Celebrating 40 Years of Spiritual Leadership: Ephesians 4:7-16

The sermon text this morning comes from Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Be reading verses 7 to 16.

Last week we were looking at one of the promises of God, Romans 5, 1 to 5, and we do that once a month if you're new here this year.

Once a month we just look at one of God's precious promises, and we our prayer is to pray it in, that promise, and to live it out.

Well, we're back this week to our sermon series of a few weeks, celebrating 40 years of God's faithfulness to Alexandria Presbyterian Church.

This past May marked our 40th anniversary when we got started as a church in Old Town, Alexandria.

And through all the journeys of all the different buildings until God brought us here, it's been quite a journey.

And this sermon series is just highlighting what we believe to be some of the most crucial provisions of the Lord to get us to where we are today.

And as I was thinking and praying about this topic, I didn't have to think too hard.

God providing spiritual leaders is one of the most important answered prayers that God has given this church.

And that's what we're going to look at this morning.

The Apostle Paul, writing from prison to the Ephesians.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to them.

In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 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, and deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ, 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.

This is the precious word of God, the powerful word of God.

Father, we thank you for this passage.

We thank you for these truths.

We thank you.

I thank you this morning for the evidence of the working out of these truths in this congregation over 40 years.

But Lord, we need to be instructed.

We need to be taught by your Spirit right now, today.

So teach us afresh.

Make these truths come alive in our understanding and in our practice and living them out, we pray.

Amen.

So the gift of spiritual leaders, and I'm not thinking this morning only of pastors and teachers that were listed in this text.

No, I'm going to unpack this a little bit.

I have a lot more people in mind as I think of what God has done in this church over the years.

And the first point of the outline, right out of the gate, the gift of leaders.

Verses 7 to 9.

But grace was given to each one of us.

You know, he's including you, follower of Christ.

Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he had led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

What Paul is doing here is he's quoting Psalm 68, 18, where he was talking, a David's Psalm talking about a victory from the past, going back to Mount Sinai, where God was commemorating and celebrating his leading of his people through battle after battle, rescuing them from their enemies.

And God brought them to the place where they were able to see that it was God's hand that protected them, that delivered them.

And so the psalmist talks about these gifts that this ascended Lord would one day give to his church.

And now Paul applies this picture to Christ's ascension after his victory.

His victory from what?

His victory over sin, his victory over death.

After Jesus was crucified on the cross, he was raised again on the third day by the power of the Spirit.

He was raised from the dead.

Forty days later, he ascended into heaven.

And what this passage is saying is when Jesus took his rightful place on the throne right next to the Father in heaven.

It was like Christmas Day.

I got a lot of gifts.

I have a lot of gifts.

Come get yours.

Never thought about it like that.

Come get yours.

Every Christian has received spiritual gifts from Jesus Christ.

Why?

He earned them through his victory over death, over sin.

Now, this by itself ought to wake us up, right?

Don't take this for granted.

Don't be nonchalant about the gifts that he's given you.

So let's go back to Christmas Day.

Maybe we've had the experience, maybe not.

Maybe a gift was handed to you and you opened it up and you thought, well, this is not exactly what I wanted.

But you put on a smile, thinking, I'm going to return it.

Well, you know what?

You can't return these gifts.

You shouldn't want to return these gifts.

I want you to hear this, Christian.

Because you're a Christian, because you're in the family of God, Jesus said, Here is your gift.

Here are your gifts.

And they're the perfect gift for you.

The Greek word that he uses, measure, gets even more specific.

He's even measured out the degree of the gift.

We're not all gifted equally, even in the gifting of the areas that we have.

Some people are gifted more in certain areas.

Don't complain.

Alright?

Don't be envious about that.

You take your gift that He gave you.

And you say, Thank you, Jesus.

I understand.

This came at a great cost.

Now I want to use this gift.

As a matter of fact, the Bible is quite clear.

One day, one day you're going to give an answer to how you use your gift.

Did you know that's in the Bible?

One day you're going to give an answer.

You're going to face Jesus.

I mean it's good.

It's going to be good, but he's going to say, What did you do with my gift?

Are you going to be ready to answer that?

What did you do with my gift?

I gave you.

That was just a perfect gift for you.

What'd you do with it?

How'd you use it?

You didn't just put it off to the side, did you?

You didn't say, no, I don't like this gift.

No.

No, you're not thinking, if that's what you're thinking.

Now, this is your gift.

This is what he's saying.

He gives gifts.

The gifts that Christ gives to his church come at a high cost.

And he gave verse 11, and he gave some of the greatest gifts, most useful gifts he gave to his apostles and to the prophets, who were writers of scripture, organs of revelation, because this was necessary.

This was at the foundation of the church.

But he didn't stop there.

He gave the gifts of evangelism to some.

Some people have the gifts of evangelists today.

There are many people who have the gifts of pastors and teachers.

Now, all you Greek scholars out there, let's dive in, okay?

Look at the definite article before.

See, look in the English, look at the definite article.

It's right before what?

The pastors and teachers.

This grammatically applies to pastors and teachers.

The pastors and teachers.

Bible makes that clear in places like Acts chapter 20, where Paul addressed the elders at Ephesus.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

He makes it clear in 1 Peter chapter 5, other places.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

What's the point of it?

The point of it is this every elder is a pastor.

Every pastor is an elder.

Now I know that's new for some of you.

So technically, you would be correct if you called your ruling elders in this church pastor.

That would be biblical.

Because it's one group, pastors and teachers.

Now the Bible makes it clear in other places that some people are called with heightened gifts of teaching to be what normally we think of as pastors.

But this is one of the great gifts that Jesus gives to the church.

He gives spiritual leaders, ruling elders, and teaching elders who serve together to shepherd the flock of God.

That's one of the great gifts that Jesus gives to his church.

Let me just pause for a moment.

Pray for your spiritual leaders.

Pray for your elders.

They work hard.

I won't tell you how many meetings they go to in a year, but it's a whole lot.

It's in the dozens.

Pray for your elders.

Thank your elders.

Encourage your elders, even as they encourage you.

Verse 16.

From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.

When each part is working properly, now he's expanding the vision.

He's not thinking here now of just pastors and teachers, elders.

Now he's thinking of the whole scope of leaders in a church.

And I'm looking at a lot of leaders.

There's a lot of leaders in this church.

And don't think just of elders or just of deacons, deaconesses, staff.

They're leaders.

But I was thinking in preparing the sermon, I was thinking about many of you moms.

Your leaders.

Your leaders at home.

The way that you care for the children.

The way that you take care of the children.

The way that you love those children 24-7.

You're leaders.

He's now got the whole scope and sight.

The gift of leaders.

I'm thinking of teachers in covenant kids.

Thank you.

I'm thinking of teachers in Protoss.

Thank you.

I'm thinking of those who equip the adults in key equipping.

Thank you.

I'm thinking of you in the nursery.

Thank you.

For that ministry.

I'm thinking of Covenant Fellowship Group leaders.

Thank you for that ministry.

Those of you who are in administration.

Those of you who serve, servant leadership is always the right, is the best leadership, isn't it?

Servant leadership is always the best leadership.

And I think of those of you who open this building early on Sundays.

And I think of those of you who serve in hospitality to get things ready.

And those of you who hang around and wait till everybody leaves to close this building up.

There's a lot of leaders in this church.

The gift of leaders.

Secondly, the purpose of leaders, verse 12.

To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

That's what this is all about.

It all comes down to this to equip.

The Greek word is interesting.

It means to mend something that's broken.

Like a net, probably most commonly in that time.

Well, it's not necessarily, it can be expanded, not just something that is broken, but something that needs to be mended, something that needs to be built up.

And oh, by the way, he's not just talking about a job here.

He's talking about hearts as well.

Don't our hearts need to be restored?

Don't our hearts need to be built up before we can really serve properly?

I think so.

I think so.

This is our biblical mandate, but it starts with the elders in the church.

It starts with the elders, the pastors, the teachers.

Their job is not to do all the work.

And some of you are coming from churches where that's the case.

I know because I hear this, I've heard this hundreds of times over the years that you've told me.

I came from, I'm exhausted.

I came from a church where it seemed hardly anybody was doing anything.

There was just a small group of people.

A small group of people, and it seems like they were doing everything.

And that's very unhealthy.

And it's not biblical.

It's called the 2080 rule, if you've never heard it, where 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work.

That's a recipe for disaster.

That is not biblical.

That is not Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 4 is just what we've said so far.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Every Christian, understanding that they've been given a gift from Jesus Christ Himself.

By the way, the church doesn't give you the gift.

No human being gives you a gift, that gift.

Jesus himself gives you that gift.

A healthy church is a church where the whole congregation understands that Jesus gave me this gift.

And I'm going to use it.

And I'm going to serve him and I'm going to serve the family of God with the gifts he's given me.

And everybody's in the pile.

You got your hand in the pile.

You're not here as a spectator.

You're not.

You're not here to sit on the sidelines and just watch.

No.

You may start there, that's fine.

But don't stay there.

Put your uniform on.

Get on the field.

That's where the action is.

The purpose of leaders is to equip the body of Christ for works of ministry.

Richard Baxter, the Reformed pastor who wrote a great book called The Reformed Pastor, who had many families in his church, when he would visit each family, he would ask this same question time and time again, What are you doing to serve the Lord and the family of God?

That's a good question.

What are you doing?

He would say this to them when he'd go into their homes.

What are you doing to serve the family of God?

That's a good question.

So what are you doing?

What are you doing to serve the family of God with Jesus' gifts?

So that the whole body gets stronger and grows.

It's sort of like in the passage that Alex read earlier from Corinthians, it'd sort of be like going to the gym and only working out one part of your body.

You know, if you only work out your arms, you're going to look a little funny.

You know, these bionic arms, biceps, but if the rest of you is really, you know, skinny or out of shape.

No.

Work the whole body.

Develop the whole body.

And that is true spiritually when we live out this doctrine before us this morning.

I am excited about the new leadership development plan that Elder Mark Allen has been working on for some time now.

And we've been Mark has been collaborating with the pastors and staff and elders, and we're just trying to better understand.

We're praying this in, and we've been framing this in for quite a while now.

Over a year.

And we're going to introduce this plan to you more next Sunday night when you come to the congregational meeting.

But we're going to lay this out.

We're just asking God to show us how to do even a better job of equipping the body of Christ at this church.

And so one big change is this fall, this October, we're not going to have election for officers.

And that's going to be the first time since I've been here.

We're going to delay it about six months.

We're going to delay it till the spring of 2027.

And that's going to give us more time to come alongside potential leaders for the office of elder or deacon for those who would be appointed as deaconesses, women who would be appointed.

We're just going to take more time to be able to walk alongside and to equip and prepare.

You see, we're talking about equipping, and equipping begins with teaching, but equipping never ends with teaching.

And this is a vital mistake that many churches make.

You can't go directly from telling to delegating.

I mean you can, but you're going to pay for it.

Are you with me?

Don't go from teaching to delegating.

And you teachers know that.

And if you're the many of you who are managers, you know that.

Tell them what to do.

Show them how to do it.

Be available for their questions because once they start doing it, they're going to have questions.

Once they really start to understand what the job entails, be there for their questions.

Coach them.

Teach, coach, support, and then you delegate.

Ken Blanchard, a Christian business leader, after decades of working with leaders, executive leaders in corporations, businesses, but also churches, said this.

What you never want to do is to go from directing to delegating.

When you do this, you produce disillusioned learners.

And I know of no organization.

As notoriously guilty of producing disillusioned learners as the church.

That's his conclusion after decades.

That's a sad indictment on the church.

We're not going to do that.

I mean, we've been trying, but we want to get better.

Lord, how can we do this even better?

This equipping.

So we're differentiating between teaching, which is the transmission of ideas, thoughts, values.

We're differentiating between teaching and training.

Training is the transmission of skills.

What we just said.

Tell them what to do, show them how to do it.

Come alongside and be available for questions and feedback and times of prayer together, certainly.

How are we doing so far, huh?

Are we all in?

Now this is this is serious stuff.

It makes a huge difference in a church when the people obey God's word from Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And when they don't, if they don't understand it, it makes a big difference.

Back to verse 7.

Verse 7, to each one of us, these gifts have been given.

Have you discovered your gift?

Are you still looking for it?

Pastor Josh would love to come alongside of you.

We have a curriculum called Discover Your Divine Design.

Pastor Josh would love to come alongside.

Many of you have done this.

Some of you have gone through Pastor Paul Ford's teaching on gifts last year, and that was helpful.

But we have resources here to help you.

Have you discovered your gift?

That Jesus gave you.

Not the church.

The church doesn't really give you a job.

If the church is giving you a job, it's not going to go well.

If Jesus gives you a job, and you know that, and you're equipped, it's going to go well.

And you're going to feel you're going to feel good and positive in a good way about that.

Because it's from Jesus.

Which brings us to the third and final point.

The impact of leaders.

The impact.

And when I say the impact, again, I'm not thinking just of elders and deacons, of ordained leaders.

I'm thinking of the impact downstairs.

With all those covenant kids.

I'm thinking of the impact upstairs and the teenagers.

And can I just say it again?

Elder Mark said it last week.

I want to thank the 11 of you volunteers, adults, that just jumped in in ProTOS ministry this last year.

And thank you for just working so hard together as volunteers.

But the impact, but I'm thinking about the impact at home too, as we teach.

Look at verse 13.

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood.

The impact of equipping the body of Christ is spiritual maturity.

That's what he's saying.

The impact of equipping the body of Christ is we all grow up spiritually together.

That's a healthy church.

We don't leave people behind.

I want to serve the body of Christ.

And oh, by the way, I'd be remiss if I said the ministry of prayer.

Are you on the intercessory prayer list yet?

If not, why not?

Every Thursday, Bailey sends out pages of very specific prayer requests.

If you haven't seen it, you're in for something.

These are personal requests.

People asking for prayer for their hearts.

People asking for prayer for their own transformation.

People asking for heartfelt prayers for their health, for their careers, for their families.

These are beautiful prayers.

Now that's a very important gift ministry.

And especially for some of us, you know, if some people are homebound, well, what can I do?

Oh, I grew up in a church where there were some powerful praying women that were in their 80s and 90s.

I think they prayed that church through a lot of good stuff.

Where's your ministry?

When we all are in this together, we we grow and mature.

We don't reach spiritual maturity by being on our own, staying by ourselves, isolated.

We were designed to be under the leadership of pastors and teachers, teaching us, equipping us, feeding us.

We were designed to be actively involved in the family of God, each one of us serving one another with the gift that King Jesus has given us.

This is how we mature.

This is not a church.

This is not a church that thinks that this happens when you just go off by yourself and spend eight hours a day studying theology.

It doesn't work that way.

One of the driest environments I've ever been around is seminary.

True.

One of the driest environments I've ever been around is seminary, where men go to prepare to be pastors and they study all week Greek, Hebrew, church history, theology.

They study, study, study, study, study, study.

And it can be like a spiritual desert because they're not really tending to their own hearts.

They're trying to get all this stuff in their heads so that they'll be able to teach the church.

I'm not saying that's true every time, but I'm telling you, it's a thing.

You've got to get out.

I can't equip if I'm just in my office reading my books all week.

I'm not going to do that.

We've got to be together.

We've got to be teaching.

We've got to be training.

We've got to be equipping.

We've got to be able to, we've got to do life together, we've got to do ministry together.

That's how it works.

And then we mature.

Some of those people that I've known, I think, have been some of the most critical people I've ever met.

Some of the most critical people I've ever been around of people that just sit and study and they're all by themselves.

And they're just isolated.

That's not for you.

Jesus doesn't want you to be a theological bobblehead.

Okay?

All head, skinny body.

No, he wants your whole body to get stronger and develop.

This is the way it happens.

What we're talking about this morning.

So we'll no longer be children.

He says, verse 14.

He says, look, I don't want you to still be a kid.

You know, when you're five years old, that's cool.

You're five years old.

You know, you're this tall.

But you're supposed to grow.

You're supposed to grow.

You're supposed to be what you're supposed to be at this time and season of your life.

And everybody wins in the church when that happens.

Rather, instead, by contrast, and then he says, speaking the truth in love.

You know, actually, the word speaking is not in the Greek.

It's supplied.

You know what it says, actually, literally?

Truthing love.

Now, the way you truth love is you do have to speak sometimes.

Truthing love.

Speaking the truth in love.

This is how we minister.

John Stopp put it like this: truth becomes hard if it's not softened by love.

Love becomes soft if it's not strengthened by truth.

This is how we grow spiritually.

When each part is working properly, working as it is designed to work, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

I thank God for 40 years of this at APC.

I thank God for all the elders, the deacons, all the CFG leaders, teachers of the children, the teenagers.

Without that, we wouldn't be here today.

Without people using their gifts, equipping the body of Christ, we wouldn't be here today.

And so when I think of celebrating 40 years of God's faithfulness at APC, I had to preach on this one.

We look back 40 years, but we're also looking forward.

We can't stop.

If anything, we want to pick up the pace.

If anything, we want to be more effective in doing this.

Last thing I'm going to say is this.

You can't stay in the study.

You have to get into the family room.

You can't stay in the study.

You want to be in the study.

Study is important, but you gotta get out of the study.

You gotta get out of the library, if you will.

You gotta get into the family room where people actually live.

You got into the family room where people communicate with each other.

You gotta get in the family room where you can see the needs of the people that are in the family.

Let's live in the family room.

I mean, we we study.

We're not we're we do study.

We study hard.

We study hard.

But we understand that Christian maturity requires living it out with the family of God, using our gifts to serve King Jesus.

That's a great thing.

Let's pray.

Father, I just want to thank you for the people in this sanctuary this morning in this church.

I thank you for the gifts that you have given, King Jesus.

You have given beautiful gifts to every Christian in this room.

Jesus, you you knew what gift to give, which one, to each of us.

You measured it in proportion to what you knew was needed.

And now we we want to thank you.

Uh Lord, rather than being annoyed by rather than being annoyed that we're supposed to serve in the church.

Oh, God, forgive us if we think that.

Let us see it as a blessing to serve in the family of God.

We're gonna thank you again today, King Jesus, for the great cost to you to give us our gifts for the purpose of equipping the body of Christ to teach and to train, and yes, to delegate.

But Lord, we want to see the body of Christ grow strong here.

And I do thank you for all the leaders over all the years that you've used to bless this church.

May you continue to call and to raise up leaders, to continue to lead this church, to equip leaders, to make leaders.

Lord, this is our prayer.

To your glory in Jesus' name.

Amen.