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Good Thursday morning my “walking with Jesus” friends,
I’m trusting that this morning, and for the next 6 days, I will be awakening in the country of Jordan, where I am sharing God’s Word and encouragement with about 75 people in a spiritual life retreat. I’ll be praying for you from there, and if I have sufficient internet access, continuing to produce “walking with Jesus” from there during my visit.
For today, let’s look at another very powerful portion of God’s Word found in Ephesians 4 beginning in verse 8. Paul, as a great student of the Hebrew Old Testament was amazed about many things related to Jesus Christ as the Jewish Messiah. One of those amazing miracles is the actual human incarnation of God. That God actually left His heavenly glory, to come to earth and take on human flesh, live in the restrictions of a human body, and experience all the normal aches and pains you and I deal with, but then also Jesus faced the extreme horrifying reality of crucifixion!
But then Jesus rose from the dead, showed Himself many times to many people as authentically alive, and ascended back to heaven in full view of many people. This, of course, is central to Paul’s Gospel. Here to the Ephesians, Paul is again declaring the unique supremacy of Jesus as Paul describes Jesus’ descent from heaven and all His glory to earth and His humble humanness. And then Jesus victorious return to heaven where He reigns sovereign and supreme over all the universe!
In Eph. 4:11-16 Paul gives us one of his most powerful exhortations and explanations of Jesus’ work in establishing and building this miracle He called “My church”. Remember Jesus had said “…on this rock I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matt. 16:18) It’s very important we are clear here. What is the rock Jesus spoke of, upon which He will build His church? The ‘rock’ is the truth that Peter has stated “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt. 16:16) Peter spoke those words in direct response to Jesus’ very specific question: “Who do you say I am?”
I realize there are many who believe Jesus was claiming that it was on Peter with his name meaning ‘stone’ that Jesus was promising to build His church. But that is not true… the Church, the body of Christ, the people of God are built upon ONE chief cornerstone, Jesus the Christ, who gave His life as an atoning sacrifice so we could be forgiven of our sin, and adopted into God’s family, and filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
When Jesus said He would build His church, it means He would save all those who repent of their sin and trust Him alone for their salvation. Then each and all of them would be added to the family of God, followers of Jesus, Jesus’ global Church. With Jesus as the Head of His Church.
So Paul explains how Jesus is going to build His church, from an infrastructure perspective. Listen: “It was He (Jesus) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith,and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph. 4:11-13).
Ok my friends, do you see Paul explaining that Jesus has called, and gifted certain people within His Church to fulfill important roles that SERVE and EQUIP God’s people? Let’s consider each of them for a moment…
1. “…He gave some to be apostles…” You may remember I explained to you those with the title “apostles” met these specific criteria. . .
* They were all personally called, selected by Jesus Himself.
* They were taught the truths of God by Jesus Himself.
* They were sent out by Jesus to establish the Church of Jesus around the world.
These ‘apostles’ were the original 11 disciples, plus Matthias (Acts 1:26) and Paul. Their commission from God was to start the churches and teach the people, in obedience to Jesus’ Great Commission given in Matthew 28:18-20.
2. Paul continues in Ephes. 4:11: “…and some to be prophets…” There are two types of “prophets’ in the Bible, through whom God speaks. The first is especially Old Testament prophets who spoke to the people what God had shown them about the future. They made predictions about what God was going to do in the future. This was a very sacred privilege and a false prophet, one who claimed to speak on God’s behalf but what he said either contradicted God’s truth or did not come to reality…this person was to be killed in Old Testament days, and rejected by God’s people and even shunned in New Testament days.
The other type of Prophet was one Paul identified as having a fresh word from God for the people. We see this person in 1 Corinthians 12 and elsewhere. This person usually called God’s people to recognize sin in the church or in themselves, and called them to repent and turn back to God. Again here a ‘false prophet’ would be one who spoke things contrary to God’s historical truth, and should be removed from God’s people. Men and women today with this gift from God are very beneficial to the Church. They help us learn, they call us to repent, they normally have a very special, intimate and reverent relationship with God. If you have that gift and calling from God, we are deeply grateful to God for you, and urge you to speak boldly, whenever you have a fresh word from God’s Holy Spirit!
3. Paul continues with “…some to be evangelists…” You may remember Philip from Acts 8 who was one of the original deacons (Acts 6), and fled Jerusalem during the Acts 8:1 persecution. God used Philip as a powerful evangelist telling the Gospel (evangel) to people who had not heard it before, and many of them turned to Jesus. In Acts 21:8 Paul visits Philip in Caesarea and he’s called “Philip the evangelist”. These dear people love the Gospel and love seeing sinners place their faith in Christ for salvation. They often have a special gifting in sharing the Gospel that seems anointed by God which results in many coming to faith in Christ. Churches today, everywhere in the world, need these types of people! We celebrate with you, if God has blessed you with this gift!
4. Paul continues with “…and some to be pastors and teachers…” Pastor is a special word used to describe a shepherd of God’s people. Jesus spoke often about shepherds and called Himself the “Good Shepherd” (John 10). People then and now know sheep are very rare animals in many ways. They survive best in groups called flocks, but they desperately need a person to serve them as a shepherd because they have so many unusual attributes they’ll self destruct or kill each other without a shepherd. Go ahead, google it…see what the internet tells you about sheep. Here are several reasons sheep need shepherds…can you make the application to why we people need spiritual shepherds?
a) They cannot find the food and water they need to survive without a shepherd leading them to it. Also, when they are led to lush green grass, they will graze it down to the bare ground and then even dig up the roots, rather than moving on to other lush grass! Shepherds have to keep them moving to find good pasture. And they need lots of water, but will only drink still water, never from a running brook or stream. Moving water, especially noisy, moving water like a rapids, spooks them. Do you hear Psalm 23 in what I am describing?
b) May I give you one more? Sheep spook real easily. An unexpected sound, or the sight of one sheep running frantically…and an entire flock of sheep will run off in a panic not knowing what they are running from or where they are running to! They can kill themselves or each other as they run in a panic.
Paul wanted his friends in Ephesus to understand Jesus calls and gifts people with Shepherding Pastor personality and gifts, to care for His people like a shepherd cares for the sheep! Oh my friends, this is such a great need in our day when so many aspects to our society wound people. The church should be the most healing place on earth!
And then you see Paul uses the word “teacher”. We all understand that, don’t we? We’ve all been in school or seminars or conferences or even our own homes where parents teach children to walk, talk, and everything about life. I’m sure we all understand the difference between good teachers who simply awaken in us a love to learn and bad teachers who cause us to turn away from them and everything they are trying to teach us. As you can see Jesus’ church needs LOTS of gifted teachers, for people of every and any age! My wife Dawn is one of those amazingly gifted teachers, especially with little children, I’ve watched her in amazement for many years! She’s also amazingly gifted with girls and women in learning physical fitness in a way that makes them want to exercise and care for their God given bodies. It’s amazing! Are you one of God’s gifted teachers? If so, we sure thank God for you.
I think it might be best if we stop right here and ponder this, let’s just soak in it for today. Do you see why each of these God given gifts is so important in any church? Do you know some people who have each of these gifts? Can you tell if YOU have any of these? Are you using them for God’s glory? Are you thanking God for those who have these gifts and are impacting your life!?
Jesus, thank you for all those you’ve blessed with these gifts, and are using them in your church to build up your People!
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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