Eph 4:11-16 | "Out-fitting the Church for the Great Commission"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The book of Ephesians, we're going to start off in chapter 4.

And as you're turning there, let me just give a little introduction to what we're looking at.

Let me get there myself.

We're going to be in verse 11.

If you're taking notes, the title of the sermon today is Outfitting the Church for the Great Commission on a Global Scale.

I'll say it again.

We're talking about outfitting the church for the Great Commission on a global scale.

So let's read together, you follow along as I read our text for this morning.

It's Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

We're going to be on verses 11 through 16.

And this is Paul writing to the faithful saints at the Church of Ephesus nearly 2,000 years ago.

And he writes these words.

He says this.

And he gave some as apostles, that's Christ, in context.

Christ gave some as apostles and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we're to grow up in all aspects into him who is head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Father, we're grateful that you have called each one of us to be here this morning.

We're thankful that we would be here, that we could learn and grow from this inspired text from 2,000 years ago is given to the Apostle Paul to instruct the church how it must operate in your kingdom for your purposes.

We thank you in Christ's name.

Amen.

Outfitting the church, outfitting, equipping the church to bring God's word to the entire world is a massive undertaking.

How do we reach the entire world?

How do we reach the churches of the world?

So let's adjust our thinking a little bit on this text to put things in order.

Let's consider the Great Commission just for a moment to introduce this sermon this morning.

So just for a moment, turn with me over to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And we're going to consider the Great Commission as we think about equipping the church properly.

To put this in context, Jesus invited, after his resurrection, the eleven disciples to join him in Galilee.

And there he said these words.

We'll pick it up in context in verse 16.

It says, But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain, which Jesus had designated.

And when they saw him, they worshiped him, and some were doubtful.

I don't know about you, but I think I might have been one of those doubtful ones.

I mean, just before this happened, days before this happened, if you will, Jesus was crucified.

He was beaten, he was tortured, he was put in a tomb, stone was rolled away.

Later he resurrected, but still, nonetheless, I would probably be one of those doubtful ones.

And so, of these eleven, he's saying some were doubtful.

And they were the ones that were responsible to take this message to the entire world.

Verse 18.

So Jesus came up to them and spoke to them, saying, This is the great commission right here.

He says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Would you just go back 2,000 years?

Would you imagine that perhaps you are one of those eleven guys?

And Jesus gives you this great command, this great order.

I happen to believe, along with others, that the 500 that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 were probably present here during this Great Commission, but he's speaking specifically to 11 people.

And I want you to just look at the text.

If I'm one of these guys, how on earth am I supposed to do this?

He says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go, therefore, and make disciples.

That's the action.

Make disciples.

Of a few nations?

No.

In fact, it's the word is ethnicities.

Make disciples of every single ethnicity, you eleven?

All over the world?

Who Lord, I got a question, maybe if I'm in Galilee.

I got a question.

Lord, who's going to Grand Forks, North Dakota?

Of us 11.

I mean, we're going to go everywhere.

Who's going there?

Who's going to Perth, Australia?

Or maybe who's going to um, I think I have fellow Norwegians in here.

Who's going to Norway?

Wow.

That's quite a tall order, Jesus.

Okay, we can go there, but then you got to baptize them.

All of them?

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then he ratchets down the Great Commission even harder.

You got to teach them everything I've ever commanded you.

Oh no, Jesus, really?

There's only 11 of us here.

How on earth do you expect us to do this?

Okay, I'm picking that up on the white spaces in the text here.

I'm just imagining myself.

This is probably what I would say.

And then he says, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

To the end of the age?

Jesus, what are you talking about?

I want you to think that you are one of those people.

And out of those people, all of a sudden, you got 511 people.

We fast forward to the book of Acts, chapter 2, and Peter preaches a sermon to the very killers who put Jesus on the cross, and he implicates them as being his killers.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And all of a sudden the Holy Spirit pricks their heart.

You know what their answer was?

Uh-oh.

We killed the Messiah.

And they said, What do we do now?

I think maybe we would probably ask that question.

Okay, I'm guilty.

Uh now what?

Right?

Do they wait for the judges' orders to come down and they too get the capital punishment?

No.

They said, just repent.

Peter says, repent, believe in the gospel, be baptized.

Okay, now if I'm one of the 11, I'm thinking, okay, now we got 11, we got five, that's 511, we got 3,000, that's 3,511.

In chapter 4, they're gonna add 5,000 more people to the church.

All of a sudden, getting to Fargo, North Dakota, Grand Forks, doesn't seem all that bad even back then.

Maybe we could do this because now we got thousands.

All right, but they didn't make it.

So let's work through church history, church fathers from the first century to the third century.

They're refining the theology.

What does the Bible teach and how do we get people to understand it?

They did that the first 300 years, that generation's gone.

From 1200 to 1600, we had the Reformation.

What is salvation?

What does the Bible say about that?

Salvation is by grace through faith, not of works.

It's not your righteousness that gets you into heaven.

Oh, by the way, you have to have Jesus' righteousness acting on your behalf, or you won't go.

Those are the kinds of things that they had to teach in those days.

And so the Great Commission expanded throughout Europe, throughout the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, those generations are gone.

Who's picking up the mantle?

Who's gonna go into the world and teach the whole world and baptize them?

Who's gonna teach them everything that Jesus ever commanded them?

To observe them with delight, to want to love Christ by being obedient to him.

Who's gonna do that?

Well, so the church has grown.

And we finally made it to the point where we are here in Grand Forks because somebody was faithful along the way.

I don't know the church history of this area, but somebody was faithful along the way, and you know where it started?

It started in Galilee.

It started with faithfulness.

Somebody came here and the church grew, and here you are.

Turn with me back to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Because this passage, Ephesians, is a fulfillment of the Great Commission in and of itself, because it's an instruction, a direction about how the church ought to function.

What Jesus commanded those eleven disciples 2,000 years ago is precisely what he expects of you and I today.

Jesus calls us to make disciples by teaching the scriptures.

That's the 66 books of the Bible.

You see, it's limited.

It's not other books, it's those six books.

Excuse me, 66 books, to the entire ethnicities of the world.

When you think of reaching the world, don't think about the borders that we have around the globe.

Sorry, um, Mr.

Todd Hunter.

Think of the ethnicities.

The ethnicities, reaching the ethnicities of the world.

So in Ephesians 1, uh the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians nearly 2,000 years ago.

What this letter meant back then is exactly what that letter means right now.

The book of Ephesians is a great commission letter, as I said.

Paul, in the first three chapters, told his readers, known as faithful saints, who they are in Christ.

We call that theology.

He tells them who they are.

He only gives them one command in that entire section, and that is to go back and remember where you came from.

You were dead in your sins and transgressions.

Don't ever forget that.

God made you alive in Christ.

The rest of the book, chapter four and following, there's about, I don't remember now, but there's about 28 commands.

It's how you live in Christ, it's how you function as a church.

So in chapter 4, excuse me, chapter 1, verse 4, God chose them before the foundation of the world.

Chapter 1, verse 7, Jesus redeemed them and he forgave them.

And in chapter 1, 13, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit.

You see how the Trinity is involved in our salvation here.

In chapter 2, as I said, they were dead in their sins and transgressions, but God made them alive in Christ.

By grace you're saved, not of works.

You can't be good enough to go to heaven.

You'll never enter the kingdom of heaven answering the question why you should be there.

It's because I was a good person.

No, it's Christ's righteousness and his substitutionary atonement on the cross and your belief in him as the Lord and Savior.

So, chapter three, believers are among the ethnicities of the world, and they're welcomed into the church.

If you read chapter three in your own time, you'll find that as you look closely, you'll see that Jesus crucified racism with the cross.

It's there in the text, I promise you, read it.

Look closely.

He's reaching the ethnicities.

The ethnicities of the world are now a part of the church.

It's not just the Jews.

Chapter 4, verse 1.

He implores, no, he urges, he exhorts the faithful saints to walk worthily of God's choice of them, which we just understood from chapter 1, verse 4.

That's practical theology.

So chapter 4, verses 6, chapter 4, uh, verses 1 all the way through the end of chapter 6 is how to believe how to walk as a believer.

So chapter 4 through 6 describes Christians' worthy walk, or how they're to walk worthily of God's call in their life, in the church, in their marriages, in their families, uh parents and children, how they're supposed to function in their work, their places of work.

Let me get a little more specific.

Today, what we're looking at today is what you must consider as God's church.

How do we walk worthily of his calling so that you, the church, are equipped to replicate disciple making, not just here, but all over the world, multiple generations all over the world.

Ephesians 4, 11 through 16 really gives you three necessities to outfit or to equip the church for the Great Commission.

Three necessities to outfit the church for the Great Commission.

The first requirement to outfit the church for disciple making is gifted pastors to equip the church.

We saw that already in verses 11 and 12.

First, let's grasp the fact that what we're about to see applies to God's church here in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and his church in the Longway, Malawi, and His church in Urkhuksk, Russia, as well as Yangon, Myanmar.

God didn't say you have a gospel for every ethnicity, you have one gospel for every ethnicity.

And that's what we're talking about today.

The way the church functions here is the way it ought to function everywhere in the world.

In verse 7, in verse 11 through 12, Paul writes that Christ gives men specifically as gifts to the church.

You can see it there in the text.

Particularly, or specifically, God gave some men as apostles, some men as prophets, some men as evangelists and pastors and teachers.

For what purpose?

Verse 12.

Equipping the saints, the believers, the faithful ones in chapter 1 to do the work of service, to do the work of the ministry.

And since our time is limited today, I won't have time to focus on the apostles and the prophets except just to mention them.

But we're going to focus on pastors and teachers that Christ gives to the church.

It's his gift to the church.

So in verse 11, Christ gave apostles and prophets to the church to write the New Testament.

That was their role.

They wrote the New Testament.

Pastors and teachers, what's their role?

Pastors and teachers are those that exposite those writings.

Scripture from 2,000 years ago.

And to bring God's word to bear on our lives.

Why?

So that you and I are equipped to work together as the body of Christ to cause the church to grow.

We get that in verse 16.

Until when?

Matthew 28, 20, until the end of the age.

That's the Great Commission.

So what we do in this church is something we continue to do.

The Great Commission is to replicate Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 16, so that pastors are equipping saints in churches all over the world.

Ephesians 4:11–16

It's the same thing that Jesus said in Matthew 28.

Well, qualified pastors.

Qualified pastors, as defined by passages like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, they serve God in the church.

And those qualified pastors have a threefold purpose and the text.

Don't miss it.

They run by very quickly.

Do you see the purpose in verse 12?

Pastors and teachers do what?

They equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ.

If you're a believer, you're in a church, and you are working towards whatever gift God has given you to help build up the body of Christ.

That's your purpose as a believer.

Pastors and teachers are not hired in the same way as employees in the marketplace to do all the works of the ministries and the church.

You see, Christ Himself, he gave pastors as a gift to equip you to do the work of service, the ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ.

You see, as pastors exercise Christ's gift and their lives, they they tenderly shepherd God's sheep.

Notice the emphasis on God's sheep.

Your pastor would never say, in a sense, that you are his flock, although there's some truth to that.

More appropriately, you are God's flock, and God has placed your pastor and your elders here to shepherd this flock.

So as pastors, they exercise that gift and they guide God's people through the preaching of his word.

Well, then what?

Well, then believers are biblically equipped with their spiritual gift to accurately apply the text of Scripture to their specific service that they give to God to build up the body of Christ.

In other words, pastors teach you how best to function in maybe your gift.

How do you serve in whatever ministry you might be serving in?

They want you to be informed biblically about how to serve.

You see, ministry isn't a spectator sport where you watch the professionals compete against one another all over town to see you can filter the most people through their doors on a Sunday morning.

That's not the purpose.

You see, we're all in this together.

Our goal is to be obedient to Christ's call and the Great Commission, and that is to make much of Christ and very little of ourselves.

You might recall that John the Baptist emphatically said that Jesus must increase and that he, John, must decrease.

You see, the message is ministry isn't about you and it's not about me.

It's about him making disciples through you and me.

He's the one that makes the disciples.

You see, a true shepherd expositor lovingly guides you through the authorial intent of the Bible every week because there's nothing more harmful to the cause of Christ than implementation of a ministry that seems legitimate, but in reality it works against God's revealed purposes in Scripture.

We are to teach them everything He commanded us.

And we get that from the text.

I want you to look down at verse 12 again.

I want you to look at the word equipping in verse 12.

It means to make fully ready.

It suggests me perfection or completion.

To make perfect is the idea, to equip, to equip the church for perfection.

Equip in verse 12 is also a medical term for you in the medical world.

It literally means to set a bone, a broken bone.

I know something about this.

You see, when I was a young tyke, about seven years old, in my neighborhood in Redondo Beach, California, my brother and I were running in the neighbor's front yard, and their front yard, the grass, and there's a driveway that's kind of at an angle.

And he's about four and a half years older than me.

He leapt over the driveway and was fine, but my leg, when it hit the ground, went into the hole in the cinder block wall.

And my head hit the other side of the wall.

Broke my leg in two places as a little seven-year-old guy.

It hurt.

I remember it to this day, and I remember the doctor telling my parents we got to set those bones.

And when they described to me what that is, I didn't want that to happen.

I didn't want to go through that.

But you know what?

Even though it really hurt, I'm so glad that they did that because I wouldn't be walking normal today.

Pastors are to set the church in order.

They're to set the bone so it functions properly.

That's what a gifted shepherd does.

They set the church by equipping God's people with the Bible to serve so that it functions in a way that the Lord intended, much like the Lord intended my left leg to function.

So that the body is built up, verse 12.

Well, this is the exact same purpose that applies here at Faith Evangelical in Grand Forks as it applies in Kazan City, Philippines, and the Soweto Township in South Africa near Johannesburg.

So Christ gifts the church with trained pastors for a purpose, and that is to equip his people to do the work of the ministry.

Oh, by the way, all over the world.

All over the globe.

But there's a second necessity to outfit the church for the Great Commission, to equip the church for the Great Commission, to set it straight, and that is this: two, gifted pastors unify and defend the church.

We see that in verses 13 and 14.

In those two passages, those two verses, we see that Christ gave pastors to both unify the church and to defend the church.

The idea is if you're not a part of a church, you're not being built up in the unity of the faith, and you are more likely to not be defended by false teaching.

Well, let's deal with unity.

In verses 11 and 12, we see that pastors must equip or outfit the saints, the believers, for the work of service.

To what end?

To the building up of the body of Christ.

You might say, well, for how long does the church have to do this?

Aren't there other things we can be about doing?

When can we as the church stop doing verses 11 and 12?

Well, in verse 13, I'm glad you asked that question because Paul thought about that.

Verse 13 answers the question.

His reply in verse 13, until.

Until pastors continue to equip saints to do the work of the ministry, until what?

Until what purpose or what end?

Well, until all of us attain or arrive at, you could say, reach the same destination, which is the unity of the faith.

Pastor, you got your job cut out for you.

In other words, Christ will keep outfitting the church with gifted pastors and teachers until they all arrive at the destination known as the unity of the faith.

Not a faith, not many faiths.

He talks about the unity of the faith.

I draw your attention to verse 5, where Paul singles out faith.

In verse 5, Paul singles out faith as what?

One faith.

One single faith.

Look intently at verse 13 again.

Do you see the two words together, faith, preceded by the article the?

The is the article.

It was fun last night.

Somebody asked me, are there many articles in the Greek languages?

And I think I said something like it, it has zillions of them.

And that's what's in my notes here.

The Greek language has zillions of articles where we translate the word the.

So Greek experts refer to the the in our text as an article what's called the par excellence.

I love that, a theological term for the word the.

As par excellence, it points out that the faith is faith being in a class all by itself.

In other words, there is no other faith.

There is the faith, and that's it, one faith.

Let me show you how this works.

You know this well.

John 14, 6.

Jesus was crystal clear about the kind of faith that he meant.

He was talking about when he talked to Thomas.

He says, I am what?

I am the way.

Article par excellence.

I am the truth.

I am the life.

No one comes to who?

The Father.

Article par excellence.

There is no other Father.

But through me, Jesus says.

You would know this in Acts 4.12.

Peter was very direct with the religious leaders, threatening to kill him for preaching God's word.

For preaching that there is salvation and no one else.

You wouldn't see it in most English Bibles, but there is an article of par excellence there.

Not in the New American Standard, but it's there in the Greek language.

And what he says is there is the salvation and no one else, for there is no name under heaven, that's Jesus, that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

That's the article par excellence.

He wants us to be equipped with the faith until the very end.

So back in verse 13 in Ephesians 4, the unity of the faith speaks of substance.

Because the content, the substance of what we believe is what drives what we practice.

You see, what we do.

That's why Paul started out with the first three chapters of this book to tell the faithful saints who they are and where they came from.

They were dead corpses made alive by God Himself.

Don't you ever forget that, he says.

And then he tells them how to function in the remaining portions of the book.

So Christ gives pastors to the church so that we can have a unified understanding of the faith.

In verse 13, Paul drives for impact.

He implores the church to strive towards the unity of the faith.

That's biblical faith.

For verse 13, the Greek word is epigenosis, from which we get the word knowledge or gnosis in the Greek.

It's a deep knowledge, it's a full understanding, a complete comprehension of who they're in, verse 13.

Of the Son of God.

Pastors are given to us by God Himself.

They're trained, and their job is to give us a complete comprehension of the Son of God.

Your pastor has a very tall order.

Are you praying for him?

Your elders.

They have a huge responsibility.

But you know what?

It's not just them, it's the pastors and churches all over the world that need pastors like your pastor.

This is the reason trained biblical expositors in Christ's church are so important.

We need shepherd expositors in the pulpit, declaring with bold confidence what the Bible says and what the Bible means by what the Bible says.

Why?

So that verse 13.

The church resembles an immature man?

We want immature churches, Paul?

Is that what it says?

So the church resembles a mature man.

The church ought to be like a mature person.

To what degree?

To well, to the extent that it measures up to the stature which belongs to Christ.

That's how mature.

This church is in pursuit of excellence, which belongs to Christ.

This is true in North Dakota, as it is in Nagasaki and Newfoundland.

It's the same Great Commission, you see.

It's not an American Great Commission, it's Jesus' Great Commission.

And a few moments ago we saw in verses 13 and 14 that Jesus gives pastors to both unify the church and also to defend the church.

Let's talk about defend for a moment.

First, in verse 14, we read the words as a result.

Do you see that in verse 14?

Meaning the reason Christ gave gifted pastors to the church is so that believers will not be deceived by the trickery of false teachers.

This can come in many ways and in many portions.

It can come within the church, sadly, by those who are not trained in God's word, by those who don't love God and his word, and it can come from the world, the world instructing us to believe and behave in certain ways and say things that the Bible would never support us saying and doing.

Trickery.

Several years ago, Debbie and I were enjoying a peaceful canoe ride on Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay.

Anybody ever been there?

It's this massive lake.

If you were to look on your California-Nevada map, it's right where that corner takes a turn.

Very cold.

It's about 8,000 foot level.

We were there in the summertime, thankful, but that water was still cold.

The weather was perfect, the lake was calm, and about a mile into our paddling journey, the winds kicked up and the waves began to get very large, gigantic.

And it only took moments for this to happen.

And immediately, just as the text says here, we were like children thrown from the boat into the cold water.

About two hundred yards from the shore.

And as I looked at the shore, I saw this mountain and I saw boulders around the shoreline, as if, okay, we can swim over there, but how are we going to get out?

The harsh winds and the massive waves made it impossible for us to swim in that current.

And I remember trying to look over these waves, and I couldn't find another boat on the water.

I didn't see anything out there.

They were so high we couldn't see.

But thankfully, a large pontoon boat.

Anybody have a large pontoon boat?

You need to get one for guys like me.

Driven by a state farm agent.

He says, Um, you need some help?

The man in the family.

No, we're fine.

Debbie's like, yeah, we, yep, we need help.

So we hopped in the boat and away we went.

Two miles to the shore where my parents ended up picking us up.

Here's what I'm driving at.

Verse 14, as shepherds equip saints with sound doctrine, the faith, the faith, they will not be pictured as children tossed about by every wind and every wave, trickery, deadly teachings, trickery from craftiness and deceitful scheming.

If you're not faithfully in the church, exposed to expositional preaching, you, my friend, are in great danger.

May I warn you.

You're in great danger because you will believe just about anything.

Human beings are a people of faith.

Even atheists have faith that there is no God.

That's why we're in a church that teaches God's word.

So we've seen that God provides the church with trained pastors to equip believers to do the work of the ministry, and we've considered the second necessity to outfit the church, to equip the church for the Great Commission, and that is this pastors must unify the church in the faith so that believers can quickly recognize deadly doctrines and false teachers.

The third requirement to outfit the church for the Great Commission demands for the entire body, that's all of us, to work together.

It's not just the pastors, it's not just the elders, it's the entire body working together to fulfill what Jesus gave those eleven so long ago.

You see, gifted pastors equip each members, each member to grow the church.

Church growth is not just the pastor's responsibility, it's our entire responsibility, whether here or anywhere internationally.

We see that in verses 15 and 16.

Verse 15 first talks about growing up in all aspects in Christ.

I want you to see a stark contrast between verses 14 and 15.

You have to watch very closely.

Church growth can never occur without the spoken word of truth in what?

In love.

Truth spoken in love is what causes the church to grow in Christ.

In verse 14, children are pictured by their susceptibility to believe deceptive teachings.

But here, in verse 15, maturity requires truth.

So rather than being tossed about by every wind and wave of deceitful doctrines, verse 15, pastors equip the body to be about speaking the truth in love.

It's interesting.

Some people would rather be loving, I put that in air quotes, would rather be loving by not speaking the truth.

They'd rather err on the no words side of the gospel than the living words of the gospel.

If yours is a silent gospel, a strategy of convict them of the gospel void of speaking, then Paul has a couple of questions for you in Romans 12.

He asks these questions, excuse me, Romans 10.

First, how will they believe in him whom they have not heard?

The Great Commission is a speaking commission.

Second, how will they hear without a preacher?

To you, Paul writes, so faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

If you're not exposed to God's word, then there is ultimately no understanding of repentance, no understanding that it's Jesus' righteousness, not your righteousness, that gets you to heaven.

It's the price he paid on the cross that removes your sin and forgives your sin when you ask for forgiveness that takes you into his presence.

Void of those things, you have no hope.

You say, Well, I'm afraid of offending a family member or a friend.

To you, Jesus says in John 15, 16, excuse me, 15, 18, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you, and they crucified him.

A few verses later, in John 15, Jesus says that the world hated both him and the Father without a cause.

We are to be Christ's living mouthpiece in the world.

This is a messed up world.

Now more than ever, the world needs the truth of Scripture, and they need it from you who are dedicated and boldly able to proclaim it.

You know what?

Verse 15, speaking, communicating, articulating the truth is the loving thing to do.

Because it allows us to grow up in Him, the head, as He says, even Christ.

But in verse 16, there's more to church growth than you might think.

As you're exposed to expository preaching, you'll be unified in the faith and not be deceived by false teachers and hucksters, peddling their heretical doctrines and silly teachings.

You'll be equipped to understand that their plausible ideas are ridiculous because you have the authority of God's word, the inerrancy of Scripture.

As the love of the Lord, the love of the truth, is brought to bear on our lives in verse 16, the whole body, the church, is held together by individual parts, each member working together as individuals.

And we would say, Paul, to what end?

When does it end, Paul?

What's the result of believers and the local church working together on a global scale?

Verse 16, you ought to see it there.

Each believer working in unison, buttressed by sound biblical truth that causes something to happen.

What is it that happens?

Verse 16.

We, the faithful saints that Paul writes to in Ephesians chapter 1, we cause the growth of the body, the church.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

We cause the church to grow and to build itself up in what?

Verse 16.

In love.

This is the Great Commission strategy.

Jesus.

This is Jesus' method for church growth.

This is Jesus' driving purpose to reach the ethnicities of the entire world with the gospel.

If we were to turn back to Matthew 28 and look at the Great Commission, and I I might have been one of the eleven who would have said, maybe you would have said it, but but Lord, I got a question for you.

What happens if if if your strategy isn't the right one?

Okay, what what different what can we try differently that you're giving us here?

We might say, Lord, what's plan B?

If teaching the whole world, all the ethnicities of the world, everything that you ever commanded to observe them and to baptize them and to teach them, and that you would be with us till the end of the age, if, Lord, if that plan doesn't work, then what?

May I say to you, there is no plan B.

The Great Commission is the Great Commission.

This is what He's given us to do.

Trained shepherd expositors in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Australia, China, the Congo, Siberia, and the Middle East, and the remotest parts of the earth are Christ's gift to the church to equip the saints and their villages and their towns and their cities to do something.

To reach their cities and towns and villages with the gospel of Christ.

They equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.

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

Today you've seen how we must walk worthily of his calling so that you're equipped to replicate disciple making all over the world for multiple generations.

That's the Great Commission.

The challenge is to do it here.

In your church, Grand Forks, North Dakota.

This is your mission field.

And as you do that here, and as you are doing it here, as you've faithfully done, you will, believe me, you won't be constrained from reaching the ethnicities of the world with the gospel of Christ.

There will be nothing more that you can do than to say, let me be a part of that.

To whatever extent that God has gifted you to be a part of it, do it with all your might.

Be a part of what God is doing.

Help other churches around the world to do it.

But how will you personally help them?

The answer to that question resides in this body of believers.

How are we going to do what Jesus told the eleven 2,000 years ago?

If you haven't already, it's time to put together a plan, a strategy, map it out.

How are we going to do it?

What missionaries and what agencies or who amongst our own selves are we going to support based upon biblical principles?

Are they qualified to be an elder in your church?

Because if they're not, they don't deserve to be on the field.

They're out there equipping others.

This is the Great Commission.

So our study has helped us to see three necessities to outfit the church and the Great Commission on a global scale, and that is gifted pastors to equip the church, verses 11 and 12.

Gifted pastors to unify and defend the church.

We see that in 13 and 14.

And this is where you come in.

Gifted pastors to equip each member, to cause the church to grow, to encourage you and the spiritual gift that God has given you to cause the church to grow.

That's what they're here for.

And that's what we're here for as a body together to accomplish.

I challenge you to take up the mantle and say, Lord, where do I fit in?

And then be about that.

Be about that.

Father, we thank you this morning for the truth of Scripture that you would give this passage, this book, to the Apostle Paul to write to the believers in Ephesus and all over Asia Minor in those years, to write to faithful saints, to tell them who they are as believers, and then not to just leave them with a bunch of empty theology, but to tell them how to function as a church, how to function as a husband and a wife, and a mom and a dad, as a child to their parents and as workers in the marketplace.

The book of Ephesians, Lord, is a masterpiece.

It is the Great Commission.

And if we live like you have called us to live here, Lord, I can see how you would set this world aflame with the word of truth as you send people out from this congregation to reach many around the world, whether they stay or they go.

Would you answer that prayer, Father?

We thank you in Christ's name.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.