us to see it with clarity.

Oh help guard my lips from error, guard their ears from hearing error, but that we would speak only truth from your word and it would be honoring to you.

In Christ's name, amen. Well, if you were with us last week, you may recall that we looked there at verses 7 through 10 of what we just read where we saw

Paul switching from speaking about you and I, Christians, and the Christians there in Ephesus that he's writing to, but he switches from speaking about us in a way that could be perceived as uniformity in our oneness there in verses 4, 5, and 6.

It's that oneness that you and I have that we've been talking about for weeks. We have in the triune

God, a triune God that is one. But Paul now, he switches to speaking to each one of us in verse 7.

He does so in an individual way. There, you look at it, it says, but grace was given to each one of us, each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And what Paul's doing is allowing us to see that the unity that he's been calling us to maintain, the unity that he's called us to guard back in verse 3, is not mere uniformity, but is quite staggering in its variety and Christ -given giftedness.

Leading Paul to go into that parenthesis there in verses 8 through 10, wherein

Paul quotes Psalm 68, verse 18, pointing to the how and the why of Christ's worthiness to be the one to dispense this variety of gifts for the purpose of the unity of the body, the unity of the church that he's called us to maintain.

We know this because Paul exegetes that text. He quotes the text in verse 8 and then he tells us what it means there.

He asked the question in verse 9, look at it, in saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth?

This is speaking of the hypostatic union. This is speaking of God, the second person of the

Godhead, Christ, coming down, descending. And Paul asked the question, what does it mean?

And then he answers it in verse 10, look. He, Jesus, who descended, the eternal second person of the

Godhead, who created all things, comes down and descends to be made like man, the creature that he created, so that he could redeem him, but it says he who descended is the one who also ascended, going back to the right hand of the

Father, having bought victory far above all the heavens, that, for what purpose?

That he might fill all things. You see, this is the how and the why of what makes

Jesus the one worthy to give these gifts. And now that Paul has diverted from his thoughts to lead us down that what

I would call a very worshipful, Christ -honoring parentheses there in verses 8, 9, and 10, he then jumps right back into his train of thought without skipping a beat.

Look at it with me. As a matter of fact, start in verse 7, where he starts the thought. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Now, hop down to 11. And he gave. This is, what is it?

Christ's gift. He gave Christ's gift. And he lists some things here. He says the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers.

Now, this is obviously not an exhaustive list of the gifts Christ has given to the church.

As we know, over in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, all the way through 12 through 14, where he speaks of this variety of giftings that we see within the church.

Yet, here Paul only points to four of them. And I think as we take a deeper look at each of these four, it becomes evident as to why.

So, I want us to see, first, that he points out that Christ, Jesus, gave.

And I've got some points up here on the screen. Jesus gave the apostles. It's obvious.

It's right there in the text. What do we know about the apostles? And why does

Paul list them first? Well, we know that they're made up of the 12 disciples that Jesus chose to follow him in his earthly ministry, aren't they?

Now, of course, one of them, one of the 12, Judas, who betrays Jesus, replaced by Mathis, I believe, in Acts 1.

We also know that we have another one added, the one that's writing this letter, the Apostle Paul, who's designated as the

Apostle of the Gentiles. But what is it that these 13 men did?

And why does Paul mention them here? Look back with me in chapter 2 of Ephesians.

If you were with us through this study, you'll remember we talked about this in depth. But I want to remind you.

Let's go back. Chapter 2, verses 19 through 20. He gives us some insight as to where he's going.

Remember, context is king, right? We have to understand, why is Paul putting this in here? Why apostles?

But in Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 19, he says, so then you, he's talking to Gentile Christians, right?

That's the whole purpose of him writing this letter to them. He's saying, you're not secondhand Christians. It's not the Jewish Christians and the

Gentile Christians. This is one body, right? There's unity here. But he says, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the

Saints and members of the household of God.

What is the household of God? What did we talk about when we got there? It's a dwelling place for God to meet with his people, isn't it?

To be with his people. This is a dwelling place, a household, for God to be with his people.

Look at verse 20. And this household, this building, this church, is built on the foundation, right?

Every house needs a foundation, doesn't it? Or it's gonna crumble. And what is a foundation? It's the starting point of the building, isn't it?

But he says it's built on the foundation of the apostles, these 13 men.

And he mentions and prophets, which we'll talk about here in just a moment. But the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of this household of God, and Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, being the one that puts that foundation in alignment.

The apostles are building that foundation, and that's what Jesus is doing for this household of God.

And what does it mean that they are the foundation? What does it mean that the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of this spiritual building, this dwelling place for the

Lord, the church? Well, Matthew 10 40, Jesus says, whoever receives you, who's he speaking to?

He's speaking to the twelve, speaking to the disciples. He says, whoever receives you, receives me.

And whoever receives me, receives him who sent me. Jesus is saying, the

Father sent me, and now I send you. And they're gonna, they're going to receive you, and if they receive you, they receive me, and if they receive me, they receive the

Father. Later on in John 17, Jesus praying for these men in the high priestly prayer.

If you remember, he really lays out to these men there at the upper room, where we see the

Lord's Supper enacted, and he's telling them what's gonna happen. They're not really fully understanding. At the end of his whole sermon to them, he goes into a prayer for them.

And in chapter 17 of John, in verse 20, he says, he says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word.

Jesus just prayed for you and me. And what did he pray? He prayed for us that we would receive him through the word of these apostles.

He's given them authority, isn't he? These men are the immediate messengers of Christ himself.

They are the eyewitnesses of him. They are the eyewitnesses of his miracles, of his resurrection, and subsequently his doctrine.

If they are his chosen representatives, they are the ones that get to define to us what his truth is.

And he's given them the authority to do so. They were given this authority as the foundation, as the church, to interpret the

Old Testament Scriptures. If you remember, all the religious leaders, they had just completely annihilated the interpretation of the

Old Testament Scriptures. They had turned it into legalism and a works righteousness.

And Jesus was defining what the Old Testament really was meaning, and now he gave the the apostles the authority to define it.

He gave them the authority to teach and to write the New Testament. That's why we have the

Word of God, because God used them. We see this to be true in the calling of all the apostles.

Jesus, again speaking to his disciples in that upper room before he had gone into that prayer in John 15, he says, hey listen guys, you didn't choose me.

I chose you, and I appointed you. You didn't choose me.

I chose you, and I appointed you to this task. I gave you the gifting for this.

I called you to this task. And of course Paul wasn't there, but we see later on in Acts chapter 9, remember what

God comes to Ananias and tells Ananias to go to him? And he says, go, go to Paul, with Saul.

Go to him, for he is a chosen instrument of mine.

For what purpose? The same purpose that he had already told those guys that they were chosen by him.

He says to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Christ Jesus has called the apostles to this.

The gift of apostleship was Christ to give alone. They were intentionally chosen instruments for this purpose, gifted and empowered by the

Holy Spirit to be the foundation of this glorious building, this dwelling place for God.

In light of that, there is therefore no need for any more foundation. Hence there are no more apostles.

Anyone who claims to have that gift has certainly not received it from Christ. He quit divvying that gift out because it's no longer needed.

The foundation has been poured. Now many people want to come in and they want to jackhammer that foundation and pour a foundation not based on the cornerstone

Christ, based upon their own cornerstone. But that's not the apostles. We see

Rome, we see the New Apostolic Reformation. They are all false apostles. We do not believe them.

The foundation is already done. Let's look at the second thing that he points out to. Jesus gave the prophets.

Jesus is the one that has given the gift of the apostles. Now Jesus gives the gift of the prophets.

What exactly is a prophet? A prophet is essentially one who speaks on behalf of another.

A prophet is a spokesperson, is the mouthpiece.

We see a number of them in the Old Testament. We actually studied one a couple of years ago, if you were with us when we went through Jonah, God goes to Jonah and tells him exactly what he wants to say to Nineveh.

He says, go give him the message. That was a drug out rebellious issue, but he reluctantly did so and God worked in the midst of that.

We have some prophets who wrote portions of the Old Testament scriptures like Isaiah and we have some that did not like Elisha, but nonetheless they were spoken to by God and God sent them as a messenger, all called by God.

There are actually two signs of a true prophet that we see in Deuteronomy 13. The first one is that he must not lead anyone towards any other gods.

If he does, he's not a prophet. And the second one is whatever he says must come to pass. Otherwise, proven it's not from God.

For God is not a God of confusion, is he? So, we see this prophet in the

Old Testament. This was a necessity. Otherwise, how was God going to speak to his people?

How was God going to interact with his people and give them the information that he wants them to have?

They didn't have the scriptures like we do. We take that for granted, don't we? They needed prophets.

They needed men who were spoken to and given the word. But here we see that God's people did have at least the

Old Testament scriptures as Paul's writing this letter in the church in Ephesus. They have the Old Testament scriptures.

That's where the apostles are teaching from. They're building on that foundation. They're defining what that means. They're preaching it.

They're teaching it. Yet Paul affirms the gift of prophet given by Christ for the church just as he had given the apostles.

So how, if at all, are the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament prophets different? I think that's the question at hand, don't you think?

I think we can see that distinction in 1 Corinthians. As a matter of fact, turn over there with me in 1 Corinthians 14, in the first four verses.

In 1 Corinthians 14, really in chapters 12, 13, and 14, we see the church in Corinth was misusing the gifts.

They were abusing the gifts. They were actually making an idol out of the gifts. And Paul here, as he gets into chapter 14 in the first four verses, in verse 1 he says, hey, church pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

Christ is the one that gives them, right? Especially that you may prophesy. There's that word.

There's a prophet, right? That you may prophesy. You may be a messenger. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God.

For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people.

Contrasting tongues and prophecy here. And he says, the one who prophesies speaks to people.

And for what reason? He shows us there. He says, for their upbuilding. For their encouragement and consolation.

It's edifying the saints. It's building. It's upon that foundation. Remember, he says the foundation is the prophets and the apostles.

It's building here. Look at verse 4. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies, oh, what does he do?

Builds up the church. He builds up the church. This is the same type of language that Paul is using in Ephesians, isn't it?

This construction project of Christ and he's gifting people to do so. So these prophets are doing that.

Remember, this is a dwelling place for the Lord. This is being built up. That passage back in Ephesians 2 that we read a moment ago referred to the apostles and the prophets as that foundation.

And Paul is writing to a church that is still early in the building process. We forget that when we read 1st

Corinthians. Early in the building process. That is still in the apostolic age.

The apostles are still around. They do not yet have the New Testament canon.

It's not completely done and written and ready for the church. And so as he writes to the church at Corinth, he's writing to a people who have a gifting in an area that is necessary for the building up of the church in that particular era.

Of the apostolic era. The beginning stages. They're there doing foundation work.

And Jesus has gifted them for that. You see, God is still speaking to certain people the things that he is using to build up the church there in the early church.

Now here's the thing. We may not have any need of that now because we already have everything we need for life and godliness.

Don't we? We have everything we need for life and godliness right here, guys.

We don't need those prophets any longer. We don't need the apostles anymore because we have them.

That's already done. The foundation has already been poured. After all, the apostles and the prophets, they were merely that foundation.

You know, I find it interesting that there are those who will come to this text here in Ephesians 4 and affirm that, oh yeah, there's no longer apostles.

We don't need the apostles anymore because that gift is already accomplished. It's already accomplished its task.

They already wrote the scriptures. We have it. We have their words. We don't need them anymore. But they can't seem to let go of the prophets.

Well, they're listed here in the same fashion as the apostles and the prophets in Ephesians 2 as the foundation.

Why would he do so? The people who would prophesy in the

New Testament were still under apostolic authority. We must remember that.

Those prophets didn't just come in and say, thus saith the Lord. Over in 1

Corinthians 14, later on in verse 29, he says, let two or three prophets speak. Oh, and let the others weigh what is said.

When somebody comes to you and says, thus saith the Lord, how are you to judge that? Somebody comes and says,

I have a prophetic word for you, how do you judge it? According to the

Apostles' teaching. They have the authority from Christ.

They have the ability to tell you what is of Christ and what is not.

And so the church had to weigh in on what anyone prophesied there in the early church. And what were they weighing in on?

The teaching of the Apostles and their definition of what the Old Testament Scriptures and now their word that is written in the

New Testament is based upon. Now I have to say with that, okay, there are brothers who hold to a different interpretation than we do about the gifts.

Whether or not the gifts of prophecy have ceased after the Apostolic Age, once the

Apostles were gone. Nevertheless, those advocates, those that would advocate for this and still reserve the term brother for me, if they advocate for the ongoing gifts of the prophecy, and I'm gonna still call them brother, they are the ones who also affirm that those prophecies are never adding to or taking away from God's inspired

Word and Scripture. I will call them brother,

I think they're wrong, but they will affirm that they're not adding or taking away from the

Apostles' teaching of that foundation. And if that be the case, I would simply echo my brother and mentor

John Owen. He says, if private revelation, well prophecy, if private prophecy agree with Scripture, they are needless.

And if they disagree, they are false. Meaning we already have everything we need.

The Apostles poured the foundation along with the prophets that were subordinate to the

Apostles. Thank the Lord we do now have the indwelling

Holy Spirit who often prompts us, doesn't he? He still works in us.

He prompts us to recall those words for the sake of other brothers and sisters, but that is not adding to God's words.

I've done it myself. I've come to people and said, God's laid it on my heart to speak this biblical truth to you, and I've had many of you come and do the same to me.

That's not what we're talking about here. My point is that this was a gift from Christ for building up the body during a specific time in church history, just like the apostolic gift, because they are the foundation.

So Jesus has given us the Apostles. Jesus has given us the prophets.

Jesus has also given us the evangelist. When you think of an evangelist, we often think of men like Ray Comfort, right?

A great evangelist, a great man of God who loves the Lord and shares the gospel.

Some of us even remember growing up in churches that scheduled a revival. You know the ones

I'm talking about. They have this traveling minister who comes in, strolls into town, rants and raves every night for a week until he gets half the town all worked up emotionally enough to get baptized, and then two weeks later you can't find any of them.

You know what I'm talking about. We put out a little flyer that sends it out and says, oh by the way, we've summoned the

Holy Spirit for that week. He's going to bring about revival. Come on. A lot of us grew up with all that, didn't we?

Is this who Paul is referring to? That traveling evangelist? Is he referring to Ray Comfort?

Well, it's fairly complex here. As a matter of fact, so much so that Rome holds a crazy view that this, what

Paul's referring to, that they are what they call vicars. Men commissioned by the

Apostles with special powers. That this must be who Paul's talking about with evangelists.

They've made this entire new category. However, going back to Scripture being the final authority, remember?

We see no evidence of that. We have to base everything on evidence. On the contrary, it does seem as though these are men gifted with a desire and an ability to take the gospel to the lost, such as missionaries.

Such as men that would go forth and take the gospel to all the nations. Now, we're all called to do the work of an evangelist, just as Paul told

Timothy to do so, right? Remember in 2nd Timothy 4, he says, do the work of an evangelist,

Timothy. Do the work of an evangelist. We're all called to evangelize. The Great Commission is a call for all of us to fulfill, but remember that we are a unified body.

We don't all function with the same giftings. I can tell you right now,

I am not nearly the evangelist as my friend Bobby Caliendo that some of you have met down in Florida.

That man has been uniquely gifted with the desire and the ability to evangelize the lost that I do not have doesn't mean that I don't do it.

It just means that he's designed for that particular thing, and I think this is what Paul is referring to, evangelist.

We needed the missionaries, right? We started with the Apostles. We go to the prophets who were subordinate to the

Apostles, and then the evangelists who then take that truth to all the nations.

This leads us to our fourth and final category of gifts. Jesus gave the shepherds and teachers.

You may be thinking, wait a second, Pastor, that's two of them. Why are you throwing them into one category?

That's shepherds and teachers? Well, you're right. This has led to a lot of disagreement.

Is Paul speaking of one gift, or is he speaking of two gifts? I would say he's speaking of one.

There are a few problems with separating them. The first being that what is inferred by the word teacher is, as Calvin says, having nothing to do with discipline.

The word teacher has nothing to do with discipline, nor with the administration of the sacraments. We would call it the ordinances, the

Lord's Supper and Baptism. Teachers would have nothing to do with administering those, nor with admonitions or exhortations, but simply with the interpretation of Scriptures.

You see the difference between a shepherd, or some of your Bibles might say pastor, some of your Bibles might say elder, but we see nothing of that sort prescribed in Scripture.

We do not see men who are called to teach, yet not called to exhort. The Westminster Confession, our

Presbyterian brothers, they do have a distinct office of teacher. They separate these two from pastor, shepherd.

The Puritans did the same thing. They called them doctors. I think the closest thing to this that we have would probably be seminary professors.

The problem with that is that we don't see that, again, specified in Scripture. And secondly, if they are teaching theology and not exhorting, what are they teaching?

I do not believe you have this category. But the second reason, and more convincingly within context, is the absence of the article before teacher.

An article is used before a noun as a type of adjective, and it's hard to see it in the

English translation here. We see Paul using this article before each of these other nouns.

There are R -E -S -V, if you're reading from the SV, it says that he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers.

When we read it like that, we say, well, yeah, he just added on the and for the very last word, right?

It's almost like a comma and then an and, but that's not how the Greek is. As a matter of fact, I think it's clear in the

New American Standard Bible. It says, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors, oh, and teachers.

That article isn't there. By the way, pastor, shepherd, overseer, elder, we all know that this is all the same thing, right?

These are all referring to the exact same office. And this shepherd and teachers, I believe, is a two -fold office.

There's no such thing as an elder who's not gifted to teach. And we see the qualifications of an overseer in 1

Timothy 3 and Titus 1, right? What's one of the qualifications? And who's that gift from?

Christ. Christ has given that gift. So these are the four

Christ -given gifts that Paul mentions. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd -teachers.

So the question is, why these four? That's what we presented, right? That's why we were asking, why these four alone as the gifts given by Christ?

Now remember, this is in connection with Paul's ongoing command to living in a manner worthy of our calling, and to maintaining, to guarding the unity of the

Spirit. Well here, I think verse 12 answers that question. Look at verse 12 there in our passage of Ephesians 4.

Christ, the head of the church, in his infinite wisdom, has given these specific four gifts, verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up, the building up the body of Christ.

What is he doing? He's building up that dwelling place, that household, where God will dwell with his people, that we saw back in chapter 2.

You see, the Apostles had the authority of Christ as his representatives, being the foundation of this building, affirming and confirming all prophecy spoken by both the

Old Testament and New Testament prophets, who were also part of the early foundation, leading to and affirming the evangelist, who takes the gospel into all the world, finding the elect from every tribe, nation, and tongue, and once those elect hear the voice of Christ, because they've been awakened to new life, they are given shepherd teachers.

You see the pattern here? There's a reason Paul lists off just these four. They're given men who were called and gifted by Christ himself, only speaking what the foundation, the

Apostles, have taught them to teach. Caring for the flock as good shepherds, his example.

Not perfectly. Christ is the only one who has the title the good shepherd. We're oftentimes very poor shepherds, aren't we?

I acknowledge that myself, but that is when we should be brought back into alignment with what the

Apostles taught us through the Word of God as the foundation. The point is, you and I, as Christians, will never be able to live in a manner worthy of our calling that he calls us to in verse 3, right?

We will never be able to live in a manner worthy of our calling, and we will certainly never be able to maintain the unity of the

Spirit that he has commanded us to do without the benefit of our Savior's perfect, heavenly, glorious plan for the church.

He knows better than we do, and he's the one that has called it to be so. He's the one that has prescribed it.

He's the one that is gifted for it. He's the one that has placed these particular offices and roles and giftings in the position that he has.

That plan that he has given gifts in order to accomplish is the local ecclesia.

It's what we are here. The local bride. If you want to say, well, I'm part of the universal church, well, good,

I'm glad you are, but you can't claim that unless you're part of the local ecclesia too, because you don't find that other category anywhere in Scripture.

Period. It doesn't exist because you have no pastor, shepherd, overseer, teachers who are looking to the foundation, who are being used by Christ.

If you're not submitting yourself under what Christ has given for your good and his glory, those shepherds, teachers, elders, pastors, men who know where their authority ends and begins, by the way.

That's important. He listed four things, not just the shepherd teachers, right? He grounded the shepherd teachers all the way back to the apostles.

So anytime a pastor comes in and abuses his authority because he oversteps what

Scripture has prescribed, or he doesn't live up to that standard in which Scripture has prescribed in order to care for your souls, if he is not basing it upon the teaching of the apostles that got it directly from Christ, then he himself is proving not to be a shepherd teacher, and you do not have to follow him.

Oh, but let's put the shoe on the other foot. If that area is prescribed by the apostles, it's prescribed by Christ, and he does have the authority as an overseer, as a shepherd in your life, but only within that prescribed means.

If you're not actively participating in the life of a local church, a healthy local church, I remind you, you can't just go to any church, a healthy local church that is seeking to align itself to the apostles teaching.

You are missing out on the command, on the common means of grace that he has commanded, that Christ has called you to.

And in missing out, you are certainly not living in a manner worthy of your calling, and you are without a doubt not participating in the unity of the

Spirit. Now I will say this, if there is no healthy local church where you live,

I'm going to say something extreme. I've said it before, and for those of you that have been around for very long, you will not be shocked by this, but I'm going to say it's the same advice

I give everyone. If there's not a local healthy church in your community, then quit your job, pack your bags, load up your family, and move to where there is.

Take a pay cut if you have to. That's how important what Jesus prescribed is.

Period. You can't get around it. This is what Jesus has called us to.

This is why he's gifted these roles. The local church. Immerse your life into it.

And for those of you who are here and a part of it, be encouraged. Know that this is where God has called you, and in the midst of discouragement, and I'll be honest, as I watch a lot of you,

I'm going to get a little personal here, I can tell that some of you are feeling the fatigue of all of the efforts of trying to get into the new building, and how slow things are moving.

I can see it. It happens. There's a bit of a fatigue, but I want to give you encouragement.

This is that common means of grace that God has called you to. Sometimes it's not as exciting as you think it should be.

Sometimes you don't have those butterflies and those wonderful feelings when you come into worship, to where you feel overwhelmed and you're like, man,

I'm rejuvenated for the next week. Sometimes you leave with your head down, going, I just don't feel it right now.

It doesn't mean that it's not working. It doesn't mean that God's not prescribed it.

It doesn't mean that it's not functioning in your life to mold you more into the image of our

Savior, Jesus Christ. We call it common for a reason.

It's not always the mountaintop experience. So be encouraged, saints. In the midst of all this, our great

Savior, the one that has redeemed us, He's called us to this, and He's prepared us, and He's gifted us.

He's given gifts. He's the one to give them. He's the head of the church, amen? Amen.

So be encouraged. Well, in light of that, as we do every single week, we get to see the beauty of it in the

Lord's Supper. We get to go and partake of the wine and the bread, which is a representative of His blood and His body that was given for us.

I know some churches think that this can be done at your home. You never see that anywhere in Scripture.

This is meant as an ordinance when you come, when you gather together. That doesn't mean when two or three of your families come together in your home, that's not what it means.

This ordinance is meant to be administered within the context of the local ecclesia. And Paul gives warning of this.

If you come to this table in an unworthy manner, some have gotten sick and some have died. That does not mean that if you have any sin in your life, if you're a sinner at all, you better not take it.

That's not what Paul is saying. Paul is saying, if you have blatant, unrepentant sin in your life, if you say,

Jesus tells me to stop doing this, but I refuse to do so. Jesus tells me to make it right with my brother or sister, but I refuse to do so.

That's what Paul's talking about. Taking it in a flippant, indifferent manner, or in a rebellious state.

Guard yourself. Lay that before the foot of the cross, knowing that Christ has paid for it.

Repent, and then come and partake, because this is a sign of our unity, that great unity of the

Spirit that we're maintaining. So those of you that aren't familiar with it, the way this works is we go out these aisles, come around the outside, we come, partake of the elements, go back to your seat through the middle.

You can pray as a family, pray individually, and then partake, and then we will come back together to sing for a moment, and then go into our time of fellowship and the

Covenant of Feast. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you were honored in our worship today through the preaching mold our hearts.

We ask that you would point us more and more to our Savior, that we would not rest in legalism, works, righteousness, but that we would rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

And as we partake of these elements, that we are declaring to each other that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and that we have great unity with each other and that we may use this ordinance as a means to maintain the unity of the

Spirit. Well, we thank you for how you've designed the church, as the

Apostles and Prophets, as the foundation, the evangelists who share the gospel, and then the shepherd teachers who come in and disciple and care for and point back to our glorious Savior time and time again.