Disciples and the Church

Disciples and the Church

(Ephesians 3.8-11, 4.1-16)

Jason Procopio

There are a lot of people out today, at our weekend retreat, but they’re actually joining us via streaming. So even if they’re not physically with us here, they’re worshiping with us there. (A big thank you, by the way to those of you who were at the retreat and who came back this morning to help out here.)

This weekend we had the joy of hearing from Philip Moore, my old boss and my mentor for years now. Philip took us through Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, helping us understand discipleship. And we’re going to be staying in this subject, and other writings of Paul, today and next week, before starting our annual Advent series. (There’s probably going to be some overlap with what Philip said, so if you were at the retreat, good news: you’ll get the chance to go over these things again and again over the next two weeks.)

When we talk about discipleship, we’re talking about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, a follower of Christ. As Philip told us, a disciple of Jesus Christ is someone who observes all he commanded us. And discipleship is the process of learning to do that. So that’s what we’ll be talking about the next two weeks.

But before we get started I'd like to share a little bit of my own story with you.

About a year after we got married, Loanne and I moved to France—she was coming home, I was setting off on my first “adventure” in Europe. We were both very young Christians when we arrived. We landed in a small town in Normandy, we got jobs, and we found a little local church where we served as best we could.

The pastor of this church was well-intentioned and he liked me, so he started giving me responsibilities in the church, even though I knew practically nothing about my Bible outside of the stories I’d heard growing up. I did that for a few months, until I confessed that I felt ill-equipped—not just for responsibilities in the church, but for anything. I was realizing (through a series of personal difficulties) that I just didn’t know how to live the Christian life. So I asked him for help.

He said I should go to Bible school. 

I did that for a year, in a little charismatic institute he suggested, which was clearly designed to teach Christians the main points of charismatic doctrine, but which taught very little of the Bible itself.

So when that didn’t prove very helpful, I turned to the only other resource I knew: the Internet.

I started listening to sermons and conference lectures and online courses to help me understand how to read the Bible faithfully, and to know what the Bible says.

God was gracious: he helped me grow during this time. But pretty quickly I realized what I was missing. And it wasn’t resources or training or teaching. It was the church.

When I went to see my pastor, wanting to grow in my knowledge of the Bible he directed me outside the church. I don’t think he was malicious in that suggestion (I think that’s all he knew), but the reality was that my growth in the knowledge of the Word of God, my growth in Christian maturity, was being outsourced to structures outside the church that weren’t remotely equipped to bring about that growth.

And often, that’s how we think about our Christian lives. We each grow on our own, with the resources we manage to find ourselves, and we imagine that it’s sufficient.

But according to the Bible, that’s not how it works.

So I’ll invite you to get a Bible and to turn to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in chapter 3. (We’re going to camp out in chapters 3 and 4 today.) 

Today we’re going to lay a foundation for discipleship, by looking at why the church exists—what is the goal of the church?

And then we’re going to look at how God plans to achieve that goal.

the goal of the church (Ephesians 3.8-10)

Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians to encourage them in their work for the gospel. This was a church Paul knew well, because it was a church that he planted; he lived and worked in this church for many years.

We’re going to start reading at Ephesians 3.8:

8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Real quickly: this “mystery” he’s talking about is what he’s spent the first two chapters of the letter explaining. The mystery that is revealed now is God’s plan to save his people by sending his Son to be the sacrifice for their sins. It’s a mystery, not because he’s never spoken about it (he revealed a lot of this plan through the prophets), but because he fully revealed his plan in the person of Jesus Christ.

So why did he do it?

10 …so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 

Paul talks about rulers and authorities in the heavenly places—what that means is, basically, angels and demons. He says it this way because occult practices were a big deal in Ephesus at the time, so he knew that image would be particularly pertinent for them. 

But that image is a stand-in to talk about not just our world, but every world in every galaxy, in every realm of existence. 

So to put it simply: God’s goal in everything he does in this world is to teach the universe who he is. He wants the universe to see his wisdom, and his power.

And his plan for doing that sounds absolutely insane to me.

He plans to do teach the universe about his wisdom and power through the church.

What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

If you have spent any time in church, you can see why that sounds nuts. The church is, and has always been, messed up. People don’t agree on things, they use religion as a means for abusing others, they get focused on really unimportant matters and all the while forget to do simple things like loving one another.

The church, on its own, is no better than any other group of people who get together for a common goal. 

And that’s kind of the point. 

God’s plan is to take a group of very imperfect people, who have the same struggles and problems as everyone else, and to transform them together into something better.

And that’s what he’s been explaining since the beginning of the letter.

Chapter 1: God saves his people through his sovereign grace alone: we—and what we do—are hardly mentioned. It’s God who saves, from beginning to end.

Chapter 2: The Holy Spirit takes the dead people we were and brings us to life together with God, so that we might do the good works he’s prepared beforehand for us. And at the end of that chapter, he explains the community aspect of this work: how God opened his promises to all the nations of the earth, although he’d initially given those promises to a specific people, the people of Israel. And he has united us to one another under the umbrella of those promises.

God’s plan for the church is to take these imperfect people we are and transforme us together, as a family, into something better.

Now before we get into what that looks like, think about the reasons why people typically come to church. We want to maintain a certain tradition, or avoid conflict in the family, or have an “experience” with God…

On our own, we almost always come to church for reasons that are centered around ourselves.

But coming to church will never make sense if we’re doing it mainly for ourselves. In the Bible, you cannot separate your individual faith from the collective body of the church.

You cannot live your Christian faith in isolation from the community of the church.

ministry and the church (Ephesians 4.1-11)

So with that idea in mind, let's see how God plans to display his wisdom to the universe, in the context of the local church. 

Ephesians 4, starting at v.1:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  

In case it’s not clear for you, Christianity is not remotely individualistic. 

Now by that I don’t mean that Christ didn’t save us individually. Christ didn’t just save a faceless mass of people—he saved me. I am an individual human being, I can’t be anything else. And Christ saved me. He knows my name. He knows my face. He knows my fears and desires and tendencies. He died for me.

That is gloriously true, and we don’t want to take away from that. 

But the problem is that in our highly individualistic society, we’re taught, “Whatever I want is what’s good. Whatever I need is what’s most important. Whatever I feel is what is most true about me.”

So naturally, we take that highly individualistic mindset that’s been built into us, and we transplant that into our faith. If I come to Christ, I come for me. I come for what he can do for me.

But there is one body. One Spirit. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  

Or to put it another way, any time I spend time thinking about my faith in Christ, I should be thinking about our faith in Christ.

V. 7:  

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, 

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, 

and he gave gifts to men.” 

9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Verses 8-10 are sort of a weird aside, and depending on the translation you’re reading, they may even be in parentheses, because many people will read those verses as being a bit off topic. But in fact, it’s not off-topic at all.

In v. 8-10, he’s talking about the incarnation and the ascension. Christ became a man—he descended to earth and was incarnated in a human body—and in that body, he fulfilled his ministry. And after all that was complete, he ascended back to the right hand of his Father, where he now holds all power and authority over the earth he created. And because he has that authority, he establishes specific people in specific roles of responsibility in his church.

V. 11:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers… 

Stop there for a minute. 

That’s not an exhaustive list of everything that could be called a ministry. He gives this list as a kind of representative list—these are the main ministries we see in the New Testament, standing in for all the others.

And they all have the same goal. They don’t use the same means to get there, but they all have the same goal. 

What’s the goal? V. 11 again:  

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… 

Do you see it? 

He says that these ministries exist, not so that pastors do all the work of building up the body of Christ, but to equip the saints—ordinary Christians—for the work of ministry, and so that these ordinary Christians might build up the church.

In case that’s not clear: the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors are not the ones who build up the church—or at least, we don’t do it alone. My job as a pastor is not to do the work of ministry. My job as a CHRISTIAN is to do the work of ministry, because that’s what all Christians are called to do. But that’s not my job as a pastor.

My job as a pastor is to train you to do that.

I am not responsible for building up the church: WE, the saints, are responsible for building up the church.

Now just real quickly, think about how this reality changes the way we think about what happens when we come to church. 

What do we do when we come to church?

We pray. We sing some songs. We listen to a sermon. We try not to fall asleep during that sermon. We take communion.

When service is over, we hang out a while, have some pleasant conversations, have some lunch, and then leave.

The simplicity of what I just described would be totally shaken up if we realized that every time we come together, we are engaging in the work of ministry—we are not just “coming to church.”

Think what that would change, simply in the conversations we have together.

If, when we gather together, we are not coming merely for ourselves, but to engage in the work of ministry, in every conversation we have, we’re not just thinking about the next ten or fifteen minutes. We’re not just thinking about the end of this discussion.

We’re thinking about the rest of this brother or sister’s life.

It’s no secret—just look around—that our church is filled with people who are mostly aged 20-30. One great thing about pastoring a church full of young people is that they are so enthusiastic, and so energetic, that it’s easy to get them motivated. 

But every time I get up to preach, I’m not thinking about getting you motivated. I’m thinking about giving you what you’ll need to stay motivated, when you aren’t young anymore.

This is often hard for young people to grasp, so you’ll just have to trust me: you’re going to get old. Your friends are going to get old. And you’re going to suffer along the way. That’s just life.

And—please hear this—if you’re getting through your Christian life on youthful enthusiasm alone, then you will almost definitely crash and burn somewhere between age 30 and age 50. 

So when you speak with anyone—believer or not—if you know the goal is building up the body of Christ, you’re not just thinking about the next few minutes. You’re thinking about what needs to happen in this person’s life to not just bring them to faith, but to keep them faithful over the long haul.

And the Bible’s means of keeping us faithful is the church.

So what does that look like? What does it look like to build up the body of Christ?

Or to put it differently, when we gather together as a body for worship, or when we spend time with other Christians, what are we working toward?

the growth of the church (v. 12-16)

Paul tells us in v. 13-16. 

…he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God...

So the first thing we’re working toward is unity.

Apparently, there was a lot of diversity in the church in Ephesus. That’s what we see in chapter 2: he speaks about how we have been united to one another, despite our differences. (This clearly applies to our church, where we have an enormous diversity of backgrounds and nationalities.)

God saved us all the same way (1.1-2.10), and we are all fellow heirs with Christ (2.11-22). We are all one body.

That’s the unity he spoke of earlier, in v. 4; and now, he qualifies that unity. He says that we are united, first, by our common faith. It’s not my faith and your faith—it’s our faith.

How many of us actually take the time to realize that we are united to our brothers and sisters by our common faith in Christ—united in a way that makes our actual blood relationships pale in comparison? 

If you are married, you are united to your spouse by marriage, and that’s wonderful. But there is a unity between the two of you that is much greater than the unity of marriage. You will be married until one of you dies; you’ll be brother and sister in Christ forever.

And that unity also exists with every man, woman or child who has come to faith in Christ.

How often does that factor into our thinking when we’re speaking with another Christian? How often do we realize that every conversation we have with another believer is a conversation with someone to whom we will be united for the rest of eternity? What would that change about the way we speak to each other?

As crazy as it seems, we are united, forever, by a common faith, and, secondly, by a common knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ.

We have the same faith in the same Savior. If you don’t know Christ, then you can’t possibly have faith in him. When he saved us, the Holy Spirit essentially opened our eyes to see Jesus clearly. We realized that we were sinners, that we need a Savior, and that Jesus Christ is that Savior. Our faith has a name, and a focus: Jesus Christ.

But here’s the thing: Paul doesn’t describe this unity as something which is finished—as if we could say, “Okay, we’re united, so we can move on to something else now.” He describes it more as a process: until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God…

In other words, we need to work at the unity which exists between us. We have to constantly come back to the basis of our unity, until the day when Christ returns, when we can say that we have all arrived to the same measure of faith, to the same knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And that takes time. Time we have to spend working at our faith together, and helping one another discover Christ. Those who know him well help those who know him less to know him better. And even those who know him well, as they speak with their younger brothers and sisters about what Christ is doing in their lives, will discover new facets of his person and his work.

So the first thing we are called to work at together is our unity: the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

The second thing we’re called to work at it the maturity of the body of Christ.

13c …to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

It is an almost universal truth: young people are easily swayed, and easily distracted. (Show of hands if you've looked at your phone during this sermon. You see?) When you reach a certain age, even if what you believe is absolute nonsense, at the very least, you are stable in that nonsense. After a certain age, you know what’s important for you, and where you’re going, and how you’re going to get there. Maturity in life means stability, even if it’s stability in folly.

And in the same way, spiritual maturity means spiritual stability. When you are spiritually mature, you're not just set in your ways; your ways are built on the solid foundation of the truth we find in Scripture, and we are set in those ways. We won’t be diverted by clever arguments or deceitful rhetoric—we are not tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. We are stable in the truth. We are no longer children.

And not only do we, individually, grow to spiritual maturity, but the whole body, together, grows to maturity as a body. 

My daughter Zadie is almost eighteen months old. She’s adorable.

She wobbles around on her little body—two tiny legs, a great big head. If she stops too fast, she’ll just keel right over: the force of gravity on that head is too great for her body to resist.

But as children grow, their proportions balance out. The body becomes stronger. The legs are able to stay under that head.

That’s the image Paul gives here. Just as our bodies grow, the church grows, and each individual member grows in the body, and each member grows to help stabilize the others.

We have different parts of the body, which serve different functions, but which serve those functions so that all the other parts might serve and grow correctly. If one part of the body disappears, or doesn’t serve as it should, that will inevitably have an impact on all the other parts.

Have you ever had an infected toenail? A toenail is a tiny part of the body, and honestly it’s hard to see what good it does. But when it’s infected, take my word for it—your whole body takes a hit. 

We are all members of his body, and the way we live our lives in Christ has an impact on our brothers and sisters. Your sin doesn’t just hurt you; it hurts your brothers and sisters too, even though they may never realize it. And by the same token, when you grow in the body, the other members of the body are better able to grow as well.

But we don't grow randomly. We grow up into Christ, who is the head of this body, and we draw our growth from Christ.

Our own growth, and our growth in the body, has one source, and one goal: Jesus Christ. A mature Christian community, is a community in which every member clearly sees Christ as he is revealed in Scripture, and can say without hesitation that Christ is everything for them. The source and the goal. The end and the beginning.

I’m sure you know this, but most of you probably don’t believer it: you’re going to get old. You’re going to suffer. You’ going to be crushed by the weight of the experiences life throws at us.

And I honestly don’t know how you’ll ever weather the trials that will come your way if Jesus isn’t enough for you. 

And Christ will never be enough for you if you aren’t growing together to be like him. If you aren’t growing together to the measure of the stature of Christ’s fullness. Christ is the measure of our maturity. He is the standard which we are all aiming for.

And we grow toward the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ together. We are one body.

So when we come to church, we are not coming to spend a private moment with God. We are entering once again into the working of a body in which every part depends on every other part, so that the whole body grows together towards the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, and towards the maturity which the body was designed for.

Brothers and sisters, that is how God plans to make his manifold wisdom known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Once again, it is not my job (as your pastor) to bring you all to unity and to maturity. That is your job. You are called to do this together. (And I am too, not as your pastor, but as your brother.)

So to close I’d encourage you to think and pray about two specific things.

Firstly, examine your own implication in your local church. If you come here regularly, examine your own implication in this church. 

Do you go to church, or do you belong to your church? Do you know to whom you are accountable? Do you know for whom you are called to care? Are you a part of the body, or do you occasionally visit the body?

Listen, I know it’s hard. I know there are a lot of things fighting for your attention. But you have to realize that you need the body of Christ.

Thursday night the folks in our community group were thanking Loanne and me because we often have people from the church at our place; they were thanking us for our hospitality.

But we told them that honestly, we don’t invite people from the church to our place mainly for them; we do it for us. Because it’s for this body that we were created. God didn’t create us so that we could get married and start a family. He created us so that we might live in his body, be a part of his family.

God did not design you to live for him outside of the body. He doesn’t save people, he saves A people. 

So give yourself to your church, however big or small it may be; be a member of that local body. And make it your goal, in everything you do, to build up the body of Christ, because that is why Christ saved you.

Secondly, examine the way you think about what you do when you come together to worship on Sunday, or when you spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ. 

What needs to change about the way you interact with one another, the way you come to church, the way you go about a simple meal, when you realize that it is your job to do the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ?

Here’s a challenge for you. (It’ll be impossible to do perfectly, because we’re forgetful, but it deserves our best effort.) Try to never have a conversation with another believer without thinking about, and praying for, the next fifty years. Try to never have an interaction with another Christian without realizing you’ll be seeing that face for all eternity, and that you are committed to that person, in Christ, for the rest of your life.

What is the church to you? And what are you to the church?

These are the questions Paul answers in this text. And if you plan on staying in church—any church—these are the questions you need to ask yourselves. And you need to be ready to give answers.

But there’s one final question: how does all of this work itself out in our day-to-day lives?

And that’s the question we’ll be tackling next week.