Healthy Pastor; Healthy Church: How the Gospel of Grace Enables a Church Body to Grow Together in the Future

The sermon text reading for today is Ephesians chapter four, verses one through sixteen.

You can find this passage in the Sanctuary Bible on page seventeen seventy-eight.

Please listen as I read God's Word.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to be one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

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 rooms, regions?

He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe.

So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining in to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

That is Christ.

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.

Here ends the reading.

She is an embodiment of God's word here today, of the body of Christ, responding to God's grace and extravagant love and using their gifts to build each other up.

Wow, what a beautiful legacy.

What a beautiful image.

Well, good morning.

I'm going to try something that our African brothers and sisters do as they begin a worship service.

God is good.

All the time.

Y'all have been prepared.

Nice job.

Well done.

Well, good morning again, as it's already been expressed to you.

My name is Scott Barber, and I'm with the National Office for the Evangelical Free Church of America.

And John, Pastor John invited me to come and share with you as part of his return from his sabbatical and to help in prep preparation for his return.

And just a brief little introduction to me to let you get to know me a little bit here before we jump into God's word.

I was a lead pastor in an E-free church down in Worthington, Minnesota.

Any of you heard of Worthington, Minnesota?

Oh my goodness, you might be the most number of people who've known of Worthington in one place that I've encountered.

That's fantastic.

Worthington is a special gym down in southwest Minnesota.

The nations are there.

It is considered to have the highest percentage of minorities per capita in the state of Minnesota.

The world is in Worthington.

And we had the privilege, Jane and I, my wife is with me here today, of sharing the gospel and reaching the nations for 14 years in Worthington.

And a year ago, God unexpectedly called us to ministry to pastors through the national office.

And so I'm now in the role of the director of pastoral theology and care at the national office.

And my role is to champion the flourishing and care of our pastors.

There's a prevalence and a tendency because of the unique pressures that pastors experience towards burnout, towards moral failure, towards being beat up.

There's a heavy burden in ministry.

And one of the areas that I get to champion in terms of resourcing and equipping pastors, coming alongside churches like yourselves, is in the areas of sabbatical.

Sabbatical are a very uh powerful means by which pastors can experience rest and restoration to grow in Christ in order to continue to be healthy in ministry and lead healthy congregations towards Christ.

And so it was for that reason that John invited me to come and share with you all in preparation for his return coming back from sabbatical.

One of the things that I want to share with you all from Pastor Mike Mentor, he's a pastor and author, and he shares this about the burden of pastoral ministry.

To be a good pastor, you'll need the strength of an ox, the daring of a lion, the harmlessness of a dove, the gentleness of a sheep, the vision of an eagle, the perspective of a giraffe, the endurance of a camel, the stomach of a horse, the faithfulness of a prophet, the fervency of an evangelist, the tenacity of a bulldog, the wisdom of an owl, the industry of a beaver, the head of a scholar, the hide of a rhinoceros, the heart of a child, and the devotion of a mother.

Is it any wonder why pastors need rest?

As a pastor of a smaller church myself, I like to say that we are like Swiss Army knives, or like a leatherman.

We're a multi-tool.

We have to wear so many different hats.

And that has a taxing on the soul.

Pastors need rest.

Thank you for giving your pastor a gift of sabbatical and of rest.

As we walk through today's text in Ephesians 4, I'm going to be doing more of a flyover exegesis of the text.

And we're not going to get granular, but we're going to walk through the text and let God's word speak to us.

We're also going to walk through how God's word leads us in what is a healthy church and a healthy pastor.

What does that kind of look like?

And what does that mean for you all as you receive Pastor John back?

To set this up here, I wanted to share a little bit about uh um uh uh Camp Chaminaw.

Do you have any of you been to Camp Chaminaw?

A number of you have been to Camp Chamana, and I heard some that were going to do some counseling there.

My boys have grown grown up going to Camp Chamanaw or counselors at Camp Chaminaw.

And in one of the areas of Camp Chaminaw, you have this low ropes course where you learn team building.

And on one of these uh uh um uh exercises is this platform that has this pivot and it balances, and you have to, as a team, find your position and find that stability together to balance that platform so it's off the ground.

It's a lot of teamwork that goes into that to finding that place of balance.

Over time, as a church, you've found a place of balance of how everybody functions and operates.

And and before John left on sabbatical, there was kind of a place of how things worked and how everybody fulfilled their roles in the church.

Well, as Pastor John has been on sabbatical, God's been changing him for good.

God's been convicting him, God's been growing him and drawing him near to be a more faithful and healthier and better pastor for you.

His change means it's gonna disrupt the stability.

Oftentimes we can seek towards Pastor John coming back, and things are gonna go back to normal.

Things are gonna go go back to the way they were.

For good, because Pastor John, as he's learning, he's not the center of the church, amen.

Pastor John's not the head of the church, amen.

Christ is the head of the church, and John is learning how to get himself out of the middle in order for Christ to be at the center, and that's what makes a healthy church.

And so in today's text, we're gonna see God's grace compels God's people to be God-centered and to organize and gather in ways that transform our lives.

God's grace compels us to organize in such a way that Christ is at the center, not people, not a person.

So to that end, let's pray.

Holy Spirit, I just ask for you to come upon me now as your servant to declare your word.

May your word be real and alive as you reveal yourself, Jesus, to us.

We came and we are here to encounter you, not to hear a good message, not to have our ears tickled, not to be inspired by words, but to encounter the living God.

So, Jesus, we pray, make yourself very real and powerfully present among us.

And Jesus, we pray, change us.

Remove the veil from our eyes and our hearts that keep us from encountering you, from hearing from you and being transformed.

Have your way with us, Jesus.

And Lord, we pray for John as you prepare for his return.

Grant him that grace to continue what you've started in him.

And grant this church family, this beautiful church family, that grace to change with John.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

As we're in Ephesians, John, Pastor John mentioned to me that y'all have been going through uh Ephesians and Ephesians 4 for a while, so you're pretty familiar with this.

And as you know, Paul is preaching and teaching to the people, the church in Ephesus, which is a very diverse community, very diverse uh uh uh area of Europe, an epicenter, a port city, uh full of all kinds of brokenness and broken people brought together through Jesus Christ.

But the force and the power among God's people is towards selfishness, towards individualism, towards their diversity, their differences that lead to dividing.

But Paul has declared in the first three chapters of Ephesians here the gloriousness of God's love, the extravagance of God's riches, he's poured out on us through Jesus and expending his son and his blood to bring us together.

A new power is at work to unite us and make us one.

I forgot to mention, I'm a pretty passionate preacher, so bear with me.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes this, he's shown us his immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us.

Let's skip ahead here.

This love that God demonstrates, pours out on you and I through Jesus has this powerful effect to transform our lives.

As you see on the screen here, the transforming grace of God does multiple things.

One, it unites us, it brings us together as a community with differences, with brokenness, with pasts, with such diversity.

He brings us together amidst the gravitational pull of sin to fracture and separate us.

The transforming grace of God unites us in community to live for his glory and to display his love.

We now have a new purpose and existence for living, and it's for Christ, for God, for whom we were created, not for ourselves, not out of a sense of survival, not out of a sense of you be you and make sense of life out of your own experience and what gives you pleasure or feels good or right.

It's the compelling power of grace.

It was on my heart to share with you from Zephaniah chapter four about this powerful grace of God, about this tender grace of God.

As he speaks to Israel about salvation that is ours in Christ now.

He says, On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion, let your hands not grow weak.

The Lord is in your midst.

He rejoices over you with gladness, he quiets you with his love, he delights in you with loud rejoicing.

That's true of you.

Just pause and receive that.

None of what I share here from God's word will make any sense apart from the extravagant, overwhelming, lavish love of God for you, who knows the worst about you and loves you anyway.

His transforming love brings us together with clarity of purpose and now a tenacity for unity around him.

But in this, in this unity, in this bringing us together, there is another thing that God does.

The word says that in his grace, grace was given to each one according to the measure of Christ.

That when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

As you can see on the screen here, God gives us diverse gifts with which he builds the unity of his body and causes us to grow.

God's grace, God's love brings us together in one.

Now, in the passage here, it's making a reference to Psalm 68, there, where this idea of Moses coming down from the mountain and with reference to an illusion in the Old Testament where where when kings and conquerors were where they where they were victorious, they would lead a parade and there would be gifts.

A likening like this might be a parade today.

Anybody go to parades?

Anybody like parades?

Yes.

What do we like to get at parades?

Candy! That's right.

That's right.

We go to parades and we get candy.

That's right.

There's gifts, just like, you know, when the New York Knicks, when they won the uh the national championship, they went on a big parade.

Yes, okay, there's more candy if you didn't get any.

Oh, yep, yep.

Just like a real parade.

You got those kids that run out in the middle of the street to get that.

There's more candy here in case you didn't get any.

Jesus, in his victory, ascending to the right hand of God the Father in heaven, gives us gifts, but not Tootsie Rolls, not lollipops.

He gives us something so much greater, the Spirit of God in us, transforming us with his love.

He's given us abilities to use to build his kingdom.

In fact, God redeems all things in the gifts that he gives.

Did you know that your sinful past, your brokenness, the wounds of what might have been done to you?

Do you know that God transforms that for his glory to change the lives of others?

Did you know that?

He redeems all things.

He heals, he forgives, he cleanses, he makes you new so that others can experience Christ in you, Christ through you, through the broken cracks.

Paul would describe us as we're earthen vessels.

I like to say we're cracked pots, through which others can experience and see the power is from God, not from us.

My past, my broken family system, my past, of my hoodlum years as a teenager, and struggles with pornography and and stealing and lying.

The wounds of sexual abuse that were done to me.

God has redeemed these things and is redeeming these things for his glory to change others.

To see and know they can be set free, they can be healed, they are loved.

Same is true for you, brothers and sisters.

In giving gifts, he doesn't just give abilities, he redeems your whole life so that Christ may shine through you.

Friends, being part of the body of Christ here, and being members of his church isn't as much of what you give as you letting Christ give himself through you.

You are all needed.

Everyone of you is.

Needed that others in the body here needs Christ in you.

Uniquely through you, uniquely manifest in you, you reveal an aspect of Christ that others do not, and that others need.

Thomas Watson, Puritan author, in his book, The Art of Divine Contentment, highly recommend it.

He says a true saint is a divine landscape, a picture where all the rare beauty of Christ is portrayed in a lively manner.

Isn't that beautiful?

You, you are a divine landscape, a picture for the beauties of Christ to be displayed.

You are needed for others to know and encounter Christ through you.

That's good news.

That's good news.

Well, the scriptures go on here in explaining the gifts that are given.

Paul recounts here specific types of gifts, as you see in verse 11, and he gave some to be apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

Paul uniquely draws out in these verses here this truth that Jesus gives specific leadership gifts to equip all the members of the body to do the work of ministry.

Now there's a unique thing here.

Paul could have focused on all the gifts.

He does so elsewhere in Romans, in 1 Corinthians.

He enumerates all the different kinds of gifts, but here he only speaks about gifts of leadership, gifts that involve the stewarding of the Word of God and shepherding God's people.

I think that's to an important point here with the church in Ephesus and their need to trust the leaders and for the leaders to hear and understand what is their right role, what's their responsibility for this church to be healthy?

Notice what it says the primary charge for these leaders is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

Who does the work of ministry?

It's the saints.

Alongside the pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist leader, the body.

There's a role that's uniquely set aside as an equipper for the pastor, teacher, leader.

John Stott, one of my great mentors through books, uh, a pastor in England, and so I wish I could say it with his accent.

He uh he says this about the role of church leaders and pastors.

He says, they're an equipper, one who helps and encourages all God's people to discover, develop, and exercise their gifts.

His teaching and training are directed to this end, to enable the people of God to be a servant people, ministering actively but humbly according to their gifts.

Thus, instead of monopolizing all ministry himself, he actually multiplies ministry.

When a church family is healthy and a pastor is healthy, they're equipping the body, the family members, to live out their giftedness, to express Christ in them together with each other, and they share in the ministry.

They know their lane, and you've heard that phrase, stay in your lane.

Pastor John, as he's been on sabbatical, is learning this very truth.

You know what?

I was overfunctioning for my church.

I was getting out of my lane.

I'm trying to do all the work of ministry for the people.

And this is a challenge that us pastors get drawn into because we love so much.

And by the way, Pastor John deeply loves you.

You need to hear that.

He loves you so much.

And as I've met with him and he's shared with me, he just is so such a big heart for y'all and devoted for you all.

And out of that place of that sense of care for you and responsibility as a pastor, there's a tendency to start to overfunction, do for the body what the body's supposed to do.

And as a result, church congregations become dependent on the pastor in an unhealthy way, and the pastor gets caught up in a pace of life and ministry that's not sustainable.

And then I get a phone call.

And I need help.

I was on vacation last week and I had two emails from pastors reaching out.

I need help.

I'm broken.

They've reached a point where they need a break and it was too late.

They didn't have this rest that you gave John.

There's a tendency, a gravitational pull within us, within every church.

This isn't unique to Elmwood.

Within every church that we have to be aware of for the focus to become on the pastor, the pastors, the leaders, the staff, that they do the work of ministry.

There's this phenomenon.

Have you heard of the 80-20 rule?

The 80-20 rule is that 20% of people do 80% of the ministry in a church.

The 80-20 world exists because it's been happening for a long time.

There's this force that's at work within human beings when they gather together.

Another thing I want to share from you that Pastor John shared, he is so proud of you as a church, of how you all have stepped up, how you all have risen as a body, responding to the grace of Christ, responding to the mission that you all have been special and unique in utilizing your gifts and being active.

And he is so blessed by you.

You need to hear that.

Notice what Paul says here as he describes in verse 16 really what health looks like in order for growth and transformation to happen.

Speaking the truth in love, we're to grow up in every way to 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.

When every part is working properly, we experience growth in love.

As Pastor John is coming back here, he is experiencing some changes and knows that he needs to change.

And he needs your help in that.

As we are the body of Christ, this is all of our mission.

Pastor John is just another part of the body.

Just like you are.

As we talked about, Pastor John is not the head of the church.

Who is?

Who is the head of the church?

Amen.

Christ is the head of the church.

Pastor John is not the church.

Amen?

Who's the church?

We are.

Yes.

We are.

We need Pastor John to be able to stay in his lane.

Right?

And that involves as he changes, y'all are going to change with him and grow together with him.

A couple points I want to make here.

A stable church does not equate to a healthy church.

Just because we have a status quo and we found rhythms and our balance, that doesn't mean that Christ is at the center.

We may have found our balance in such a way that, as we're talking about, Pastor John may be at the center.

A healthy church keeps Christ at the center, not their pastors.

This is this seems so rudimentary, but it's so profoundly significant.

And we drift off this.

How can we keep Christ at the center?

He is why we gather.

It's for his glory.

It's to become like him, to be transformed into his likeness.

It's a response to his extravagant love that he's lavished on us.

That's why we exist.

And that's what we gather around.

Christ is the center.

And John, his role is to help point us to Christ and becoming like him.

So as a result, as John comes back here and he's growing, he's changing and experiencing God's grace to live within his limits, to stay in his lane in order to equip you to serve alongside him and run hard after Christ.

Both the pastor and the church must change and grow together to keep Christ a sinner.

There's this shifting and moving that's happening constantly because we always need change this side of heaven.

Pastor John's not just changing because of being on sabbatical.

We hope that he continues to change.

He's not as holy as he could possibly be, thank God.

There's more.

And in fact, there's more for you.

There's more of Christ for you.

More of Christ in you.

The depths of Christ.

We cannot fathom.

We cannot delve the riches and the glory.

There's more.

Isn't that great?

There's more that he wants to reveal through you.

So as John comes back from sabbatical, there's some principles here, some things that I want to encourage you with in order to help you grow with him, in order to help you come alongside him as he comes back.

This is from the book Resilient Ministry, and my vision's getting so bad that I can't see that.

I'm going to read from here.

The eyes are not working like they're supposed to.

So from Resilient Ministry, both of us, this is the authors of Resilient Ministry, both of us approached the end of our sabbaticals with the expectation that we would not get sucked back into the hectic pace that characterized our lifestyles before the sabbaticals.

But with them and within a matter of weeks, both of us had slipped back into those patterns we sought to avoid.

We now know the power of systems to squeeze us into the molds of expectation.

Unconsciously, there is this power, there's this gravity of sin at work within just humanity to seek stability, like we've talked about.

God's doing a great work in John, which means it's a great work for you in your walk with Christ.

And I want to invite you to be in prayer, in intercessory prayer, for God's work to continue, for y'all not to drift back, for John not to drift back into the old patterns, because there is this powerful gravitational force towards that.

That there's more for you in Christ.

There's more for the St.

Anthony area and this community with Christ and encountering Christ as you are transformed.

That means being destabilized.

Join with John.

Enter into this with him intentionally together.

Normal is going to be redefined or reshaped.

What his boundaries are, what expectations are realistic of him, routines that he has, vision and direction.

These are just some of the things that may be changing as God is working in John to be a healthy, biblically healthy, faithful pastor for you.

One leader, Charles Dickens, here talks about how helping the pastor return and returning slowly using the illustration of jumping onto a train.

You have to catch up with the train, and it takes time to get up to speed to catch up with the train in order to get on.

Because y'all are still moving and advancing in Christ and the operations of ministry.

What this illustration is to indicate is patience.

Be gracious and patient with John.

As he catches up, there's a different pace in sabbatical, and as this is a transformational rest, a productive rest.

And as John has slowed down in order to be convicted and encounter Christ and being changed by Christ in order to come back, there is a ramping up that he has to get used to without going back to the old patterns and habits.

And so for the returning pastor, some gifts to consider.

Granting him the grace of time so he can reflect and contemplate and readjust.

You don't realize what forces are at play and how hard it is to change and live out the changes until you get back into the system.

You get back into the family.

Many of you know, like when you go back and you see family, things come out of you that you're like, ah, I thought I had control of that.

Right.

Grace.

Let him be real about what he's feeling.

Change brings loss.

Loss brings grief.

He's not gonna be a little bit raw as he comes back.

As the Lord's doing a good deep work in him.

Relationships, let him drive the connection calendar and don't feel bad if he says, no, not right now.

His pace and his boundaries are not about you, they're not personal.

They're about him trying to be faithful and guard his soul with the Lord and his ability to shepherd well.

As we've seen in Ephesians here, the Lord draws us, draws us together, and gathers us together through his extravagant love.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3, may you know the height, the depth, the breadth, the immeasurable nature of his love for you, from which he transitions into chapter 4, say, live a life worthy of the calling.

It's because of his love that Christ invites you to join him.

He gathers us together as the focal point.

Join him in being the redeemed people.

Join him in being changed, made free and alive.

Join him and seeing others transformed.

He becomes the focal point that makes this place different than anywhere else on the earth.

The people of God.

Transformed.

As Thomas Watson said, the landscape, the picture of the beauties of Christ.

That's Elmwood.

That's the invitation by his love.

May we share in that.

As we invite John back to change with him, to be transformed by God's love and his grace.

Will you pray with me?

Holy Spirit, we come to you.

Inviting you, Lord, to let your love sink deeper, deeper into our hearts and our souls.

Lord, were there selfishness at work, O God?

Would you convict us with your love?

Showing us, Lord, we have you have something so much about her.

How we clutch to our time, how we clutch to our lifestyle, our comfort.

Lord, where there is brokenness, where there's wounds, may your love reach.

And with tenderness, Jesus, invite us.

You don't have to guard yourself anymore.

You don't have to numb yourself anymore.

You don't have to distrust anymore.

I'm good.

And I will heal you and I will restore you.

And I want to use those wounds and that brokenness for my glory.

You are forgiven.

You are loved.

You are being healed.

My stripes, my wounds, my whipping, my crucifixion has taken it upon myself for you.

May the poison of sin be extracted from your lives that you may be free.

Lord Jesus, we pray that we might encounter that releasing, releasing our fear and entrusting ourselves to your love.

Lord, may Elmwood be such a sweet place, O God, of your love.

Faithful to you.

Lord, may you grant them the grace that John may come back and be changed and transformed and growing, Lord God, and being faithful to you in his role as another sheep before the good shepherd.

May you grant the grace here of Elmwood, Lord God, to surround John, to encourage and enable him to change and grow.

And themselves, Lord God, with your grace being clear on how they might change and grow with John.

And order, Jesus, to display your beauties.

Jesus, thank you.

I praise you.

I praise you, O Father, in faith, for how you will do a mighty work in and through Elmwood going forward.

In your name.

Amen.