PROVISIONS FOR THE WORK
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 7, 2023 under 2023 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message; May 7, 2023 from Ephesians 4:11-13
Theme: The growth of Jesus’ church depends on each of us faithfully doing what we should do with the provision that He has made.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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King David—the man after God’s own heart—once had a plan. It was a plan for the construction of a glorious building. But as it turned out, it was someone other than David that would be given the responsibility of building it.
You see; at a certain point in David’s reign, it came into his heart to build a temple—a dwelling place for the God of Israel. Up until then, there had not been such a temple in Israel. The old tabernacle—that old tent-like structure that God had instructed Moses to build—was still standing. But now that the people of Israel were established and settled, David felt that it was wrong that he should be living in a strong, stable, beautiful palace while the ark of the covenant of God sat inside a tent. And so, he spoke with the prophet Nathan about his intention to build an exquisite temple as the permanent resting place of the ark of God.
At first, the prophet Nathan heartily applauded David’s intention to build this temple; and he encouraged him to begin. But then, God came to the prophet Nathan and told him to tell David no. David had been a warrior that God used to defeat many of Israel’s enemies. His hands had shed much blood. And so; it would not be David who would build this holy temple. God told the prophet Nathan that, instead, it would be David’s son—King Solomon—that would build it.
Now; David submitted himself to God’s plan. But that didn’t mean that he sat by and did nothing. He began immediately to collect everything that Solomon would need. And near the end of his life, David gave all the building plans over to Solomon. He handed him the plans for the construction of every article that would be in the temple—every bowl, every pitcher, every lamp, and every table. He gave him the plans for the building itself, and all of its courts and chambers. He also gave Solomon all the gold that would be used in the temple, and all the building materials that would be needed. He made every possible provision for Solomon to do the work that he could. And then, he exhorted Solomon by saying,
“Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God—my God—will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord. Here are the divisions of the priests and the Levites for all the service of the house of God; and every willing craftsman will be with you for all manner of workmanship, for every kind of service; also the leaders and all the people will be completely at your command” (1 Chronicles 28:20-21).
And Solomon did as he was instructed. He took all of the provisions that David had made for him, and was faithful to the task. He built the temple of God—a breathtakingly beautiful temple indeed! When it was completed, God honored Solomon’s hard work—and David’s faithful provision—and filled that temple with His own glory.
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Now; just think what would have happened if Solomon had neglected to take up what had been provided to him. Just think of how it would have gone if he had forgotten about it, or simply failed to do it because the work would be too hard. His father, King David had faithfully made all of the provisions for the temple’s construction … but it wouldn’t have made any difference. There would have been no temple. God would not have been honored. The people of Israel would not have enjoyed the manifest presence of God in their midst.
The existence of the temple depended on Solomon taking up what had been provided to him, and faithfully doing what he was supposed to do with it.
And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; this illustrates an important spiritual principle for our church family. The Lord Jesus Christ—the Son of God—has redeemed us by His own blood and has now made us into His own people. He has joined us together as His church. He desires for us, as His precious church, to grow strong and witness mightily for Him on earth. He even desires for this particular local church—which is a part of that great spiritual body—to also grow strong and to be used by Him in our community. And what’s more, He has called us—as His redeemed people—to the task of building up that body—His holy ‘temple’ on earth. And just like King David—our Lord’s ancestor according to the flesh—the Lord Jesus has Himself provided us with everything that is needed for the work to be done.
But the growth of Jesus’ church depends on each of us faithfully doing what we should do with the provision that He has made.
That’s the lesson we find suggested to us in Ephesians 4:11-13. In this passage, the apostle Paul had been writing to his brothers and sisters about what it means to walk in a manner worthy of their high calling in Christ. He had told them that the Lord Jesus has already established the unity of His church—but also has given each member of His church unique and diverse gifts within that unity. Everything that is needed for our Lord’s church to grow is there—given by Him as His gracious provision for the work. And it’s then that Paul writes;
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 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 man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13).
And do you especially notice what it tells us in verse 12? It’s the job of ‘the saints’—our Lord’s redeemed and set-apart believers—you and me together—to take up the provisions and begin to do the work of “edifying” or “building-up” the body of Christ.
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Now; you may be tempted to look at it all and wonder to yourself, “Where do I even begin?” After all, King Solomon at least had a set of building plans to work from. He had a detailed inventory of items and building materials that had been given to him. But you and I don’t have what Solomon had to build the temple. What would the first steps be in the work of building up the Lord’s church?
Well; even though we aren’t given specific diagrams and inventories, this passage suggests to us three basic calls to action by which we may begin to take up God’s provision and get to work. They help us know how to get started.
Consider the first of these basic calls to action. We find it suggested to us in verse 11. It’s there that Paul tells us this about our Lord Jesus: “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers …” These are the people that God has given to equip His church for the work. And so, the first thing we should do is that …
1. WE SHOULD RESPECT THE ROLES OF THOSE WHO EQUIP.
The apostle Paul wrote these words in the larger context of the ‘gifts’ that Jesus has given to His church. And the remarkable thing that we find in verse 11 is that—in the case of equipping His church for the work—Jesus doesn’t just give certain gifts to certain people. He actually gives His church the gift of certain people—certain individuals that He has gifted for certain roles.
If you were to read this in the original language, you’d find that the words “to be” are not present. It’s not simply that Jesus gave some people the privilege “to be” these things. That, of course, is true. But He actually gave these people as gifts to His church. The way that we should understand verse 11 is that our Lord gave “some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers”. And do you notice also that Paul puts great emphasis on the fact that this was the Lord’s doing? We’re told that “He Himself” gave these gifted individuals to His church—just as He saw fit. This means that we should respect these gifted servants of the church as the necessary provision—given by our Lord—for the equipping of His people to do the work. Because the Lord Himself gave them, we cannot do without them.
Consider these gifts from the Lord—these necessary provisions to His people. First, we see “apostles”. The word “apostle” means “a sent one”; that is, someone who is specifically sent by the Lord with a particular commission. In the Bible, our Lord’s “apostles”—His “sent ones”—were the twelve disciples who had spent three-and-a-half years in His presence as He walked on this earth. One named Judas fell away, and was later replaced by another named Matthias, who—as Acts 2 tells us—accompanied the others as the Lord went in and out among them. And then, later on, Paul himself—who personally met the resurrected Lord Jesus—was called by the Lord as one of His apostles. He told them that they would be His witnesses in the world. As it tells us in Hebrews 2:3-4, these unique men—in this unique role to the church—testified to the gospel of our great salvation;
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will (Hebrews 2:3-4).
And then, second, we see “prophets”. Now; in the New Testament era, there were people who were called “prophets” who ministered to the church in cooperation with the apostles. In the Book of Acts, we read of a man named Agabus who was such a prophet; and we also read of the daughters of a godly man named Philip who were prophetesses. At a time when the New Testament had not yet been completed, these individuals—and others like them—seemed to have delivered unique messages from God that the church needed to hear. But those are not the ‘prophets’ that Paul is speaking of in our passage.
Instead, Paul is talking about the prophets that spoke and wrote in the Old Testament era. They were the ones who—centuries before He was born into the world—foretold of what Jesus would come and do. As the apostle Peter preached in his great sermon in Acts 2;
those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled (Acts 3:18).
God not only gave the apostles of the New Testament era to the church, but He gave the prophets of the Old Testament era to His church too. And we have the testimony of both the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles written down for us, and recorded forever in the pages of the Bible. God has preserved them and their testimonies in order to give us the foundational testimony of the church. They are crucial gifts that God has given for the building of His church.
Now; these unique, once-for-all-time individuals are ‘foundational gifts’ that the Lord Jesus has given to His church. We have their testimony written down in Scripture; and they never again need to be given. But God has also given other individuals to His church that we could call ‘maintenance gifts’. They ‘maintain’ and ‘care for’ the church in an ongoing way.
Paul specified two. The first of these ‘maintenance gifts’ is “evangelists”. Evangelists are not necessarily what we’ve grown to think of when we hear that name today. Instead, what Paul is talking about is gifted servants of God’s church who proclaim the gospel in places in which it hasn’t been heard before; and who call new believers together to be baptized and form a new church family. An “evangelist”, in the sense that Paul means, is something very close to a “missionary” or a “church-planter”. They are the ones that God uses to spread the gospel around the world and form brand-new churches.
And the second of these ‘maintenance gifts’ is “pastors and teachers”. You’ll notice that I put them together as if they were one gift; and that’s because that’s how Paul presents them in the original language. The role of a pastor is that of providing the ‘shepherding care’ of the people in His churches. Pastors nurture God’s people, and feed them from the Scriptures, and call them to walk in obedience to their Lord. And the role of a teacher is that of providing necessary instruction to His people. Teachers help God’s people understand doctrinal truth more clearly, and open up the Bible to show them how to obey Him and live faithfully for Him in this dark and fallen world. Sometimes, “pastors” and “teachers” are different individuals. But most often, they are the same individual who fulfills those two different roles within the church family.
Now; these four roles—apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers—are absolutely necessary provisions that the Lord has made for His church. He Himself gave them; and so we absolutely cannot do without them. They are necessary for both our foundation and our ongoing maintenance. Just look at what Paul said in Ephesians 2:19-22;
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22).
And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; when it comes to what we are to do in order to make use of the provision that God has given us for the work of building up the body of Christ, here’s a place to begin. We must give due respect and honor to these gifts. Cherish your Bible; because in it, you are given the foundational testimony of the apostles and prophets. And cherish the pastors and teachers who admonish you and teach you from the Bible faithfully.
Pray for those who minister to you in these ways. They are given by Jesus Himself to equip you for the work. By the design of our Lord and Master, we cannot do without them. Respect their roles, submit to their work, and thank God for them!
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But the next basic call to action that’s suggested to us—that we need to do in order to make full use of the provision God has made for the work—is that …
2. WE OURSELVES SHOULD EMBRACE THE WORK OF EDIFYING THE BODY.
Look again at what Paul said in verse 11. He wrote, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers …” Those might seem like the individuals that we would ordinarily think of as “the ministers”. They are “the ministry professionals” who—alone—are qualified to do the work of the ministry. But that’s not the case at all. Paul went on to say in verse 12 that they were given by our Lord “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ …”
Some, sadly, have badly misinterpreted this. They have made it sound as if these gifted individuals—these apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers—are to do three things: (1) equip the saints, (2) do the work of ministry, and (3) edify the body of Christ. That makes it sound as if “the ministry professionals” were the ones who do it all. And that idea has caused terrible harm to the church over the centuries. It was not our Lord’s intention that those equippers should do all the work of the ministry. Instead, His intention is that they faithfully equip ‘the saints’—the individual believers in the church who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus—so that the saints can do the work of the ministry! The saints are the true ministers! It has been given to them to perform. And unless all of us take hold of the provision God has given us through the equippers, and put that provision to faithful use, then the work of building up the church will not get done.
Just read on in this passage to what Paul goes on to say in verses 14-16;
that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:14-16).
Can you see it?—“the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share”? We all do the work together!
Someone asked me recently, “But how do I know what I’m being equipped to do? How do I know what my specific job is supposed to be?” It doesn’t seem that the Lord has given us too specific an answer to that question; does it? Each one of us is called by the same Lord; and each one of us, it seems, is being ‘equipped’ for our individual part in the work in unique ways. But I have a suggestion. Make sure that you are yielded to the Lord Jesus and are respectful of the work of those that the Lord has given to equip you. Make sure you are reading your Bible and are ready to do whatever the Lord commands you to do in it. And then—simply trusting that He is leading you—rise up and do that thing within the church family which He places before you … and that you know how to do.
Take a look at Ephesians 2:10. Paul wrote;
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).
You can confidently trust that the Lord Jesus loves you and wants to put you to work. You can trust that He is working sovereignly to lead you. So; (1) simply pay attention to what’s going on in the church family, (2) watch for the needs of others, (3) tell your pastoral leadership, “I believe I can do that. Will you give me the authority and the materials I need so that I can take care of it?” and then (4) rise up and meet the unique need that He sets before you that you know how to meet.
Just pray about it, get to work, and meet the need that you see. You’ll never know what God has called you to do by simply sitting around and doing nothing. But you can trust that as you do what you are able to do, it will—over time—become very clear what it is that you are supposed to be doing in the work of building up the body of Christ.
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Now; that, of course, doesn’t mean that just anything that someone might want to do would be a part of the work of building up the body of Christ. The work has been defined for us by the specific, God-given outcomes it is designed to produce. In verse 13, Paul wrote about the goals of this great work; “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ …”
And this tells us a third basic call in making use of the provisions God has made for us; and that is that …
3. WE SHOULD KEEP THE GOALS OF THE WORK IN MIND.
One of the things that we’re to work for is “the unity of the faith”. This means that, in terms of the basic fundamentals of the faith—the things that someone must believe in order to be saved and to have a fruitful walk with God through Christ—we work toward all believing and teaching the same basic things. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:4-6;
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:4-6).
As Jude put it in Jude 3, we’re to contend earnestly for the faith “which was once for all delivered to the saints”. So; if we’re doing our work of building up the body of Christ as we should, we will grow to be unified in our statement of faith.
Another thing that we’re to work for is “the knowledge of the Son of God”. The word that Paul used for “knowledge” is a strong one. It means more than simply having information about Jesus, and being familiar with the Bible’s doctrine about Him. It means that we come to a deep knowledge of Him—to know Him and love Him in a personal way. Here’s how Paul once put it:
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:8-11).
And that’s what we must work toward together. If we’re doing our work as we should, then we will all be growing toward truly ‘knowing’ the Son of God together; and helping one another deepen in that knowledge.
And finally, another thing that we’re to work for is our growth into full Christ-likeness. If we’re working together as we should, we will be helping each other grow to walk, and talk, and work, and live, and love others more like Jesus Himself. We will grow “to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” This is God the Father’s expressed goal for us. As Paul put it in Romans 8:29;
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).
So then; those are the goals of our work: “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”. And taking up the provisions that God has given us for the work also means taking up the goals that the work is intended by God to accomplish.
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So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; we are in a similar position to that of Solomon. He was given all that was necessary to build the temple. And as Paul has shown us, we have been given all that is necessary to build Jesus’ church. But nothing will happen unless we faithfully take up the provision the Lord Jesus has made for us, and do what we should do with it.
I believe that, if he could, our dear elder brother Paul would say to us the same kind of thing that King David said to Solomon:
“Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God—my God—will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.”
AE
