Ephesians: The Good Church (Week 2) - As Each Part Does Its Work

Now I want to begin by sharing one of our one of my favorite

movies. A couple weeks ago my wife and I

sat down with the kids and we watched the movie Incredibles.

Anybody OK, a few of you enjoy it.

The Incredibles, it's an awesome movie.

It's kind of an all time classic, one of the strongest I

think of of Disney and so on so forth.

And it's a story about a family, and it's a story about a family

that has superpowers. And basically the plot line is

this, that there's a bunch of superheroes out there and

everyone loves them. They're heroes, They are saving

the world, They are solving problems until they start

getting sued because of their abilities and gifting.

So they have to kind of go into hiding and it's a whole thing.

And so Mr. Incredible, he's the father of this family.

He's the strongest one, right? He's the leader.

He goes from rescuing people out of burning buildings and saving

lives to having to go into the mundanity of office work and

selling insurance. OK.

And you can see in this picture just kind of the the life being

sucked out of him as he goes from living on mission using his

giftings into just the the day-to-day world.

He go, he's he's off on his own, he's distracted.

There's this scene at the dinner table where the mom's trying to

hold everything together. But the family is disjointed.

They're not unified and they are divided.

And what we see is that even though Mr. Incredible is a

strong leader, even though he had his glory days at one point,

he's no longer living into the mission and the calling.

And So what happens is he gets a call to go to this sort of

sketchy organization, to begin using his superpowers again for

good. And what he does as he goes off

on his own to a secret island in order to use his gifts again,

right? Relive the glory days, live on

mission. The problem is he leaves his

family behind. His wife suspects there's some

kind of affair or something going on, and so she hops on a

plane to come and rescue her husband.

So there's a scene where the wife is in a plane going to this

this island, but the kids have stowed away.

They're also in the plane. And what they don't realize is

that the island they're flying to is actually the island of the

villain. Missiles are fired towards the

plane. The mom's freaking out.

The mom's trying to to tell her children to use their gifts to

save the plane. The problem is the kids have

never been trained to use their giftings.

They've never been trained to live on mission.

So here you have this strong leader going off on his own,

leaving his family behind. You see these kids who have

giftings, but they haven't been trained how to use it yet.

And I bring this up this morning to say in many ways, this is a

picture of the modern day church.

Often times you do have these strong, gifted called

charismatic leaders, but often times they get distracted.

And So what do they do? They run off to chase their own

dreams, to chase their own agendas to to preach to the

podcast in the pulpit rather than preaching to their

congregation or doing it for the book sales or what have you.

They have their own agendas. They've lost the mission.

Not only that, but within the family of God you have a number

of people who have been given spirit empowered gifts, but

they've never been trained how to actually use them.

So you have leaders running off on their own, neglecting the

family of God that the congregation and not equipping

them to use their God-given giftings.

There's all these different denominations and all these

different podcasts and all these different networks and so on and

so forth. And if we're honest, at times it

can feel a little disjointed, can it?

As a church, when you think about the global church, most of

the people looking at us wouldn't say that we're a

unified body. They'd say we're divided.

They'd say we've been distracted maybe from the true mission of

God to live for the Kingdom. And so today we're going to

continue in our Ephesians, Ephesians series.

We're looking at the second-half of Ephesians, chapters 4 through

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

6, and we're calling this series the Good Church.

We're asking the question, how can we become all that God has

for us as a church? How can we be a unified church

that's living on mission for him?

Everyone using their giftings. And so if you have your Bibles,

we encourage you to turn to Ephesians if you could.

It's in the New Testament. And we always encourage physical

Bibles. But if you don't have those,

that's OK. It'll be on the screens as well.

You can look at it at your phone.

We just encourage you to get that in front of you if you

could. OK, so Ephesians chapter 4,

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

towards the end of your Bible, what we talked about last week

was we talked about how Paul is painting a picture of a unified

church that's living on mission as one body, and he's appealing

to the oneness of God himself, the oneness of the Trinity.

So before this passage that we're going to get into today,

Paul talks about how there is only one body.

There's one spirit, there's one hope, 1 Lord, 1 faith, one

baptism, one God and Father. So 1111111 over and over Paul is

emphasizing unity. But then in verse 7, there's a

shifting point. He now turns the attention to

the individual. So take a look in Ephesians

Ephesians 4:7

chapter 4, verse 7. This will be our passage for

today. This is what it says, the

apostle Paul writes, but to each one of us grace has been given

as Christ apportioned it. So let's pause right there.

So notice the language out of the gate, he says.

But each one of us, he's talking to the believers, talking to

people who are in Christ. Does he say some of us?

No, he says each of us have been given grace.

Each of us have been given giftings.

So Paul is moving a shift or marking a shift here from a

corporate unity, appealing to the oneness of God himself.

But now he's moving to the individual giftings and

responsibilities and roles within this newly formed and

diverse church. Does it make sense?

So let's continue on verse 7 through 10 here verse 7 through

10. 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 took many

captives and gave gifts to His people.

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. Wow.

So what you'll, you'll notice here in this passage, it's on

the screen and maybe you see it in your Bible.

See how there's that section in quotations that's indented?

When you see that in the Bible, usually that means it's a direct

quote, often times from the Old Testament.

Does that make sense? So whenever you see that little

chunk, that's what that means there.

And So what we see here is that Paul is actually quoting from

the Old Testament, from the book of Psalms, chapter 68.

Psalms 68 · chapter mention

But here's what's interesting. It's not an exact direct quote

like you might expect. So take a look at this next

slide. This is a side by side of

Ephesians 8, our passage and Psalm 68.

And you'll notice that where Paul says he gave gifts to his

people, Psalm 68 says you talking about Yahweh, you

received gifts among the people. OK, So what Paul is doing is he

is adapting this Psalm and he's condensing the whole Psalm down

into a section and he's appropriating it to talk about

the Messiah. So Psalm 68 is all about this

victorious Yahweh king who rules and is ascended on high to Mount

Sinai and eventually to Mount Zion.

If you're familiar at all with the story of the Old Testament,

you see that there's this group of people who God had chose to

be His representatives and blessings to the nations.

They were called the Israelites. The problem was they were

entrapped under slavery by the Egyptians, this evil empire that

was using them for slave labor, slave labor.

And the whole story of Exodus is that that God who is on high

hears the cries of his people. And So what does he do?

He moves closer towards them and he rescues them out of slavery

himself. He proves that his might and

power is far above the the evil empire of the Egyptians.

He sends the plagues to basically demonstrate his power

over them. And then what does he do?

He takes his people, redeems them out of slavery, and then he

goes in a victory processional through the wilderness with his

people. He rescues them into freedom,

rewriting their story. He ascends to Mount Sinai to

preside over them, giving them his presence and his gifting and

his filling. And So what Paul is doing here

is he's saying that is similar to what Christ has done for us

as well. Christ was up in the heavenlies

and he heard the cries of us, his people.

So what does he do? What did he do?

He descended. He became man for us.

He lived a perfect life and He was willing to go as low as you

could possibly go. He was willing to go to his

death on a cross for you and for me to atone for our sins.

And that anyone who puts their faith in that work, anyone who

asks and repents of their sin and asks for forgiveness from

Christ can now be reconciled back to God, be brought back

into relationship with Him and live into the Kingdom.

So Paul is taking an old, old, well known Psalm.

He's adapting and appropriate and saying this is what Christ

has done for you all. He has come from a distance.

He is rewriting your story. He's delivering you and

redeeming you out of slavery and into freedom.

And so because he descended, he was elevated above all things.

He then ascended back into the heavenlies.

He was now the, the victorious triumphant Yahweh giving gifts

to everybody. So imagine for a moment that

you're, you're outside on your front porch and all of a sudden

a plane drops over. This is like an just a little

bit of an analogy. A plane drops, a package comes

down, lands right there on your front porch.

Imagine that you open it up and it's the world's largest

firecracker, world's largest firework, let's just say.

And So what do you do? You set it up, you light the

fuse. All of a sudden that firework is

destroyed. It explodes, right?

Poof. It flies into the air.

Higher, higher, higher, higher, higher.

And then what does it do once it finally reaches its peak?

And imagine just for a moment, that that firework just rains

down upon the entire sky. This is kind of a similar

picture to what happened with Jesus.

He ascended down. He dropped down to earth.

The fuse was lit. All of a sudden there was an

explosion. With his death and resurrection,

He ascended back on high. And then he fills the whole

universe. And what comes down, according

to this passage, what is raining down over the entire sky back

down to us? Gifts.

It says God has given us gifts because He's victorious, because

He's on top. He now rains down gifts.

So the question is, what are the gifts?

What are these that He actually gave us and gave His church?

This is what it says in verse 11, Ephesians 4, verse 11.

Ephesians 4:11

Here are the gifts so Christ himself gave.

These are the gifts Christ himself gave the apostles, the

prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers.

So the gifts are people. The gifts are these different

people that Christ has given to us.

In other words, they're the leaders for the church that

Christ is building. Now, there's four or five

different roles here that are mentioned.

There's an acronym for these, these five here called Apest

APEST. And this is kind of their

different roles and functions. I'm going to move really quickly

through these, so just bear with me because we're a limited time

here, but #1 the apostles. The apostles role is to govern

the foundation of the building of the church, often times the

the capital. A apostles were the OG sort of

12 disciples that were following Jesus around.

So Jesus had many disciples, but there were 12 apostles that were

instrumental who saw the risen Christ and built the church.

Today, those who have an Apostolic gift are passionate

initiators. These are the people who are

going out and planting churches. They're starting ministry

centers and they're doing the work.

They're sort of pioneers. Next you have the prophets.

The prophets role is to guide with revelation.

These are the people who are able to discern the will of God

for specific groups and address them with authority.

Next, you have the evangelists. Their role is to gather the

lost. This is a very rare term in

Scripture, but it's essentially the people who are going out

sharing the good news, heralding that Christ is risen and the

Kingdom is here. And what do they do?

They win converts, and then they gather them back into the fold.

So they're going out bringing people into the church.

They're literally gospelers. OK, next you have the pastors.

This is maybe one we're familiar with.

Their role is to guard the flock.

The word for pastors is the word shepherds.

And so these are the leaders of local congregations and their

job is to care for, to nurture, to train, to correct and to

equip the church for the works of service.

Now in the Greek, pastors and teachers here are are linked

together. So some say there's only four

roles, Maybe you call them pastor teachers or teacher

pastors. But teachers, their role is to

ground in the truth. So their job is to instruct

knowledgeably, to interpret and apply Scripture to their

audiences. All right, got all five.

You good. Memorize those five different

gifts, these different people that Christ gave to build the

church. I'm going to give you a really

quick way to memorize these. OK, picture it like, like

picture it like a hand. So the apostles, the first one

is like the thumb because they're hitchhiking their their

way on to the next thing. They're always going, they're

always moving, right? They're always starting next.

You have the index finger, OK. The prophets are the ones who

are pointing to God, always listening to him and pointing

the way. The next is the middle finger.

This would be the evangelists. They're usually the most

prominent and the most loud. They're out there, right?

They're the ones going on the front lines and sharing the

gospel even with people who don't want to hear it.

So sometimes they can also be the most offensive of all the

fingers. It's a little joke.

OK, Next you have the pastors. They they're kind of like the

ring finger. Why?

Because they are dedicated to the bride of Christ.

So picture a wedding ring on a ring finger.

They're all about the bride of Christ.

Finally, you have the teachers. They may not be as flashy or as

prominent as all the other roles, the apostles and the

pastors, but did you know, fun fact, the pinky is actually one

of the most important fingers for grip strength.

So the teachers hold them all together with the truth.

So you got all 5 memorized. Great.

All right, we're going to move on.

That is for free and here we go. The gifts that Christ gave us

are the people, the founders and leaders of the church.

Now, many of you probably know some pastors, maybe you've

experienced some leaders who think they're God's gift to the

world, right? They are kind of elevate

themselves to be prominent or they use their position for

their own benefit. But here's the thing, the

singular purpose of God giving these gifts, these people is to

serve and equip the Saints. Their sole purpose is to serve

the church and the and to train the church up to use their

giftings. Why?

Because as the passage we just read says, each of us has been

given a grace by God to be used. So it's not about just the

leaders. You may look at that list and be

like, wow, they must be the important ones.

No, no, no, no. The leader's job is to come

underneath and support and lift up and build everyone to use

their God-given gifts in Christ. This is the role of the leaders

of the church. And we also need to recognize

that it's only by grace that any of these leaders would be called

into these positions. This is not a position that is

earned. This is not a position based on

merit or based on skill or based on ability.

In other words, if you're a leader in the church, it's

because Christ has appointed you and given you the grace to do

that, not because you're something special.

Does that make sense? No one has room to boast in in

leadership in the church. This is why at Presence Church

we talk about the phrase servant leadership.

OK, if you want to be a leader at Presence Church, you have to

be the first who's willing to get down and wash feet like

Christ and serve His church. When we're trying to identify

leaders at our church, we are looking for the people who are

most willing to serve even in the lowest positions at this

church. Why?

Because that is the nature and the call of spiritual

leadership. Imagine for a moment, you know,

you've got this this person who's new to the church, they

come in and they've got all the giftings, right?

I mean, they can, they can preach, you know, with charisma

and they can, they can sing like Whitney Houston on the stage or,

you know, or whatever it is right there.

There's the phenomenal giftings, right?

And imagine you go up to that person and you're like, oh, man,

we're so glad you're here. We're going to put you on the

stage to be a leader of the church.

If you can come in at 7:00, that's when we set up and

imagine for that person is just a moment is like, oh, oh, oh,

setting up at 7:00. Yeah.

That actually isn't part of my spiritual gifting that God has

given me. So I need to pray about that.

You know, I can just imagine if that was the case for a moment,

that'd be a red flag, wouldn't it?

That'd be huge red flag. Why?

Because it's not about the ability, it's not about the

gifting, It's about their willingness to live like Jesus

and serve the church and build it up.

Does that make sense? So when we're identifying

leaders, we're looking for those who are willing to go lowest.

Those are the people that Christ wants to elevate.

Does that make sense? So how do we do this?

What is our role here? Let's carry on in verse 12 here,

Ephesians 4, verse 12. So God gives these gifts Christ

Ephesians 4:12

because he's victorious, He fills the whole universe.

He rains down these gifts as people to do what?

Verse 12. To equip His people for the

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.

So the primary role of these leaders, these gifts that that

God has given us is to equip. This word for equip is actually

quite interesting. It's only used once in the New

Testament, which is, which is pretty rare.

So that's kind of something to pay attention to.

It's the word Qatar tismas in the Greek.

And like I said, it's a rare word, but it can mean to

restore, to equip, to perfect, to prepare, and to mend.

Whenever you see a word once only used once in the Bible, it

can be helpful to go outside of the Bible to see how that word

is used. So outside of the Bible, that

term can refer to the setting of a broken bone, getting it back

into place in order to make it useful again.

It can also refer to supplying of an army.

So this is the idea of like corporate strength and

refreshing the body or refreshing an army that's on

mission and the one I want to focus on today.

The third use outside of scripture for for this

particular word for to equip is referring to the outfitting of a

ship or a vessel. In other words, making it

seaworthy and ready for a voyage or for military activity.

And perhaps this is the idea that Paul maybe had in mind,

maybe seeing some of the great Roman ship and all the ways that

they're connected, and this could be what he had in mind.

And we'll get to that in just a moment.

We might have an indication of that.

So part of our roles as leaders is to build the ship of the

church to be seaworthy. Does that make sense?

But the question becomes, what kind of ship are we called to

be? There's a lot of different

options out there and we see different types of ships.

I think all around, all around America.

Number one, I think we see the church as a cruise ship

sometimes. This is basically the idea that

people kind of come in, maybe they pay their fare, they sit

back and relax and they say, all right, feed me.

You know, they're just kind of sitting back.

They're they're, you know, they're not really steering the

ship. It's it's kind of they're being

entertained. They're well fed, but they don't

really do anything. They just kind of lounge around,

right. This is the cruise ship church.

There's plenty of those that you can find there.

There's lots of entertaining churches out there.

Is that the type of ship we're called to be?

Probably not. The next ship is a little bit

more on mission. This would be like a battleship

and at first like this could be, this could maybe be the picture

we have in mind. After all, the battleship is on

mission. The battleship has powerful guns

to sort of attack the enemies of darkness or whatever.

And in in these types of churches, often times they're

led by a commanding team. Maybe it's like that, you know,

the pastor or the leaders do all of the work.

They call all of the shots. But the people of the church,

their job is just to obey commands, right?

Their job is just to, you know, make sure that the guns are

pointed in the right way. Their job is to just kind of

clean the poop deck or whatever it is.

OK, I wasn't in the Navy, so ask, ask Brett and Sarah or

someone. But I don't know how it works.

But the point is this. The point is this.

The the commanding officers are the one who are, are kind of

doing all the work and calling all the shots, but the people

are just kind of grunts. Does that make sense?

So I don't know if that's the best option.

Then there's a third option, and this is the church as an

aircraft carrier, where it's entire purpose is to equip and

to and to launch individuals out to go on mission.

The entire structure of an aircraft carrier is designed for

people to get in the planes and to go into the battlefield, into

the mission field in order to seek out the targets.

They come back into the ship to refuel and to be equipped.

And I think this is probably the best picture of the church that

we can think of. We as a church are called to be

the ones who are equipping individuals to go out into their

individual workplaces, into their families, into their

communities, doing justice, bringing rescue and coming back

together to be encouraged and to be fed and to be built up again.

The type of church that I believe God is calling us to be

is more like an aircraft carrier than a cruise ship.

Ben Witherington the Third puts it this way.

The point is that the gifted persons listed in verse 11 serve

as the foundational gifts that are used for the immediate

purpose of preparing all the Saints to minister.

Thus, every believer must do the work of ministry.

I'm going to say that one more time.

Thus, every believer must do the work of ministry.

The final goal evolves from the last, namely that the work of

ministry by every believer is to build up the body of Christ.

In other words, you and I have a job to do.

It's to build up the body of Christ.

And what will be the result of this?

Verse 14, Verse 14? Then after the equipping takes

place, after where the readiness happens, then we will no longer

be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown

here and there by the every wind of teaching and by the cunning

and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

How many of you guys know that? Our current cultural moment in

the digital age that we live in, it is really easy to be tossed

back and forth, right by the winds of teaching, by people's

opinions, by trends on social media, whatever it may be,

right? It seems like every day there

is, there's a new news story that that presents itself on our

phones that we're supposed to be outraged about, right?

And we're just tossed back and forth continually, even in our

political sphere, both on the right and the left, it seems

more and more that we're getting gas lit, you know, by by people

who who are saying, Hey, I know you saw it one way, but

actually, let me tell you what you're actually seeing.

The truth has spin on it. And we see more and more that

blame shifting is occurring to other people or to AI or

whatever. The point is this, even in the

church, there are people out there who are only after their

own gain. It is easy to be tossed back and

forth. There's so much confusion out

there. There's so many narratives out

there. There's so much noise.

But here's what's interesting about an aircraft carrier.

Did you know, fun fact, that there's no record of a aircraft

carrier ever capsizing due to weather or due to waves or

storm? Did you know that it's pretty

amazing? Even in 1944, there was

something called the Cobra Typhoon event, which is like the

coolest name ever, by the way. But it's this massive storm that

like wiped out multiple battleships and destroyers.

And, and the The thing is, even though this, this storm was

torrential, the only ship that survived was an aircraft

carrier. Isn't that amazing?

And what's interesting is it's because of the way it's built,

you see, because of its center of gravity and because of its

center of buoyancy, because the very structure itself is

designed to launch the individuals out into the mission

field, it allows it to stay balanced even in the fiercest

waves. May we to be a church that is so

focused on launching you, the Saints, out into the mission

field that we as a body can withhold and weather any storm.

That is the type of church that we're called to be.

So many of us church, so many of us are still playing around in

our own little dinghies, our own little boats that were just

rowing against the waves and the storms, rowing like crazy, just

trying to survive, just trying to raise families, living on our

own mission, on our own calling. But here's the truth.

Every person needs a family and every person needs a mission,

and the church is meant to be both.

That's the strength of the church.

That's the strength of the body. So how can we be a unified

church that's not tossed back and forth by the waves?

And how can we remain anchored and stable even in the fiercest

weather? Verse 15 gives us the answer.

Let's move on 4:15 instead and meaning instead of being tossed

back and forth, instead of being a blown around like a balloon in

the wind that got let go at a kids birthday party, instead

speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every

respect to the mature body of him who is the head that is

Christ speaking the truth in love.

That's how we do it. That's the answer here.

The the word in the Greek is literally truthing in love.

If you ever heard of the phrase always be closing ABC, right?

I'm going to switch it to abt always be truthing.

That's what our call is as Christians.

You see, speaking and living the truth in love is both the means

to maturity and the mark of maturity.

What do I mean by that? Speaking the truth in love is

how we as a body actually become more and more mature.

When you and I are willing to encourage one another to share

God's Word with one another, we are built up into maturity.

How do we know that we have a mature church, a mature body?

We have a group of people who are willing to speak the truth

in love to one another. So does that make sense?

It's both the mark and it's both.

The means and the mark of maturity in a church always be

truthing. But here's the thing, we have to

have both. We have to have both truth and

love together. Truth without love is just

harshness. Would you agree?

How you say something often times matters even more than

what you say. Proverbs 15 one reminds us of

that. The wisdom says a gentle answer

turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

How you say something matters, the opposite is also true.

If we just have love without truth, well, that's just mere

sentimentality, right? There's no real substance to

behind it, It's just all emotions.

What we see in Romans 2 is that the Apostle Paul reminds us that

God uses both to win souls. Romans 2 reminds us that God

used kindness in order to lead us to repentance.

With you and for me, God was abundantly patient.

With you, He was abundantly gracious With you, His love, it

was never ending. With you, He was continually

calling you, even while we were yet sinners.

Christ was patient. It was His kindness that led you

back to repentance. Does that make sense?

And it wasn't just love, it was also the truth.

It's kindness, which is love, but it's also repentance, which

is truth. We need to be a church that's

committed to both. Does that make sense?

Being willing to call out and confront sin, but be willing to

go the distance relationally in love, to walk with people

through it? Does that make sense?

This is the church that God has called us to be speaking the

truth in love. So which one are we in danger

of? Truth minus love or love minus

truth historically? I think the the church

historically was in danger of being more on the truth without

love side. We saw legalism, we saw

harshness. I think the same is true today,

but only on the Internet. Right?

Like there's a lot of people who are willing to like blast people

with the truth on social media and then just log off and walk

away with no relationship with no loving motivation behind it

in person In today's church though I think.

I think honestly the issue we face the most is is love without

truth. I think people are afraid to

offend in person. I think people are afraid to

have an awkward moment with in in person.

I think people today are far more likely to just run away and

cut ties in relationships than to actually like, hear the truth

and still remain committed in relationship.

OK. I think we're starting to see an

unraveling of the social sort of fabric in that way.

But we need to be reminded that we have to have both.

In other words, in a culture of superficiality, we have to

become a people of substance. May we become anchored deep in

love while others remain shallow.

Church, you cannot separate truth from love because God

Himself is both truth and love. Does it make sense?

So if you think you're speaking the truth, you're dropping truth

bombs on social media or whatever, right?

But you're not doing it in love. You're not actually giving the

truth. Because the two are married.

They're linked to each other and if you think you're being loving

by just permitting certain things from going on, even

though your friend is struggling with whatever addiction or

darkness stuff we've all done, stuff we've all gone through,

and you're never actually helping them to say, hey, I

don't believe this is God's will and his and his plan for your

life. Hey, can I help you and walk

with you out of that? Can I pray with you out of that?

If we're not willing to do both, then we're we're not doing

either. Does that make sense?

God is both truth and he's love. We have to be willing to speak

and live out both as a church with one another daily.

And it has to be in the context of loving, committed

relationship. Paul continually talks about the

power of unity within the church, calling people to be

gentle and humble with one another.

Why? It's in environments of

unconditional grace and love and honesty where we can be truly

transformed and healed. This is the power of marriage.

My wife knows the ugliest parts about me, right?

The other day I had a speaking engagement and I had a speaking

engagement and I got done and I was kind of like, how did that

go? So I asked my wife and I said,

hey, what were your thoughts on my little talk that I did there,

Susan? And she did one of these things.

You, you maybe encountered this before She did the you know what

I mean? How did it go?

You know, And immediately I knew there was something there and I

was like, OK, how did it go? And she's like, well, you know,

and she's got kind of did that thing.

And so finally, finally, I had to just say be honest, like tell

me how it actually went. And then she did.

And it hurt my feelings. OK, She told the truth, but I

needed to hear it, right? That's the beauty of marriage,

and that is the beauty of true community.

That is what the church is meant to do, to provide an environment

of unconditional love and security of family, and yet also

the honesty of truth. There's power in that.

I need people to call me out on my crap, right?

You need people to call you out on your crap.

But I don't need people to call me on my crap who don't actually

love me. OK?

So if you're coming up to me and be like, Ben, your sermon should

be shorter and you don't actually love me, forget about

it. I don't want to hear it.

OK, All right. I know they should be shorter,

but here's the point. Here's the point.

If you love me, I might actually be more willing to listen to

you. OK, As a church, we need to have

both. This is true in marriage.

It's true in singleness, it's true in relationships, it's true

in work. It's just a reality.

May we be a church that lives out both.

And by the way, this is This is why we believe there's so much

power in the environment of a discipleship band.

At Presence Church, we have these groups of two to four

people that are that gather regularly.

And the commitment is that they would be transparent spaces

where you can be fully known and fully loved, centered around the

truth of God's Word, but open enough where you can actually

confess your darkest sin and not be judged for it.

Still held accountable to it through prayer and through

loving relationship and through encouragement and grace.

But it's an environment where you can actually grow and be

transformed. The security of love and the

empowerment of truth. This is the power and This is

why we believe in transparent spaces like discipleship bans.

The call of the apostle Paul was to live a life worthy of the

calling we've received to grow in our identity that's already

been afforded to us. In Ephesians chapter one through

three, the first half we see over and over Paul is just, he's

just blasting us with identity statements.

Take a look at this next list. Paul reminds us that we have

been blessed with every spiritual blessing, that we've

been chosen, we've been adopted, we've been redeemed and

forgiven. We were included in Christ.

We were loved. We have been made alive.

We are God's handiwork. We're brought near, we're

reconciled to God, we're heirs together, and we have access to

the Father with freedom and confidence.

Is anyone excited about that today?

This is the reality with which we live.

It's already been given to us. This is what Christ accomplished

on the cross and with his ascension.

And so now as a church, our job is just to simply live into

these things more and more and more every single day.

As a church, our job is to recognize that Christ has

already attained this for us if we're in Him.

And now we become like Jesus together.

Ephesians 5 again, turning back to the Scripture.

Instead speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in

every respect the mature body of Him who is the head that is

Christ. From him the whole body, joined

together and held together by every supporting ligament, grows

and builds itself up in love. As each part does its work.

As some parts do its work. No, as each part does its work.

Two quick application points and then I'm done #1 Every believer

is called to use their God-given gifts in service for the growth

and building up of the church. Every believer.

Our church is not going to be a cruise ship, right?

And and no church is meant to be a cruise ship and no church

probably intends to be a cruise ship, but it just just happens

naturally. Instead, we will be like an

aircraft carrier, training and equipping y'all to go out and be

on mission and to rescue souls. But we don't do it by our own

power and our own strength. Instead, we recognize Christ is

the head, which means He is the source of all of our

empowerment. He is the one who allowed the

Holy Spirit to come and fill us and give us the gifts needed to

fulfil this mission. He is the one who gives the body

the supply of nutrients it desperately needs.

And like a body that grows and divides, like cells in a growing

body. And like a body that needs to be

moved and exercised to grow and build itself up, so the church

is fulfilled by Christ and builds itself up #2 every leader

is called to equip the church for the works of service.

So if you would like to be a leader at Presence Church, if

God has given you that gifting and that grace, the first

prerequisite is certainly the call, but the second is that

you're willing to go lower in service for others.

At Presence Church, we're going to continue to equip people in

training them in God's Word. This means we're going to

continue to emphasize discipleship bands, which are

centered around Scripture first and foremost.

It means we're going to continue with our equipping calls every

month. We're going to continue to have

youth group on Wednesdays where they're learning about prayer

currently. We're going to continue to train

up people to to teach our kids how to learn about the Holy

Spirit like they are today, learn how to pray and become

friends with God. We're going to continue to

center our Sunday services around God's Word through

sermons and through teachings. Not only will we center around

God's Word, but we're going to help people discover their gifts

and then deploy their gifts more and more.

As a matter of fact, right after service, new to presence, we're

going to be talking about how to identify your gifts and how to

deploy them not just within the church, but beyond it.

We're going to continue doing intentional mentoring and small

scale environments. We see people meeting together

every Saturday right now for that.

And every Wednesday we see we're going to continue to emphasize

whole church ownership, emphasizing our serve teams to

build them up. And guys, let me just say, I'm

so glad and impressed with how many of you have already stepped

into serving. The percentage of people who are

serving at our church is, I would say, disproportionately

high. It's, it's incredible to see how

you guys are just stepping in and leaning into that.

But the need is still great. There's still a need for more

people who are willing to come in at 7:00 AM and set up, more

people who are willing to be trained how to lead our kids,

trained in other areas and then to be sent out as well.

And so if that's you today, if you're like, man, I want to use

my gifts. I want to be useful in building

up the church. I just encourage you like grab

that connect card Mark serving. Let's make it practical.

Let's take a next step because each of us are called to use our

giftings for the building up of the body.

As I close and as I invite Garrett to come back up, I

opened with the story of The Incredibles, how Mr. Incredible

was kind of off on his own chasing the glory days.

But the the children, even though they had gifts, hadn't

yet been trained how to use them.

And there's this moment at the end of the movie where finally

they all come together. The parents train their kids to

use their giftings and they rally a family coming together,

working together. The leaders are leading.

All of them are using their gifts, and people's lives are

saved. Even though they're radically

diverse in their gifts, they're unified as a family in love, and

because of this, they're a force to be reckoned with.

In the same way, church, you and I are called to use our diverse

gifts under the leaders that God has given with the bond of love

in order to go and be sent out on mission.

To rescue people from lostness and darkness, to confront issues

of injustice, and to do whatever it is that God has called us to

do. To make disciples, to live on

mission, and to build His church.

This is the good church that God wants to build.

It's a fruitful family with the bond of love, willing to

sacrifice for one another and living on mission for the

Kingdom to see Ankeny as it is in heaven.

Love is the spiritual mortar that holds us together.

So may we may. May we be a church that is

always truthing one another. May we keep the unity and the

bond of peace. May we choose gentleness and

humility above all. And first and foremost, may we

do it in love. Let's build this house together.

Let's grow this family in unity. Everyone of you has a part to

play. No one's on the sidelines.

Everyone's on mission. That's the dream, because Christ

descended, was willing to go to the cross lower than anyone has

ever gone. He was raised victorious and

ascended above all things. And from that position of

victory and authority, he rained down gifts the people to build

his church, that they would fully equip all the Saints into

maturity so that we together would be the very presence of

Jesus himself and a lost and dying and hurting world.

That's the call of the Church. That's who we're meant to be.

I pray we'd live into that.