The Church Unleashed for Ministry

The tides of war were at a low ebb for Great Britain in the summer of 1940. Adolf Hitler, in a lightning war that lasted just six weeks, had overrun Western Europe. France had collapsed in defeat, along with Belgium, and Holland. It was only by a miracle that the British Army escaped across the English Channel from the beaches of Dunkirk.

Now the British people braced for an invasion. They stood alone against overwhelming odds. Just a few miles across the Straits of Dover lay the mightiest army the world had ever seen. Overhead, hundreds of bombers came every night, dropping terror and death upon them. Their army was in tatters, their cities were in flames. Yet the British themselves look back on this situation in retrospect, and say “This was our finest hour.”

They may have been on the verge of losing the war, but they never lost their determination or will to fight. They were led by a man who personified bulldog tenacity. Winston Churchill, their short, stocky, cigar-chomping Prime Minister, galvanized the people and infused them with a courage they didn’t know they had. He didn’t promise them much.

He stood before the House of Commons one spring day in May, not long after becoming Prime Minister and said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” A month later, he told them “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

And the people, from the King of England to the lowliest Cockney housewife in the slums of London, stirred by the force of his words, prepared to resist the German invasion. Everyone did what he could. In the countryside, farmers drilled with pitchforks. Women prepared tubs of hot mustard to throw in the faces of the enemy soldiers. Schoolchildren learned how to identify enemy aircraft. Wires were strung across fields to snare paratroopers. Every village and every hamlet had a civil defense committee.

Never before, and never since, had the entire population of a nation been mobilized, from the greatest to the least, for a single task. They were all pulling in unison for the common goal. Their lot was not easy, and their prospects were very uncertain. What they did demanded great sacrifice. But the people of Great Britain participated with pride and enthusiasm, because they knew they were contributing to a cause which was greater than themselves.

This is the very picture that we see of the church of Jesus Christ in Eph. 4. Total mobilization, each person playing a part in the grand design, contributing to a cause that far transcends that of Great Britain in 1940.

Let’s look at this passage again to see what we can learn from it…

Ephesians 4:7-13 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.” (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he 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.

Paul has been speaking in chapter 4 of the church as a Body. It is bigger than all of us, and it brings us all together. Whether you are an American, or a Chinese, or an African, or an Arab, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are a member of His Church.

There is one body and one Spirit— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

These are comprehensive terms because the church of Jesus Christ is the only comprehensively international organization in the world. It encompasses every race and nationality on earth. It’s bigger than the UN, because there are nations and peoples and races who are not a part of the UN. This is one of the most exciting things about being a Christian - we are a part of something that is worldwide. We have brothers and sisters all over the world. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of and pray for the brothers and sister I met in Czechoslovakia and Romania last summer.

But now, in verse 7, Paul changes the focus. From talking about this great global body, the church, he begins to consider the individual member of it. And he asks the question: “What is the individual’s place in the church? What is the role that he or she plays in this great organization?

The answer to that question is found in verse 12. God has something for all of His people to do, and he calls that something “works of service”. The KJV calls it “the work of the ministry”. Ministry is just another word for service. If you are involved in ministry, you are involved in serving people.

The role of the leaders who are mentioned in verse 11 is

Ephesians 4:12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

So let’s try to define this job that God has given everybody in the church.

God’s people are to serve other people.

That’s a pretty simple job description for Christians. But notice that there is a particular result to that activity - so that the body of Christ may be built up. So it seems that this service to other people is service that helps them to come to know Christ if they don’t know Him, or to come to know him better if they do. That’s the kind of service that will build the body of Christ up. It’ll build the body up by adding to it people who are not part of it, or by strengthening the people who are part of it.

So let’s add to something to that job description for Christians:

God’s people are to serve other people in such a way that they will come to know Jesus Christ and grow to know Him better.

That’s what God wants all of his people to do. Back in the early years of the 20th century, some parts of the church lost sight of the second part of that job description. They were convinced that God wanted them to serve people, but they lost sight of the fact that God wanted them to do it so that those people would come to know Christ. So these well-meaning Christians got involved in all sorts of social action projects, from setting up low-income housing, to helping to feed the hungry. And they did a tremendous amount of good on the physical level. But they didn’t introduce the people they were helping to Jesus Christ. So their work wasn’t complete. They served on the physical level, but they didn’t serve also on the spiritual level.

Other Christians, seeing this, decided that the first part of that job description wasn’t nearly as important as the second. So they began to really emphasize the second. For them, ministry was introducing people to Jesus Christ. They called it soul-winning. They didn’t have time for soup-kitchens and orphanages and other things that would help people with their physical needs. What was really important was to win them to Christ.

But the people they preached to began to wonder it these Christians really loved them or cared about them. Winning their souls had become such a priority, that serving their needs was forgotten.

I think you understand what I’m trying to say. God wants us to serve people on both levels - showing our love for them as people with needs on both the spiritual and the physical level. That’s what ministry is really all about. When Jesus was here on earth, he didn’t just preach to people - He also fed them and healed their diseases.

Starting a new job can be a really traumatic experience. You feel so unfamiliar with everything and unconfident of your ability to cope. I remember starting to work for Monsanto Chemical during the summers that I was in college. For the first couple of weeks, I was scared to death that if I bumped a valve or looked the wrong way at a gauge, I might blow the plant up. The thing you want in a new job is reassurance, and a sense that you’ll be able to do this job. Any company worth its salt won’t just hand you a job description, they’ll give you some training and equip you to do the job properly. Say what you will about McDonalds and the quality of their hamburgers, one thing they do well is train their people.

I’d like you to notice in Ephesians 4 that God has made two special provisions for us to help us carry out this job description. First, he’s given us grace that enables us to minister and second, he’s given us gifted leaders to equip us to minister.

Whenever God gives us something to do, He always gives us the ability to do it. That is an axiom of Scripture. It was true for Moses, it was true for Jeremiah, and it is just as true for the junior high Sunday School teacher of Lynbrook Baptist Church. Whenever God gives us something to do, He always gives us the ability to do it.

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

What is this “grace”? The word in the original is the word “charis” - from which we get the word “charismatic”. In that sense, all Christians are “charismatics”, because it says here that Christ has given us all grace. The word “grace” is a tremendous word - it appears 98 times in the epistles.

Theologians talk about grace as being “God’s unmerited favor”, and that’s an adequate definition as far as it goes. When you’re talking about God’s love for us and his provision of salvation for us, then His grace is unmerited favor.

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

But the problem with that definition of grace is that it’s one-dimensional; it doesn’t go far enough. God doesn’t just give us grace in order to provide for our salvation. He gives us grace in order to live as Christians. So in that sense, let’s define grace as being the desire and the power God gives us to live the Christian life. That’s why Paul was always saying things like “grace be unto you” when he was writing to Christians. He wanted his readers to experience the desire and the power God gives us to live the Christian life. That’s the kind of grace that Christ apportions to every one of us here in Eph. 4:7.

Now vv. 8-10 are a parenthesis, where Paul talks about how Christ has the authority and the ability to give us this grace. They are very interesting verses, and they raise some very interesting issues of interpretation. But we don’t have time to go into them today. Suffice it to say that Jesus Christ, because of who He is and what He did, has the right and the authority to give us the power to do His will.

That’s the first provision He’s made for us to carry out the job description. He’s given us His grace. He’s given us a desire to serve Him. He’s given us the necessary ability to do His will. Sometimes I hear Christians excuse themselves from being involved in ministry by saying “Oh I’m not qualified to do that. I’m not competent.” Listen, if Christ has given you His grace, then you are competent. You are qualified. Sure, you may feel weak, but even Paul felt weak. And remember what God told him?

2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

So don’t use weakness as an excuse!

And you can’t use age as an excuse either. The Bible doesn’t say that Christ gives you this enabling grace until you are 65. Then you can retire from active service. I used to hear older people in our former church say “Well, we’ve done our share. Now we’re going to sit back and let the younger people do it.” (Of course these were the same people who complained when the younger people started to make some changes in the way things were done!) I’m glad that we don’t have any older people like that here.

So the first provision is grace to serve - enabling grace. There’s a second provision that Christ has made for us to be involved in the work of the ministry. He’s given us gifted leaders to equip us.

Ephesians 4:11-12 It was he 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

These leaders fall into two groups:

- those who were foundational to the church, and who are no longer present in the church

- apostles, and prophets

- those whose leadership is ongoing, and who are currently working in the church

- evangelists, and pastors (shepherds) and teachers

How do we know that this distinction exists? Aren’t there some who believe that there are apostles and prophets present today in the church? Well, the Scriptures quite definitely put apostles and prophets into a special category.

Ephesians 2:19-20 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

It was on the apostles and the prophets that the church was built.

Ephesians 3:4-5 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.

The apostles and prophets were the men to whom and through whom the Lord revealed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This became the basis for the New Testament scriptures. Nothing like this activity is going on today. God is not continuing to add to the NT. He’s not revealing new truth.

There were five things that qualified a man to be an apostle.

1. He must have seen the risen Lord. (1 Cor. 9:1)

2. He must have been personally called by Jesus to be an apostle (Gal. 1)

3. He must have received a supernatural revelation of God’s truth (Eph. 3:2)

4. He must have been given the authority to speak as a representative of Christ. (Phil.3:17)

This is one of the chief criteria by which the early church determined whether a book was to be included in the canon of Scripture. Did it come from the pen or from the mouth of an apostle? If not, it was not considered authoritative.

5. He must have power to work miracles, which would confirm his apostleship. (Heb.2:4)

There are no people in the church today who can fulfill even one of these five criteria. There are no apostles today. Nor are there any prophets.

The ministry of the NT prophets - people like Agabus and the four daughters of Philip - was complementary to that of the apostles. In the days before the NT scriptures were written by the apostles, these prophets were the means by which God gave direction to the early church. But after the NT was completed, there was no longer a need for their ministry. Everything that God wanted His people to know was included in the NT documents. So the ministry of apostles and prophets was foundational to the church. There are none of them around today.

However, there still are evangelists, and pastor-teachers (more correctly translated shepherd-teachers, which is to say - elders). Evangelists are those who proclaim the good news. Their ministry is not restricted to one local church - they are itinerant, they travel around preaching the gospel. Many of our missionaries would fall into this category.

On the other hand, you have pastor - teachers (the two words are linked). These leaders function within a local church, in a shepherding ministry, feeding the flock, watching over the flock, and protecting the flock. We’ve seen that these functions are the responsibility of the men who are called elders, or overseers, in the local church. Shepherding and teaching is what they do.

Now I want you to observe something very important. The Lord Jesus Christ has given these gifted leaders to the church, not so that they would do the work of the ministry, but so that they would prepare God’s people for the work of the ministry.

This is a very important point. Because after 2000 years of church history, we have tended to deviate from this biblical pattern. All too often in the church today, it is the leader, or maybe just a few leaders, who are expected to do the work of the ministry. They are even officially known as “ministers”. A professional clergy-class has grown up on this premise. The congregation in many churches sits back passively as spectators and watches the leaders try to shoulder the burden of ministry alone.

But this is not at all what Christ had in mind when he gave gifted leaders to the church. He intends the leaders - the evangelists, the pastor-teachers, to prepare, or equip the people so that the people would do works of service. The word “prepare” as it appears here in v. 12 was used two ways in ancient Greek. It could refer to the way a surgeon sets a bone that is broken. Or, it could refer to the way a fisherman mends his nets. In both cases, you have the idea that you have something which has been designed for a particular function. But it needs to be enabled to perform that function.

Let’s imagine two churches. One church has a beautiful building, and a large congregation. The Sunday services are televised every week. The people are very proud of their pastor, and they love to hear his preaching. He is a wonderful speaker, and a gifted administrator. Almost singlehandedly, he built that church to the place where it is today. It was his vision, and his persistence that pulled the congregation through a multi-million dollar building project. The people marvel at his capacity for work. It seems he never sleeps.

The second church is not nearly as large. They worship in a rented school gymnasium. Their leadership is shared among a team of elders. While it may not have all the glitz and the glamor of the first church, one of the hallmarks of this church is that everyone is involved in some aspect of serving people. Some of the members have started a ministry to the homeless. Others have gotten together and started a practical helping ministry for the shut-ins and senior citizens of the community. They mow lawns and paint fences and take people to the doctor’s office when they need to go. Some of the congregation are looking to begin a support group for single parents. And many of the people in the congregation have been instrumental in bringing outsiders into the fellowship.

Which church is the biblical church? Which church is operating according to the principles for ministry that we see here in Eph. 4? This is so hard for us to get through our heads here in North America, because we’ve always tended to equate bigness and money and crowds and pizzazz with success. And if we’re successful, it must mean that we’re doing things God’s way, right? God must be smiling on us. But by that definition, The Rolling Stones are successful!

The church that is all that God wants it to be will be a church where every person is involved in some aspect of serving people in such a way that they will come to know Jesus Christ and grow to know Him better. That’s the biblical pattern. That’s the church unleashed for ministry. If you cannot point to some way that you are directly involved in serving people in that way, then you are not in tune with God’s job description for you.

God has given us his grace to enable us to minister. He has given us gifted leaders to equip us to minister. So let’s minister! Let’s serve! Let’s not sit back and let Joe do it. Let’s all be involved. Let’s see what the Holy Spirit wants to do in this community through us!