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Church Leadership
Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to Philippians chapter 1, and we'll look at just the first couple of verses here and consider how the Apostle addressed this church, this local church at Philippi. We've been examining the nature of the Church of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and we've considered the word church in its less used, broader sense, that is, the universal church.
And then we have spent more time examining its more common sense, the more common usage of the word church, and that's with regard to the local church. And we've considered how the local churches of the New Testament were independent and self-governing churches.
We advocate congregational church government. This is historical Baptist polity. We believe it's set forth in the New Testament. The local churches of the New Testament era, therefore, were characterized by what is known as congregational polity or congregational government.
This is important. The Lord has entrusted each and every local church with the capability and the responsibility to govern itself in fulfilling the mission that he has entrusted to her. And by the way, I know as we talk about this matter of the church and the local church, some might think, well, what does this have to do with me?
And we've sought to point out the great importance of the local church in God's program and how as Christians, if we're a part of that local church, a member of this local church, if the local church is built up, we are profiting from it.
And when we come to church on Sunday morning, that really ought to be our desire and our delight and that even if you might sit here and you perceive that you do not receive anything directly beneficial that you can apply, ask yourself the question, is the church of Jesus Christ being built up by this?
Then I'm benefiting and I rejoice for Christ is pleased and Christ is exalted and his church is being enhanced. Now, this independence and autonomous governance of the churches is shown in the authority of the local church to receive, discipline, and exclude its members.
The church collectively does that. It has the authority to elect its own leaders. It sends out missionaries to the mission field and we also saw how the New Testament church has the authority to select delegates to represent it before other churches.
Each local church governed itself corporately, that is the church would publicly pray, publicly deliberate, publicly decide on the actions the church would take and then the local church would act as a single entity or in conjunction with the actions of other local churches, independent, autonomous local churches.
And in this way, the local church conducted the work of Jesus Christ in the world. The local church understanding its nature and its role in God's program and God's kingdom is all important. To this point, however, we've not addressed the manner in which the Lord has directed the local church to govern itself.
And as to this, we want to begin to turn our attention today. And so in Philippians 1, we read the opening greeting of the Apostle Paul to this local church of Philippi, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, a typical opening greeting and salutation.
Notice when the Apostle wrote to this church, he addressed the saints, to all the saints. And the saints, of course, were the church members who were regarded as regenerate along with its leaders. Here they're identified as bishops and deacons.
When we speak of the saints as regenerate church members, it's because upon their repentance from sin and profession of faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord, the church thereafter treats them and regards them as regenerate people, as people who have been born again by the Holy Spirit.
And so they are called saints, for that's how the scriptures identify them. Saints are holy ones, that's what the word saint means. And so when the scriptures call Christians saints, it's setting forth the spiritual reality that they are positionally sanctified or set apart by God for God.
If you're a Christian and you're a member of this church, God regards you as a saint among saints. That's a lofty title, is it not? May the Lord help us to live, to aspire to the standards of that lofty title.
We actually spoke of this not long ago when we were studying the epistle to the Colossians. In Colossians 3 .12 we read, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. And you'll notice if you have your notes, I emboldened and italicized that word holy.
Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. The Greek word here translated holy is the same word translated saints in Philippians 1 .1. Saints are holy ones. Now most of the time when we speak of being holy, we are speaking of being morally pure and living righteously.
But the word actually conveys the idea of being separated from or set apart from, from the world, from sin, unto God. We are to be separated from the fallen world in our attitudes and actions. We are to be holy.
The process of growing in holiness, and it is a process, is what we commonly describe as practical holiness. It's that work of grace that God performs in the work of every one of his people. And we call that God's work or God's grace in sanctification, a gradual growing in holiness as a Christian, practical holiness.
But the scriptures also speak of believers in a different way, positional holiness. Everything that belongs to God is set apart by God for him. We read, for example, in the Old Testament, the tabernacle was sanctified or set apart.
The articles of furniture in the tabernacle, the utensils used in the tabernacle, the priests themselves, ministered in the tabernacle, all were sanctified or rendered holy, separate, set apart for the purpose of the service of God.
In the same way God sanctifies every Christian upon his or her conversion to the gospel. When you became a Christian, God set you apart. He sanctified you. Positionally, he declared you to be holy. And so he regards you as separate from the world.
You are one among his people. And so each and every believer is one who's been singled out by God out of the human race. All who belong to Jesus Christ have been sanctified. And when we speak of positional sanctification, we're speaking about a state of every one.
Of us.
It's not a process like practical holiness, where each of us are at different levels or progression in becoming more and more holy, more and more like Jesus Christ. But positional sanctification is the same for every one of us.
God set each of us aside for himself when we became Christians. And this is important. And so we're sanctified in this sense in that we have been singled out and set apart because God has designs for us that are different from all others in the world.
He has good designs upon us. In our men's group Saturday morning, we concluded the discussion yesterday morning of God's providence and the statement in the confession speaks about how God intends to bring good to all of his people.
And although evil things happen to us all the time, he brings good out of that. In reality, there is nothing but a blessing for every Christian in this world. Even the worst possible things that occur, God brings good out of them.
On the other hand, for the non-Christian who is outside of Christ, everything is a curse. Even the so-called good things they enjoy ultimately aggravates their condemnation and damnation before God.
And so all the blessings of God are in Christ and he has set you apart and you're in that favorable position in his purpose to be good and to do good to you. And that's a glorious thing. This positional sanctification was a work of grace on our behalf.
It was an act of God.
It really, again, occurred once for all time for each of us at the time of salvation or you might even say it occurred in reality when the Lord Jesus died upon the cross. When we were purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ and set apart as a unique, special people of God as Hebrews 10 .14 reads.
For by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. And I take that sanctification there as positional sanctification. You're set apart and he sets you apart through his death upon the cross.
He has singled you out and set you apart with his people. You and every other Christian, every other one who's been saved by the work of Christ through history. This work of grace that was accomplished on our behalf was apart from us, apart from our work and effort.
It was due to the Lord Jesus and what he did upon the cross on our behalf. Because God regards us as holy, this brings both privilege as well as responsibility to.
Us.
And I noticed a long time ago that whenever you see in the New Testament a blessing conferred upon the Christian, like you're a child of God, we tend to think of the blessings that come with that. But with each blessing there is an accompanied responsibility.
And you and I have been set apart, sanctified before God and it's our responsibility to live holy lives as holy ones ought to be living. And so it's a wonderful, glorious privilege we have, but it's also a responsibility that's pressed and placed upon each of us.
And so at any rate, again, Paul here regarded these Christians at this church of Philippi.
As saints.
And once people become members of the local church, if they are examined as we've set forth in the New Testament, they are to be examined to determine whether they have truly repented of sin, truly put their faith in Christ, then we regard them and treat them as ones who have been born again by the Spirit of God.
And thereafter we regard them as saints. Now saints can do a lot of failing and falling, but we regard them as saints until the point comes where we have to say, by your life, by your testimony, by what you claim to believe, we can no longer regard you as a Christian.
And at that point that person is put out of the church. So when the Apostle Paul addressed the church of Philippi, he first mentioned all the church members, calling them saints. I would argue this underscores the doctrine of the local church that we've addressed in the past weeks.
Every local church should strive to have its membership comprised of regenerated people only, those who have been born again by the Spirit of God, and those churches that call themselves local churches that attempt to build themselves up with anybody and all out there in the world and bring them into the membership, whether they're regenerate or not, they bring a lot of difficulty upon themselves as churches and upon one another as believers.
But aside from addressing the church members collectively, the Apostle also addressed the leadership of the church, here identified as bishops and deacons. The New Testament only knows of these two offices of leadership in the local church.
Of course, we normally think of the term bishop in the manner which is used by those denominations that have a hierarchy of leaders that are apart from and above the local church. When I read the word bishop, that's what I think of immediately.
Denominations of this high church order believe that bishops, who again are outside and above the church, possess full priesthood. These bishops are regarded as having authority over the churches and over the clergy within.
The churches.
The New Testament never uses the term bishop in this way, in this manner. Now others of us may know the term bishop from the context of many African American Methodist or Pentecostal churches. A man called me a couple of weeks ago due to our radio program up in Portland, Maine.
He was asking prayer for his family, and he said, my father was bishop so and so, and you know, I didn't know who I was talking to. I didn't understand him. So I asked him, are you telling me your father was a Catholic priest?
And he said, no, no, no, my dad was a Pentecostal preacher, bishop so and so. And this is a common terminology that Pentecostal churches and African American Methodist churches.
Use.
They refer to their pastors as bishops. So rather than referring to me as Pastor Larson, they would call me Bishop Larson, which sounds kind of strange to our ears, doesn't it? Somehow word got around in Germany.
In my church there in Munich, I came to be known as Parson.
Larson.
I probably shouldn't even mention that because I'm afraid it might stick. But actually Pentecostals use the word bishop to describe their pastors or to identify their pastors in a biblical way. That's what Paul does here in Philippians 1 .1, doesn't he?
He wrote to the church of Philippi, the saints, including bishops and deacons. Virtually all Baptist churches have its officers, pastors, and deacons. And we believe these are the only two offices that are found in the churches of the New.
Testament.
But what are the other terms? What of the other terms used in the New Testament for church leaders? What are they and to what do they refer? Actually there are three different words that are used. There is the word bishop, as we have here.
There's also the word elder and then the word pastor. Let's take each of these in turn and consider the nuance of each. Bishop, again we find this term here in Philippians 1 .1, but also we have it in 1 Timothy 3 .1 and 2.
Paul wrote to Timothy, this is a faithful saying, if a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach.
Bishop is the translation of the Greek word episkopos. And that word should sound familiar to you, even though it's Greek. Another English word that is derived from this Greek word is episcopal. Now that's the noun form, okay, episkopos.
The verbal form of the word carries the idea of to look at, or to inspect, or to examine, or to watch over, or to oversee. And so the noun refers to the office of an overseer in the church. And when the verb is used, it speaks about the responsibility to oversee, watch over, preserve, protect the church.
And this describes the function of the pastor within the local church. The pastor or elder has the responsibility to oversee the governance of the local church. And here in 1 Timothy 3, 1 and 2, Paul uses the term in the context, instructing Timothy to correct the church order in the local church.
It was at Ephesus. Interestingly, the ESV, the English Standard Version, translates the word as overseer, rather than the word bishop. In fact, I believe the ESV never uses the English word bishop in its translation, but rather overseer.
And that's what an episkopos is. He's looking out over. He's overseeing. The word episkopos is also found in the epistle of Paul to Titus. For this reason I left you in Crete that you set in order the things that are lacking.
Appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination for a bishop.
And there it is.
He mentioned elders. Appoint elders in verse 5 and then in verse 7 for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money.
And then some positive qualities are described or listed. The Greek word episkopos is used in context in which it refers to, however, to other than local church elders. And so, for example, in Acts chapter 120, it refers to the office of the apostle that Judas Iscariot had vacated through his death.
And so we read in Acts 1, for it's written in the book of Psalms, let his dwelling place be desolate, let no one live in it, and let another take his office. And the Greek translation of that word office is actually episkopos, a bishop.
It carries the idea that the apostle was an overseer and his office needed to be replaced or filled. The word is also used in Acts 20 in which the apostle Paul is speaking to the elders of the church at Ephesus.
Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. And so the elders were to basically bishop their flock, oversee their flock, protect it, watch over it.
And then the word is also applied to our Lord Jesus as one who's watching over his people. Peter wrote, for you are like sheep going astray, but you've now returned to the shepherd and here it is overseer.
And I think that King James is, if I remember, bishop of your souls. And so the word overseer is the translation of the word episkopos. The verbal form of this word episkopos is found in Hebrews 12, 15.
Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and this is instruction to all Christians, professing Christians, and feeble knees, make straight paths for your feet so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Pursue peace with all people in holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord. And then notice I put the verb in bold and italic, looking carefully. That's the verbal form of the word episkopos. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
And so in this sense, each of us are to be a bishop. I put that in quotation marks. That is, we are to be watching, overseeing ourselves, and also overseeing one another, assuring ourselves that we're not deceived or defiled.
Looking carefully. And so the word bishop or episkopos applied to the office of the elder pastor in the church speaks of his responsibility to watch over, to protect, to guard the people of God. That's his responsibility.
There are subtleties, aren't there? There are dangers that, by definition, sheep don't necessarily recognize, but shepherds do, perhaps through experience, perhaps through the Lord, you know, enabling him.
He's gifted him for that purpose, and he has that responsibility. Let's consider the second term that's used for pastors, and that is the word elder. We also see the term elder in the New Testament as a reference to the leaders of local churches.
Now, this is a common term, actually more common than the term pastor or even bishop. The elder is the translation of the Greek word presbyteros. We get the word presbytery from this Greek word for presbyterian.
It's a masculine word that describes an older, mature, or experienced man. He's an elder. The term elder is found in a number of places in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. It's found frequently.
You can do a word search. I did, and it's found many, many dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times. Elders ruled Jewish synagogues, and it seems apparent that in the New Testament, when churches were formed, they followed the pattern of the Jewish synagogue that preceded.
Them.
The word elder or elders is used frequently in the New Testament. It's found singular, elder. It's also found in the plural form elders, and I listed a number of verses there where each form is found.
The office of the elder speaks of one who leads or rules a church of God. Supposedly, he has experience and some wisdom, and he's able to assist and guide the church. And then the third term is that of pastor.
The word pastor is a translation of the Greek word poimena. It speaks of the church leader as a shepherd, and that's what poimena is. He's a shepherd. He's a pastor. Actually, the word pastor, even though we use it commonly for the office of the pastor, is found only once in the form of a noun in the New Testament that I can find.
And there it's used in the plural form. We read of it in Ephesians 4, 11 through 15. We won't read the entire passage, but here it speaks of the risen, exalted, ascended Lord Jesus who gave gifts to the churches.
And basically, he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. So there you have the word pastors in the plural. Commonly in this context, pastors and teachers is interpreted or even translated sometimes as a hyphenated word as one office, pastor slash teacher.
We read in 1 Peter 5 that elders are given the responsibility to shepherd, that is to pastor the flock of God until the chief shepherd, that is the Lord Jesus, returns. And so the word pastor speaks of the function of the elder or the bishop within the local.
Church.
The pastor is the one who shepherds the flock, the local church. The word in the verb form, which describes the pastoral work of shepherding, is found in a few places in the New Testament. And so the verb form, you are to pastor the flock of God, is found more frequently than the noun form, he is the pastor of the church.
I found that rather interesting. Consider a few references. Acts 20, 28, again Paul, therefore take heed yourselves and to all the flock, he's talking to elders, the elders of the church at Ephesus, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, that's the word bishop by the way, to shepherd, and that's the word pastor, to shepherd, to pastor the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.
And so this describes the ministry of the elder, he's to be pastoring. Again, we read of the instruction of the Apostle Peter to the elders in 1 Peter 5, the elders who are among you, I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God, literally pastor the flock of God, it's that Greek word, serving as overseers, there's the word for bishop, not by compulsion or willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly, nor as being lords over those who entrust it to you, but being examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears, the chief pastor as it were, you'll receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.
These three words, pastor, elder, and bishop are interchangeable terms in the New Testament. Each word describes a single office of the minister or the pastor of the church and we could actually look at three passages, I don't think we'll go through that because of the time, but here we can see that they are synonymous terms.
And so in Titus 1, you have elders and bishops seen as the one office. In the Acts 20 passage, you have elders and also the fact that they are to shepherd the flock and they are overseers, all three terms are describing the same people in that Acts 20 passage.
And then also the passage we already looked at, 1 Peter 5, there also you have all three words used of the same person or office, the elders, the shepherd, that is the pastor, and the bishop or the overseer.
And so all three terms used here are for one office, elders are to pastor or shepherd the flock, serving as overseers of the church. And so we see from the scriptures that a pastor is an elder is a bishop, all three terms are used of one office within the setting of the local church.
There's no example or command in the Holy Scriptures to make a man a bishop in an elevated office over other ministers or churches. The Bible does not speak of a hierarchy of rulers above the local church.
Bishops, cardinals, as commonly referred to today in many denominations have no biblical warrant and I frankly have no spiritual regard for them. They're men, but they do not occupy a unique or higher office because there is no higher office above the local church other than the Lord Jesus, the chief shepherd of the flock.
Biblically speaking, it'd be right to refer to a pastor as a bishop, but again, we don't commonly do that perhaps because of the connotations in our culture, which is okay. Pastor is fine. Now, let's affirm the manner of pastoral leadership in the local church.
I think this is important. Some Baptists, primarily Reformed Baptists, agree with the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists that the New Testament teaches two types of elders that are to serve in the church.
There are those that are teaching elders, those that are ruling elders, and they base that upon 1 Timothy 5 .17 where Paul wrote to Timothy, Let the elders who rule well be counted of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.
And so they reason not all elders labor in the word and doctrine, all would rule, but some rule and labor in the word and doctrine. In other words, they seem to have a more public role in the teaching, preaching function of the church.
And so they would argue all elders rule, but some of the elders labor in the realm of teaching, and the church is to be led by this board of elders that have been voted upon by the congregation. Now, I personally believe that there is wisdom in a plurality of elders within the leadership of a local church.
I've been pastoring for 42 years now, and I've been in churches where I was a single pastor and I've been in churches where there was a staff of the pastor and associate pastors, and I've been in a church in which we have elders such as we have here.
And I frankly appreciate the wisdom and the grace that a group of elders are able to contribute with one another in working through issues and helping people. I think there's safety in numbers. There is wisdom in that, and the scriptures set forth that there is wisdom in that.
There's a depth of wisdom available that really no single man can achieve. And for those of you who a few years ago when you were, when Paul Stenstrom was with us still as an elder, retired pastor, and myself and Pastor Doerr, and we had a couple other elders, but between the three of us, we had 125 years of pastoral ministry experience.
It was really quite a time, and it was a good time to be able to have counsel, advice, encouragement, and support and reinforcement from other men. The manner in which the elder provides leadership in the local church is prescribed in the Holy.
Scriptures.
And the Lord Jesus made it very clear that leaders in His churches are not to lead in the same way as leaders of the world in their various roles. We read of this in Matthew. Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said, You know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them, yet it shall not be so among you.
But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.
The Apostle Peter warned elders that their leadership was not to be characterized by lording it over others, but rather it was to be characterized by being examples to the flock and by teaching the Word of God.
Peter forbade a leadership style where the pastor dictated or lorded it over his flock. And that happens, sadly. We've read it before already, but it bears repeating. He wrote, The elders who are among you I exhort, I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
How would you like to have Peter as an elder in your church, and also partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd, that is, pastor of the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by constraint but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly, not as being lords over those entrusted to you?
Some men, if you give them half a chance, they'll become a little pope. And that is just not biblical, is it? And he gives the promise, When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade.
Away.
Here is a good description of spiritual leadership as set forth in the New Testament. J .L. Dagg was a Baptist back in the 19th century who wrote this, So the spiritual rulers under Christ have no coercive power over the persons or property of those under their authority.
And I respect that. That is a core principle in my being. A well-marked distinction between their authority and that which is exercised by civil rulers is drawn from these words of Christ. Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that exercise great authority upon them, but it shall not be among you.
But whoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Another peculiarity of their rule is that they cannot govern at their own will.
This would be to act as lords over God's heritage. Such power, if exercised by them, is usurpation and does not legitimately belong to their.
Office.
The only rule which they have a right to apply is that of God's word, and the only obedience which they have a right to exact is voluntary. I appeal to you and reason with you and show you the word of God, and that is my approach.
The civil ruler is armed with a sword and coerces obedience. Zion's king has put no carnal weapons in the hands of church rulers, and all coercion is inconsistent with the nature of authority entrusted to them.
Purposely, I can manipulate you. Pastors have enough knowledge of human nature where we can control and manipulate people quite easily, emotionally, psychologically, but that would be sinful if we have spiritual weapons that we are to use.
No submission to the Lord is acceptable but that which is voluntary. The same kind of submission which the ancient Christians rendered to the Lord, they rendered to their spiritual rulers. Yes, we believe in submission, and we'll talk about that perhaps next week somewhat.
They first gave their own selves unto the Lord and unto us by the will of God, is what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 8. I want to close today, however, advocating a very important matter that I think is a bane of a lot of local churches, and that is the importance of the personal divine call to the public ministry of the Word of God.
One of the most important matters regarding the nature of spiritual leadership in the local church is to recognize a divine, personal, individual call to the public ministry of.
The Word of God.
We might pose the question this way, how does the pastor relate to the plurality of elders in the local church? Some see the pastor as a separate office, but he is one of the teaching elders as well. Other churches have concluded that there is no distinct, single office of pastor.
I have a problem with this, frankly. They argue that each church should just have a board of elders ruling and teaching the local church. Here is my main concern. To assume that there is no office of the pastor is to deny a specific calling and equipping to the pastor or ministry that is clearly set forth in the scriptures.
Where virtually any man may serve as an elder if he aspires to do so and meets the qualifications according to these churches, we would argue a pastor or minister is uniquely called and gifted for this office.
I recall once being interviewed by a church in White River Junction, Vermont. It was my first time to New England. It was in 1994. I flew from Northern California to Newark, caught a plane to Munich, was interviewed by the church, but I had a church here that was interested.
I flew into Boston, first time ever in New England, rented a Mazda, and drove up to White River Junction and was interviewed. One of the deacons brought me over to clearly the elder that seemed to have most control over everything.
He was clearly not interested in me. He said, we have twelve elders, and the only reason we are calling a pastor is to satisfy some people in the congregation. If you came, you would just be one of the twelve, and you would preach once every twelve.
Weeks.
I thought, I'm sorry, you know, you wouldn't be happy with me, and I wouldn't be happy.
With you.
It was a short visit to White River Junction. But this is the attitude and the view of many in local churches today. I would argue that it's that way in a number of Reformed Baptist churches, and I have a problem with that.
The fact is, there is a call, an individual, personal, subjective call to the ministry.
By God.
And we'll just close by just showing a couple verses or passages that speak to this, and then next week, Lord willing, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about this because it's so important.
But just consider the passage of Ephesians 4, 4 -16, where the Apostle Paul is talking about the risen, exalted Lord, who as an enthroned king in ancient Israel, he would give gifts to the young men that he grew up with, within the palace.
So the risen, enthroned Lord Jesus gives gifts to his church, and they are gifted men to the church. And this is what we have in Ephesians 4, verse 4, there's one body, one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Godfather of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all.
But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to men. Now this, he ascended, what does it mean by that he first descended into the lower parts.
Of the earth?
That's not talking about Jesus going into hell or whatever after death, no, he descended from heaven as the second person of the glorious trinity, he descended to the lower parts of the earth in the incarnation, and then he ascended upon his resurrection back to heaven.
He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And here it is, he gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, and again, many regard that as hyphenated pastor-teachers.
For what purpose?
For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect or mature man, to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ.
Notice maturity comes to coming to an understanding, a unity of the doctrine of the faith, brought about by these men, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things unto him who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body, joined, knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
Paul wrote in long sentences, and that's what we have there. The apostle declared that when the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven, we were seated on his throne, God's throne, of the kingdom of God, the risen Lord Jesus gave to the church gifted men who would facilitate bringing his people to realize their glorious destiny.
He quotes Psalm 68, 18 as a prophecy of the enthroned Lord Jesus giving gifts to his people. When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men. And then he gave these men to the church.
He gave some apostles, he gave the prophets, he gave the evangelists, he gave the pastors and teachers. And these gifted men are given to the church in order to equip the people of the church for Christian ministry, for maturing the body, teaching sound doctrine, protecting the church from error and errant teachers, enabling and directing the people of God to live for one another and with one another in love, functioning as the body of Christ in the world, all to the glory of God.
That's what Ephesians 4 states. But the point we wish to stress is this, that the Lord Jesus has gifted certain men to serve as primary teachers of his word to his church. Jesus Christ gave each of these offices of the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers in order to proclaim his word to the church.
Our Lord inspired the apostles to be witnesses of both what they saw and heard the Lord teach and do. Our Lord had called and enabled prophets to understand and interpret unique and special circumstances and predict specific events in the early church as it was newly established.
In the world.
And so apostles and prophets of Christ were unique to the early church. The Lord used these gifted men to establish his church in the world, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, that the church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
But whereas the apostles and prophets served a temporary function in the church, yet they have an abiding influence, the apostles still govern us, don't they, by the scriptures they've given us in the New Testament.
The Lord continues the ongoing expansion and maturing of his church with the gifts to his church of evangelists and pastor-teachers. And so the Lord uses evangelists chiefly to enlarge his church, and the Lord uses pastors and teachers chiefly to mature his church, and establish, enlarge, and mature.
So by setting forth the understanding of the passage that we just considered, I would say we can make several assertions and posit several questions, but again the one we want to emphasize today in closing.
There is a personal, individual, and divine call to the public ministry of the word in the Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord himself calls and equips men to minister his word to his people. I'll commonly say jokingly, I can more easily doubt my salvation than I can the call to the ministry.
It is that vivid a call that the Lord extended to me as a young man, and I can't deny that. That's not a boast, that's not saying I'm setting myself above, but I know what the Lord called me to do. And I think the curse, one of the curses of local churches across our land, is uncalled men are in the pulpit, frankly.
So the Lord calls and equips men to minister his word to his people, indeed all believers are called to teach the word of God, and he enables them to do so, but the Lord calls some men specifically and uniquely to lead his churches.
John Newton, who was a pastor, wrote Amazing Grace, wrote this,. None but he who made the world can make a minister of the gospel. If a young man has capacity, culture, and application, it may make him a scholar, a philosopher, or an orator, but a true minister must have certain principles, motives, feelings, aims, which no industry or endeavors of men can either acquire or communicate.
They must be given from above, or they cannot be received. Amen, John Newton. But again, not all believe this is true. They assert there is no special call to the ministry. This is a common belief. Some believe that all elders of a church have equal authority, that any elder, therefore every elder, has or should have the divine sanction to proclaim the word of God to the church on a regular basis.
It is true that every elder ought to be apt to teach, but not all are called to be a leading pastor or teacher in the church. Again, our Presbyterian friends acknowledge this distinction, and I am not necessarily saying I agree with them, but they speak of ruling elders and teaching elders, and even the old Presbyterians acknowledge that there is a divine call to the ministry.
I would reason that great weakness results in the church, and great error can occur in the church when the church looks to a man in its fulfillment whom God has not called or gifted in the manner described in Ephesians 4.
And again, although many have the aptitude to teach, the Lord has promised to bless the man that he has called to that work. And then we will close with this passage, Romans 10 .13. Isn't this what Paul declared?
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but how then shall they call on him whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? God sends some, and we are to pray that the Lord would send more, aren't we? This should be one of the regular points of prayer on our behalf. We read in Matthew's Gospel that when the Lord saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd.
And so what did the Lord say? He told his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Wasn't the Lord Jesus saying, pray to the Father that the Father would call, equip and send men who would be able to harvest these fields that have great potential for seeing conversions to Christ?
And so the Lord sends his people, the Lord calls them, and we are to pray that the Lord would send many young men into the field of ministry to gather a great harvest of souls in our days and in the days to come.
This would be a great benefit to the churches of Jesus Christ.
Amen?
And who knows what the Lord may do in our church, young men being raised and called to the work. No greater work. But again, it's not something that you can just walk into. It's something that you can't help but do if the Lord calls you.
Paul wrote, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. He was called to it. It wasn't a choice. He was summoned to do it. And he saw it as a privilege and a responsibility. And may the Lord help those who are called be faithful.
Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. And although, Lord, we see so many various forms of church government and manifestations of ministry so-called, we do see that you have ordained the local church to be your chief instrument within this world to carry out the work of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
And we just pray, our God, that you would help, again, our church to continually reform itself according to your word. And may you bless those, Lord, with whom you have gifted. We pray that you would call and send forth many more laborers into the harvest in these.
Days.
And we'll thank you and praise you, Father, for the results. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.