The Church Exist To Equip

All right, you may be seated this morning.

Going to invite you to take your copy of God's word and turn with me back to the book of Ephesians, chapter four.

We're going to look back at this incredible passage.

And just by way of reminder of what we've been walking through, Paul has, throughout this book, has fronted Jesus.

I mean, that's really the only thing that we can do as God's people is to set Jesus forward as the example and power that we live by.

And so throughout the first three chapters, he has set Jesus forward as the path to heaven and the way that you and I attain flourishing in this life.

And now in Ephesians chapter four, he's coming to this point where he says, hey, because of what Jesus has done, you and I, as individuals, should live and operate according to a particular plan.

I mean, after all, if God is going to be generous enough to give us what he gave us in Jesus Christ, it is not surprising that that should change how you and I live in this world.

Jesus should change us.

Amen?

And so every week when we come in here, that's the point.

When we talk about how we live our life, we do so in reflection to the work that Jesus has done inside of us.

And so we've been looking at axioms, uh, phrases that really sum up the work that God has done in us and what he calls for us from as his people.

Uh several weeks ago, we talked about the axiom that you can never be closer to God than you are to each other.

That God is not going to allow you to abuse or misuse or say horrible things about his children as our father, and then expect for that not to impede our relationship the same way you would do, right?

You're not gonna, your best friend is not gonna walk up and every time he sees you refer to your spouse by the most derogatory derogatory terms, or your children in the most hateful phrases, and that be okay with you.

Like you're not gonna go out golfing with someone like that, right?

And so you can't be closer to God than you are to each other.

Secondly, the one we discussed last week is the one that is repeated over and over again from this pulpit because I think it is so important, and that is if you are called to salvation, you are called to service.

God has a plan for your life that is far greater than you being a spare part in the basement of his kingdom.

You have meaning and you have purpose with eternal significance.

Now, this week we're going to look at a new axiom, a third axiom, and I'm going to give it to you in just a moment.

But what I want to begin with this morning is with a short fill-in the blank.

And I want you to, don't say it out loud, just in your own heart, your own mind, or whisper it to your neighbor, answer this question.

The primary job of the church, and I mean the local church, the primary job of the church is to blank.

How would you fill in that empty space there?

When I was growing up, I went to a church where the blank would have been filled in this way.

The primary job of the local church is to remind people to set their clocks forward in the springtime.

You go to those churches?

Yeah, I kind of wondered once we all started using smartphones and the clocks adjusted automatically, is the church still relevant?

And for some churches, the answer is the answer is no.

Because the purpose for the church, the way we fill in this blank, has to have some eternal lasting significance.

Now, some answers are more legitimate and I think a little more on point.

The primary job of the local church is to help people.

Okay, well, it's true, we should be helping people, but is that the primary job of the church?

The primary job of the church is to educate people.

Well, I'm a big fan of education.

I've spent most of my life as a lifelong learner, and and and even now as I as I teach or preach, my objective is to provide knowledge and wisdom about God's word to you.

And so I'm a big fan of this point here.

But is this the primary purpose, the primary job of the church?

The primary job of the church, others would say, is to change culture.

Well, I believe we should have impact.

I think we would all agree that we should be offering something to our neighborhood, to our county and our city and our state and our country and even the world that has eternal consequences.

I mean, we are called to be salt and light in this world.

And so, yeah, we are called to be change agents, but is this the primary purpose of the church?

Now, this is a very important question, and the reason is because above all things, regardless of what you may think about the primary purpose of the church, what's the one thing that we focus in on?

The one thing that we absolutely know is that the church is very important.

It's important.

You and I, as the body of Christ, are the only source for truth, lasting eternal truth in this world.

Because the world isn't going to conjure it up on its own.

It may eventually and occasionally stumble across true things, but the stream of truth flows from God's word through his spirit into his church and out of you and me.

And so we see the power of the church as Jesus teaches his disciples for the very first time what they were going to be collectively, the ecclesia, the called-out ones, the very first time that we are aware of when he uses the word in Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

He's at Caesarea Philippi and he asks his disciples, hey, who who do people say that I am?

What's the, you know, what's the the you know the scuttle butt on on me as a person?

What are people saying, saying about me and the son of, you know, son of man?

And and, you know, they give all these names, you know, you're Elijah and, you know, this prophet, this other person.

And Jesus then turns the question to them and says, But who do you say that I am?

And this is one of those occurrences where Peter sticks his hand way up in the air and gives the correct answer and says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, That's it.

That's the confession, that's the foundation.

The one thing that you collectively, as my disciples, need to know is this thing that I'm it.

I'm the anointed one.

And then he turns to Peter and says, That upon this rock I will build my church.

And then he says, and the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it.

Now, we don't have time to dive too much into this, but you hopefully are aware, as we've talked about before, that the idea of the gates of hell isn't like, you know, the devil's behind some gate and he's there with his pitchfork and he's just kind of, you know, trying to defend off the Christian.

I mean, there is the truth where you and I, it is true that we take the gospel to the world, and as we do, we are we are attacking the beachheads, uh, beachhead of hell.

But specifically in this context, the gates of hell represented an evil world, idolatrous system that existed there in Caesarea Philippi and in worship to the God Pan.

And so what Jesus is saying there in that spot is he is saying, you see this world system of idolatry and trying to create and then manipulate God, that the gospel is going to confront that.

The gospel is going to upend the cultural way of doing things.

That tells us that the gospel expressed through the church has incredible power and significance.

Peter, I'm sorry, Paul picks up on this earlier in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 3, verse 10, where he says that it's through the church that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

Ephesians 3:10

What's he talking about there?

Well, it's very complicated, but essentially it's this you and I are not the only species that God ever made.

He made other species that are watching us.

Peter picks up on this later, and he talks about how angels, these celestial beings, are looking down at what God is doing in grace for you and for me, and they watch and wonder.

And there's like this this entire council, scripture calls it, of other beings that God has created.

And they're they're watching what is unfolding here, and they're observing, and they're and God is showing his wisdom and his grace and his mercy through us through the church.

It's through the church that God is doing this.

In other words, what you and I do here impacts this realm that we live in, but it impacts so much more, far beyond anything that we can see.

If you don't get anything else, then you want to get this.

What we do here in this organization matters.

The church matters.

The church is not irrelevant, nor will it ever be.

Some organizations have made themselves irrelevant because they have stepped away from God's plan for their organization.

But the church collectively, when you and I step into being the body of Christ as the body of Christ is supposed to be, hear what I'm saying.

Not how it used to be, or how we dreamed it should be, or our opinions about how it should be, or trying to emulate some plan that maybe we think used to work and follow some finneistic kind of Charles Finney kind of plan for just get people to walk an aisle and raise a hand and sign a card.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The church is about so much more than that.

That leads to shallow believers who do immensely wicked things.

Jesus brings us into this space so that we can do something powerful and impactful here in this space.

And then together, individually, to step out into a world and to take the gospel out into the world.

If the only time, God help us, if the only time the gospel is proclaimed in a church is within the walls of this room, and the only voice that's ever heard proclaiming it as the man who stands in this pulpit, we are not a church.

The church is an expressed group of people who are gifted to take the gospel and to apply it to the lives of others.

We see this in Ephesians chapter 4 as Paul walks us through this.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

What I want to do is I just want to walk through the first few verses beginning at verse number seven together, and then to really slow down for a few minutes at verse 11 to see what Paul is giving to us as a church a plan, an objective, and a purpose.

But look join me in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 7.

Ephesians 4:7

Here's what he says.

You will remember this if you've been with us.

If not, you'll get a chance to see where we've been here.

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

In other words, that the shed blood of Christ, the power of the shed blood of Christ that brought you from death to life, is the same power that moves you from life to eternity.

And that same measure of the greatness of the sovereign power of God now has given you not just salvation, but has given you service.

Therefore, Paul says, and he quotes from Psalm chapter 68 here, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave them gifts.

Psalms 68 · chapter mention

He gave gifts to men.

You will remember in Psalm chapter 68, the passage doesn't say he gave gifts to men.

Psalms 68 · chapter mention

The passage says he receives gifts to men.

And the reason is what Paul is doing here is he's taking this verse that is sung about the return of a triumphal Israeli king, and he's applying it to God.

And we know God doesn't need to receive gifts from anybody because he has everything.

There's nothing that you can give him that he doesn't already own.

Which means any gift that we do present to him is actually a gift back to us to be able to participate in the work that he is doing.

God does not need me.

But in his grace, he allows me to do this thing in others, just like you.

And Paul says in reference to this, he says, in ascending, what does it mean?

But that he also had to descend.

And whenever he descended, he came down to the lower regions.

And again, we talked very briefly about that.

This passage in context has nothing to do about Jesus, you know, going to hell and hanging out for three days.

Whenever he says lower regions, he's talking about the place where you and I live, that he came down here.

And whenever he came down, he who who he who ascended is also the one who ascended on high in the heavens, that he might fill all things.

In other words, as he ascends higher and higher and higher, not just geographically, but through the rulers and realms that Paul has already mentioned here, that his power fills everything.

In the same way that if the mayor came here, even though the mayor is not here, we know that he is here, his power is here in his presence by the very virtue of his leadership.

Same thing for the governor.

She's not here, but her power is here and statewide.

The president is here because his power is here and experienced statewide.

Same thing for our congressman.

Jesus is more than a mayor, Jesus is more than a governor, Jesus is more than a president.

Jesus is the sovereign king of kings, and there is no power, no place where his power does not wrap everything that happens.

He feels everything.

And as he fills all things, because he has this power and ability to distribute gifts and rulers and support wherever he wants to, because he's in complete control.

Verse number 11 tells us that he gave and he gives he gives four or five categories here, or individual gifting um representatives here.

He says he gave number one apostles to prophets, three evangelists, and four, and because of a particular uh Greek rule here that I won't bore you with explaining, uh he probably says shepherd teachers, so shepherding teachers.

Now, you may be wondering, okay, what's the point of this list right here?

These aren't really gifts that are given to individuals, these are individuals that are given to churches, leaders that are given to churches.

How many of you know that your leaders are a gift from God?

I mean, I know it doesn't always feel that way, but God sees them as a gift.

He has given them to you and their particular callings and skill set, he's given them to us.

And so that's exactly what Paul is saying here.

And you might be wondering to yourself, okay, Major, do you then believe that churches should have offices for apostles and prophets and evangelists and then shepherd teachers?

Well, not necessarily.

It kind of depends on what you mean by the term.

If by apostle you mean someone who is doing work just like the apostles did, and they've got that level of authority in the local church to speak ex cathedra, to speak from the chair in a core in parallel and over scripture, the answer is no.

No, the scripture is the authority.

Number one, core value in the church.

We have one source of authority, and that source of authority is yeah, it's scripture and scripture alone.

And so whenever you talk about apostles and prophets, yeah, if you're saying someone who's going to speak a word that has the authority of scripture, then no, that person is going to be muted real quick.

Because we have one source of authority, that source of authority is scripture.

By the way, the idea for apostles and prophets here, these pairings are used in other places in the New Testament to refer to Scripture.

And that may be what Paul is kind of doing here, where he's saying the apostles, those who speak from Jesus in the New Testament, and the prophets, those who speak towards Jesus from the Old Testament, those individuals have been gifts to the local church.

I'm blessed by the ministry of Paul.

I'm blessed by the ministry of the Apostle Peter.

I'm blessed by the ministry of the Apostle Jude.

I'm blessed by the ministry of the Apostle Matthew.

I'm even blessed by the ministry of the Apostle James.

I'm blessed.

I'm blessed by those guys.

And the same thing for the Old Testament.

Peter, in his second letter, uses this pairing to tell the church that he's stirring up their pure mind by way of the remembran remembrance that they should be aware of the words of the prophets in the Old Testament and the words of the apostles in the New Testament.

So that may be what he's doing here.

And then later on, speaking of those active gifts of today who are evangelists and then shepherd teachers.

Now, whatever's happening here with the text, what is very, very clear is that the church is given leaders.

Now, here for many, many years, most of us have grown up in environments where you had one leader, you had a pastor, and this is what he did.

He would stand up in the pulpit and he would preach.

In fact, a lot of churches that I I've been in, some people they wouldn't call me pastor.

You know what they would call me?

They'd call me preacher.

They'd come up to me.

I had one guy at my last church, he'd come up to me and say, Hey, preacher, preacher.

And that's what he called me.

That was my title.

And there was this way of looking at the role up here.

So, like this individual who does the most most of the speaking up here is the one who is leading the church.

And he's the one who's telling us what to do and what we shouldn't do.

And I'm just going to tell you that in most occurrences, that is not what the Bible had in mind whenever the local church was established.

This is why we are moving towards the, and have been for a while now, towards the practice of using elders, where there's not just one person standing up here doing all the ministry or leading all the ministry or administrating.

You've got a you've got a plurality of individuals who are operating in a in in many ways a pastoral role, in a leadership role.

The benefit for that is that I'm just going to tell you, I'm just going to tell you the truth.

I don't know everything.

Now, sometimes when I'm talking to my kids, I act like I do.

So please don't tell them, my daughter's not here today, please don't tell them that I don't know everything, but but but the truth is I don't.

There are skills and abilities that God has not given me.

And the reason is is because by allowing me to have gaps in my abilities, it creates this dependence on the body where I have to go, like I can't be a man in leadership on an island.

I need people like Randy and Tim and Mike and Carrie and then our deacons as well.

Like I need, I need you.

We are all part of the body of Christ.

And so as we move towards that plan, um, I want to make it very clear that these individuals are are gifts to the church.

But now the question becomes, what do they do?

Why are we here?

How do they how do they work into God's plan for the church?

What is it that we're called to do here as individuals?

Because if if if these individuals are going to lead, if our elders are going to lead, or you as you lead a ministry somewhere in the church or teach Sunday school, like we all have to be pointed towards the same plan.

And so what is that plan?

Why did God give us these individuals?

Well, I'm I'm glad that you asked because what Paul is going to lay out for us in verse 12 and on is really God's framework for the local church.

Look with me, if you will, at verse number 12.

As you do, let me just tell you what you're going to see.

Here is Paul is going to give us, he's going to give us a plan, he's going to give us the objective, and he's going to give us the purpose.

Now, this is very important because if you get these things messed up, then life gets really frustrating very fast.

Like if your objectives, if you treat your end objectives like your plan, then life gets very, very frustrating.

How many of y'all ever had like a neighbor or a maybe a you know cousin who plans a birthday party?

And their plan is we're going to have a birthday party.

And that's it.

And you know that having a birthday party is not a plan.

Someone needs to order the cake, someone needs to preserve the clown or whatever.

Scary thing that you're going to do.

You see the point, right?

That you, you know, these things are not to be confused, that we have to have a plan, we have to have an objective, and we have to have a purpose.

Okay, so let's look at the plan together.

Verse number 12.

These individuals, these apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers are called to equip.

Now you could have filled that blank in by any number of ways.

We could have gone back to our first list and said, this is why we're here for.

God gave these individuals to help people.

God gave these individuals to educate people.

God gave these individuals to the church to remind them to set their clocks back in the fall, right?

You could have said that, but that's not what the Apostle Paul does here.

The Apostle Paul, under the guidance of the Spirit, says, these individuals were given to the church.

The leaders in the church were given to the body to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

The practice of churches for so long, certainly since the second great awakening, has been you have a professional minister in your church.

That professional minister is called the pastor.

If you're large enough, you have a number of pastors.

And those professional people are professional Christians.

And if you need something done in Christianity, Christian circles, don't try to do it yourself.

You'll just mess it up.

Go to the pastor and he'll help you.

So if your kid needs to know how to be saved, if your neighbor needs to be witness to, if someone needs to be helped or encouraged or counseled, then the very first thing you need to do is to pick up the phone and call the pastor.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with calling an individual who has a particular spiritual gift in the church and to use that gift.

But when we set individuals up as though they are the professionals, they are the elite, first off, I don't want that kind of pressure.

I don't want that kind of weight.

I am not a professional Christian.

I am just like you trying to figure out how am I going to get this flesh to mind better this week than last week.

And I lean on you to help me with that, to hold me accountable, to love me, to encourage me, to demonstrate how particular areas of my life should look, as much as hopefully I'm able to bless you that way.

This is what Paul refers to as equipping.

This is the plan.

The purpose of the church is to equip its minister, its saints, its members for the work of the ministry.

That's the purpose here.

You and I are called by God, each and every one of us, to do the work of the ministry.

A couple of us here at the church draw, in accordance with scripture, draw our income from the church.

I'll just flat tell you that what Kerry makes as a minister of this church is woefully, woefully underpaid.

He is woefully underpaid for what he brings to this table.

I'm going to tell you, I am woefully overpaid for what I bring to the table.

I'm just being real with you.

That may not change, but I just want you to know that Kerry, man, he is such a blessing to this church.

But but we don't, here's where I'm heading to with this, other than that confession.

We uh as as pastors, we aren't paid to do ministry.

Do you know why?

Because that would be a very wicked thing.

I mean if I only served Jesus because I got paid to serve Jesus, that would be horrifically wicked.

I'm called to serve Jesus for the same reason you are called to serve Jesus because he saved me from my sin.

That's why we serve Jesus.

And so all of us here together, we are equal are equipping one another for the building up of the body of Christ.

That's why we're here.

That's the plan.

Okay, that's the plan.

So what's the objective?

Look down at verse number 13.

Paul gives us the objective.

What are we heading towards?

What's the purpose of this equipping?

Why is it that you find out your spiritual gift and you bring it to the church as we've talked about last week?

And why is it that you volunteer and you serve and you disciple children and encourage couples and live together?

Why do we do this?

The end objective is we drive to this place where we all attain to the unity of the faith.

Now, watch these two words here, T-O, the the uh preposition two.

We drive to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, number two, to mature manhood, number three, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And what's he talking about here?

He gives us in these three prepositional phrases three examples or metaphors or images of the perfect church.

That the perfect church will arrive at a place where there is unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God.

By the way, just take a look at that statement.

For those of you who think that maybe I lean in too hard on the phrase, you can't be closer to God than you are to each other.

Look at what Paul is saying here.

He couples these things together to attain to the unity of the faith.

That's who we are together, and to the knowledge of the Son of God.

That's that horizontal relationship.

You see this all throughout scripture, by the way.

And then he gives the second image where he says that we're growing up to mature manhood, adulthood, um, being able to stand on our own feet and do the right thing and make choices for ourselves that honor God.

And then thirdly, he moves forward to the greatest image of all, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Can you see how he just builds this thing up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ?

Now just pause here for a second and let me just ask you has anyone ever been in a church like this?

Just raise your hand.

Yeah.

None of us, right?

This objective that Paul is laying out here, that we move forward to a place where we have this unity and this knowledge of Christ and this maturity and this measure of the stature, the fullness of Christ, is something that we are never going to attain in this life of God.

But praise God, we are allowed to pursue it.

Now, for some of you, let me just explain to you what that means.

That means you are never going to get bored at church.

There's always going to be something to do.

God gives us this opportunity to work on this project, to grope through it, to learn how to trust Him as we work with people, and people can periodically be complicated.

And yet we endure and we walk with Him.

This is our objective.

This is where we're heading to.

We are never going to finish the race this side of heaven, but we know there is coming a day whenever Christ is going to come down and his body is going to be joined permanently to the head in this great marriage feast of the Lamb, and we are going to be together with Him.

That's the objective that we're heading to.

The purpose, the plan is that we equip one another.

That's significant, church family.

That's significant.

Because what that means is that the primary purpose of this church is not to come into this room and try to get lost people saved.

Oh, we want to see lost people saved.

And if they come into this room, they should hear the gospel.

And I do everything I can here, and I know your Sunday school teachers do to present the gospel to them, but the primary objective for coming into a space like this is to equip believers to minister the gospel.

That's why we're here.

That's what the man said right there: to equip believers for the work of the ministry.

If you're here this morning and you are not a follower of Christ, it's a fight opportunity for you to become a follower of Christ.

And as soon as you do, the very first thing that we're going to do is what Paul tells us we ought to do, which is to find a way to equip you for the work of the ministry.

That's the plan.

The objective is we do this to the place, to the point where we all come together in unity.

And that brings us to this third point here very quickly.

So we see the plan.

Number two, we see the objective.

Thirdly, we see the purpose.

What are we hoping to accomplish by this objective?

Here it is, Paul says, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

Don't think orthodox doctrine or Christian doctrine.

Just think teaching.

And then fill in whatever image you want to of some talking head on some podcast or some news program or some TBN or wherever you want to go, just offering their opinion, their tradition about how you and I should live our lives.

The winds blow, don't they?

Every I've been, I'm 50 years old right now.

I've seen things blow into the church that everyone was sure was going to change and reshape Western Christianity.

And I've seen them fall flat from the pulpit.

The only thing that has worked is the consistent proclamation of the word of God.

That's it.

That's the one thing that has stood the test of time.

Everything else may be a tool.

Like you can learn something from the Seeker Church movement, you can learn something from Phineism, you can learn something from whatever comes through.

And let's take those resources and let's leverage them for all that we can.

But at the end of the day, the one thing that keeps us stable as God's people, that keeps us being blown around left and right, and the waves rocking and us stumbling and losing people over to the side of the boat, the one thing that keeps us anchored is the Word of God.

Ephesus was a port city.

Actually, arguably, the most important port city in Eastern Rome.

It connected Rome to Asia.

And so individuals who lived in Ephesus, where this letter was written to would have known what it looked like whenever you put a baby on a boat.

That just sounds funny, doesn't it?

That just makes me want to get someone's baby, not mine, a grandkid, of course, maybe someone else's, and like put them onto a boat and just watch as they try to rumble across the boat.

They, you know, like it's it's hard enough to stand on your feet whenever the ground's not moving, but if the ground is shifting beneath your feet, like you just know, like you're going to stumble.

And Paul says, you got to get your sea legs under you.

Be mature.

The objective, the plan is to equip, the objective is to pursue the unity with each other and the knowledge of Christ, with the ultimate purpose being that we may be able to stand firmly on the unchanging truth of the word of God and not shuffled about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and crackiness and deceit and the schemes.

Rather, he says, verse number 15, speaking the truth in love.

That's tough.

Truth and love.

Most of us are good at one or the other.

Some of you are very, very good at telling the truth.

And maybe not so good at doing it delicately.

And then others of us are very, very good at at being comforting and encouragers.

But when we, you know, when we tell the truth, you know, we we do it like you know, the the all shucks moment.

Ah shucks, maybe, maybe you shouldn't be drinking that, you know.

Maybe you shouldn't be talking that way.

Maybe you shouldn't be, you know, but but but whenever Jesus came, John tells us that he came full of grace and truth.

And so Paul here, I think he's picking up on that entire fullness of truth telling.

And he says, speaking the truth in love.

We are all to grow up in every way into him, into Jesus, who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body, he says, is joined together by every joint with which it is, and here's our word for the moment and morning again.

What does it say?

See, I'm not just pulling this out of thin air.

This is Paul's series about this.

This is we're called to equip one another.

When each part, worship, uh, when each part is working properly, makes the whole body grow up and builds itself up in love.

Now, you remember, because we talked about our first core value, which is we have one source of authority, which is which is scripture.

Uh, the second core value is we have one manner of living, which is love.

Paul has touched on that here uh multiple times, that this is how we express truth.

We express truth in love.

We don't express truth to people as though we know the answer and you don't.

And look at us stand on our mountaintop down at you poor, you know, you you poor people down in the valley, just trying to tell you how to like that's that's not love.

We go, I mean, that's not what God did.

God sent prophets and then he came down himself and he took us by the hand.

That's, ladies and gentlemen, is love.

Like it would have been, you know, it would have been would have been a safe for Jesus to just yell down from heaven, hey, here's what you need to do.

But he came down and allowed himself to be subjected to the worst that humans could offer.

That's love.

So that's our second core value.

Our third core value is the point that I really want to drive home here.

You may remember that we have one purpose for being.

And when I when I wrote this many, many years ago, because I think this applies to all churches.

When I wrote this many, many years ago, this is the passage that this came from.

The purpose for a church is to equip individuals to believe, live, and share the gospel of Christ for the glory of God.

See, I want you to know how to be saved.

And your elders want you to know how to be saved.

And your Sunday school teachers want you to know how to be saved.

Crucially important, huge first step.

If you don't get that right, it nothing else matters.

It doesn't matter what you're taught how to do, and you know, what kind of father you should be, and what kind of mother you should be, and what kind of neighbor you should be, and how you should, you know, how you should vote and advocate for things in this culture and what you should believe about the the key issues of our.

It's completely irrelevant if you don't know Jesus.

Completely irrelevant.

You must know Jesus to equip individuals to believe the gospel of Christ.

But that's that's that's just the beginning.

That's only the start.

Because you must also be able to live the gospel of Christ.

This is what Paul says here in this passage that as you began in Christ, continue in him.

That you and I don't just treat Jesus as he's the door only, even though he did present himself as the door.

Jesus isn't just the door, he's the house.

He's the place where we abide and we live in his gospel.

And so we equip individuals to believe the gospel to live, the gospel to experience the gospel of Christ in their everyday life.

It's a huge part of what we are called to do, enormous part of what we're called to do as a church.

In fact, in fact, I'm just going to tell you that if you are doing the first thing without doing the second thing, you are doing more harm than good.

Because inevitably, what you're going to do is you're going to be leading people in prayers that they don't really believe and understand.

Whenever Jesus says, What I want you to do is not to make converts.

Jesus never, ever, ever said to make converts.

Do you know what Jesus said to make?

You got it.

Make disciples to believe the gospel of Christ, to live the gospel of Christ, and finally to share the gospel of Christ.

We are called to take that gospel and to deliver it to others, to tell them what Jesus has done in our life and to tell them what Jesus can do in their lives.

I know that's uncomfortable in this culture where we are all convinced that everyone hates Christians and nobody wants to hear what you have to say, and everyone is secular.

Those are the lies of our age.

People are no less religious today than they ever have been.

The only difference is they are searching for answers now that they can Google.

And you and I are convinced that they are satisfied with those answers, and they are not.

We are called to take the message to them, to believe, to live, and to share the gospel of Christ ultimately for the glory of God.

That's it.

That's what we do here as a church.

And if God allows us to grow to the place where we got to run two or three services, glory to his name.

If he whittles this thing down where it's just me and you, whoever that is, I say let's just keep doing the thing that we're called to do.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, whenever he comes back, whenever the good master comes back, he isn't going to judge us on what we've accomplished.

He's going to judge us on how faithful we were in the work.

Are we equipping?

Are we focused in on that objective?

Are we pursuing the purpose that is to provide a stable place for people to plant their life based on the word of God?

Let me give you three words as we get ready to close here.

And as I wrote these things down, these three words, like they they could sound kind of harsh.

Please don't hear them as harsh.

I think they're just appropriate for how we should be working inside the body to equip others and to be equipped.

These are things that we all need to do if we're going to live out Ephesians 4.12.

Number one, show up.

Show up.

We have to be connected.

Like if we're going to speak the truth in love and if we're going to encourage one another, if if we're going to be able to get into their space in the broken parts of their life and to help them, and more difficultly, to be able to allow them into the broken parts of our life.

We're going to need a relationship with them.

We're going to need to show up here in this space, service opportunities, working with one another.

It's not about yard work.

It's about being together and using a shovel together and using a rake together.

We got so much opportunity, but but it's about the work you do together and still show up.

Show up in Sunday school.

We have some great Sunday school teachers here, man.

They love the Lord.

They do a great work.

I mean, incredible people with incredible stories to go in and just fellowship and then after church to show up here, hang out afterwards, engage with people, you know, chat, ask them how they're doing.

You know, I mean, show up.

Number two, grow up.

Again, it's not being harsh.

I'm just using the words from the text here.

It's what Paul says.

We're called to grow up, to be developed, to get into God's word, to hear what it has to say, to take, to take notes and to listen and try to apply the word of God to our life as it as it comes to us, to work on being disciplined.

I know it's a work in progress.

Man, do I know it's a work in progress to pursue holiness and godliness.

But we're called to continue in that process of sanctification, to allow the word to push us forward.

And as we fall, to to do the same thing that we always do, which is when we fall down, to to reach our hand back up and realize that his nail-pierced hand is already there to receive us and stand us back on our feet.

Grow up, show up, grow up, and finally step up.

We talked about this last week.

You were sent home with a homework assignment to prayerfully consider what God is calling you to do as part of the body here because there are no spare parts, no spare parts.

And in part of that, the uh homework assignment was to get online to the to the may I page, which you you go to by going to the church's website, ourgoaleislove.com.

Look for the next steps, and down at the very bottom it says serve here, and you click that and and it shows you where we need some some help, where as a church, like we could use some additional hands to the plow.

And and like if you don't find your thing there on that list, we left a blank slot for you where you can go in and say, I don't I don't want to do any of this, but I tell you what I do want to do, I tell you what gift I do want to leverage, and you go and fill that thing out.

Step up.

It's going to be so meaningful for you.

I thoroughly believe that the God who created time is able to make time in your schedule if you honor Him.

I've seen it over and over again where I thought, I don't have time to do this this week, and yet when I press through.

It's funny how God makes me more efficient in other areas of life.

We're called to show up.

We must, if we're going to be part of the body of Christ and be equipped, here's what we have to do.

We have to show up, we have to grow up, and we have to step up.

The maximum for this, the axiom for this particular message is this is that the church is called to equip ministers.

This organization collectively does not do ministry.

No, no, no, it does not.

Because organizations don't have souls.

You and I do.

And our souls are saved by Christ to serve.

And we're called to equip one another to do the work of the ministries.

We leave this place.

This is, you know, and we may just do this.

Like Tim is working on some additional media stuff, and one of the things that he's working on is putting a couple of monitors in the back so that everyone can see what's going on, who's up here on the platform.

And if he does that, if we get all that together, I'm going to have, like on the way out, it's going to say something like this.

You are leaving the worship service.

You are entering the field to worship and serve.

You are leaving the worship service.

It's unfortunate that we use those terms to talk about what we do here.

Because the truth is, yeah, we come here to worship, and this is a service of sorts, but the truth is the real worship and the real service happens outside this building.

You are in a worship service and you are preparing to leave to worship and to serve.