Recap and Background

I am really looking forward to Series 2 of Ephesians with you. In Series 1, we looked at Paul’s explanation about the gospel and the Church, and how wonderful God’s purposes for the Church were. It was a very positive series. Paul was not thinking about problems and trying to solve difficulties in the Ephesian church when he wrote this letter. He was encouraging; he was building up the church. Ephesians is a book to strengthen your faith. Series 1 was a great part of that, and it ended with these wonderful words in, Ephesians 3: 20 - 21.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”

Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV

He might have finished the book at that point but no, Paul now changed and became very practical. Our inner faith, and our inner spiritual life is important, but our relationships together and how we function as a church are equally important.

Although I know some of you do not own cars, it is like the difference between reading a maintenance manual that explains how to maintain a car, and driving a car. You can’t learn that out of a book. You have to learn that by sitting behind the driving wheel, with somebody next to you to help you. Some of you will have had that experience. Series 2 is about learning how to ‘drive the car’; learning how to live properly in church life; learning how the church functions; and learning how to play your part and be active in the church.

Paul starts in the first half of Ephesians 4, with a very powerful statement - not only about our attitude to the church community, but also about the leadership capabilities and the people that God places in churches to make them flourish and grow. This is an important episode for us, especially if we are concerned for the growth and the development of the church.

Healthy Attitudes to Church Life

“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 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.”

Ephesians 4:1-6, NIV

As we come to church life, Paul wants us to adopt good attitudes towards the community of people. These attitudes come from what he said earlier about how much God has loved us. In the last episode, Paul talked about the height, depth and the breadth of the love of God. God loves you so much as an individual, Paul said, so now, love other people. When we are in community, we have got to avoid selfishness. We have got to think about other people, in order to build strong churches. Here are some key attitudes. ‘Be completely humble and gentle’. That doesn’t come easily for some of us. We like our own way. We like to express our opinions quickly. We like to be strong. But Paul said, ‘be gentle, kind and humble. Respect other Christians. Respect those who are older than you in years. Respect those who are pastors and leaders, deacons and other leaders in the church. Take a humble attitude.’

I remember once, many years ago, I was asked to travel with a famous preacher to another country. We travelled together from town to town, from city to city. He preached here and there. He was received well by everybody. I wanted to join in the conversations, but I was standing behind him, carrying his bags, opening the door, and making everything comfortable for him. I was hardly noticed. That isn’t easy, is it? We like to be noticed. We like to be important. But it says here, be completely humble. You play a part in the church for the greater good. ‘Be patient’. Sometimes it is very hard to be patient with other Christians because you see their faults and you want to put them right; to confront them. Paul said, normally speaking, unless you are a pastor and you have to deal with difficult situations, a church member’s responsibility is to be patient with other believers. We come from different cultures, different generations, different life experiences, different levels of wealth and different personalities into the church. There can be clashes. There can be difficulties. Paul said, ‘be patient with others. God is working in them. He is the one who is going to change them.’

Paul mentioned here the central importance of love and unity in a local church. Paul emphasises it in this episode. ‘Unity’: when a church has a common mission and everybody is working towards common goals, projects, prayer meetings, teaching programmes, children’s programmes, outreach, then there is a lot of energy in that church, and it can achieve a lot of things. But when there is division, the energy disappears almost immediately. This is what Paul experienced in the city of Corinth. When we studied the Collection on 1 Corinthians and then later 2 Corinthians in Word Online, we noticed Paul was deeply concerned that division was going to destroy the church. Here he emphasised unity. That does not mean that everybody agrees on every single point. It means they agree to work together and to have a patient, gentle, humble attitude towards each other. That is what God calls us to do in the church. Paul had a great passion for unity. In these first few verses, Paul was speaking to the church members, the church as a whole - to you and to me.

Church Leaders

“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.) 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 to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:7-13, NIV

Here Paul talked about Jesus dying, being raised up again and being ascended to the highest heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father. Then he talked about how Christ, having ascended into heaven, equips the church. The church can only function with leaders.

How did Paul see church leadership? Verse 11, is very important, often discussed: ‘Christ himself gave the Apostles’. The first thing to notice here is that Christ calls people to church leadership. It is not something you decide to do for a career, a profession, for status, or to start a family business through a church community. Christ calls people. The very first people who were called were the Apostles. Who is Paul thinking about here? It seems clear from the context in Ephesians 4, and also the reference to the Apostles in Ephesians 2: 20, that Paul is referring to the original Apostles. Who were they? First of all, they were The Twelve Apostles who Jesus called while he was in ministry in Galilee.

In the Word Online Collection on ‘The Life of Jesus’, I give a very full explanation of the calling of the first Apostles. There were 12, but we notice in the 40-day period between Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension, other people are called to join The Twelve. Paul explained this in 1 Corinthians 15 in the first few verses. You can see my teaching on that, if you go to the Word Online Collection on 1 Corinthians. One of The Twelve, Judas Iscariot, fell away and was replaced by a man called Matthias. There were 12 original Apostles. Apart from them, it appears that other people were called to be Apostles, particularly James, the half-brother of Jesus, who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15; probably at that time Barnabas, who appears as an Apostle in the book of Acts; and one or two others. Jesus appeared to them with a resurrection appearance. He spoke to them. He came to them and called them. They were already his followers, and he called them to become Apostles. Then Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 15 that the last of those Apostles called by the resurrected Jesus, was Paul himself on the Damascus road. You can study that if you go to the Word Online Collection on ‘The Spreading Flame’, which discusses Paul’s conversion in the book of Acts. These were the original Apostles.

What was their job? They were called and commissioned by Christ in person, either before his death, or between his resurrection and his ascension, by the resurrected Christ. There might have been 15 or 20 of these people, as far as we know, and what they were called to do was to start the church, to establish its teaching, its mission and structure. These are the Apostles that Paul is thinking of, because these events happened very shortly before he wrote these words. The Apostles were called to go from country to country to start the church in new cities and new places, just like Paul and Barnabas did leaving Antioch. Paul spent the rest of his life establishing new churches. These Apostles had a unique authority. Their authority comes through to the Church today through the New Testament writings which were written by the Apostles and those who worked with them.

Secondly, Paul mentioned Prophets. In the book of Acts, and in the life of Paul, we see that alongside the Apostles there were those who could hear God speak in a very clear way to help shape the early church effectively and to help form it correctly.

One of those was named Agabus. He appeared in the book of Acts in a number of different situations. Again, you can study that by going to the book of Acts, ‘The Spreading Flame’ Collection. There were another two prophets called Judas and Silas that appear in Acts 15, and there were others. Prophets worked alongside the Apostles. The Apostles would always preach. Paul says that God gave the Apostles a particular supernatural ability, which was to perform miracles like Jesus did. He described these in 2 Corinthians 12 as the ‘signs of the Apostles’. So, miracles happened with the Apostles. They preached the gospel; people were saved; churches were gathered, and they formed the Church. They appointed the elders and this is how the Church started, and the Prophets came alongside them.

Thirdly, Paul mentions evangelists: people who are particularly gifted in preaching about Christ, sharing their faith. There were people like these in the early church. The most obvious example is Philip the evangelist. Again, you can find his story in the book of Acts in the Word Online Collection ‘The Spreading Flame’. He preached in the district called Samaria. He preached to the Ethiopian royal official and people were quickly saved. God gave to the church evangelists and finally, Paul said, God gave the church pastors and teachers. Pastors and teachers are probably a presentation of one person pastoring and teaching, rather than two separate people. Pastors, or elders, are the absolute foundation for the local church and they have a primary responsibility to teach the Bible well. We need pastors and teachers.

This is the way Paul understood how the Church started. The Ephesian church was an interesting example. It was founded by Paul, but also by a man called Apollos who was an evangelist. Then, as we find in Acts 20, at a later stage it was led by a group of elders - another word for pastors.

What was the job of these leaders? We find in verse 12 that their job wasn’t to do all the work; their job was to develop the gifts of people in the church, to help them to become musicians, evangelists, children’s workers, administrators, small group leaders, disciplers, youth workers, and many other things. So, a healthy church is where the leaders are strong, but they are encouraging other people to participate in the life of the church, and they are training them to do so. Paul indicated that if there is good leadership like this, the church will be healthy. People will be gathered together, they will be united and the church will continue to grow. It is a wonderful picture, isn’t it? You may think that this isn’t exactly how you experience church; there is a gap between Paul’s ideal picture and the reality on the ground.’

We will talk about that in a moment but let us read the final verses in this passage.

Good Teaching Equals Stability

“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. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow up to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, 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.”

Ephesians 4:14-16, NIV

We notice here, that in the Church, Christ is the head. Christ is the final authority. Leaders serve him. They are not there to make money or to gain a big reputation, but to serve Jesus Christ and to serve the gospel and to serve his people. The churches are strong if the teachers teach well, so that people are not confused about the Bible and change their mind about teaching all the time. Pastoring, teaching, and building up the church, are very important things that we need to do. That is what pastors and elders are called to do. Paul believed that God’s plan was that the church should be stable. Local churches should be stable with good leadership, good attitudes amongst the members, and a good, shared life together. But we all know that this is not what we often experience. There are often frustrations and difficulties with lack of leadership gifts and problems that arise in churches.

Reflections

My first reflection is, that this passage encourages us to love our local church, even though it has problems. Secondly, that we should show respect for church leaders. We may not always agree with them. They may not always do a good job. But if God has called them into that role, then we must respect them. My third observation is that the role of evangelism is very important. Some churches are weak because no one is really focusing on sharing the gospel. They are just concentrating on the inner life of the church, looking inwards and looking upwards to God. So, if you are called to be an evangelist, if you have a gift of sharing your faith, can I encourage you – you are here in this story. God calls you, as an evangelist, like he called those early evangelists like Philip and Apollos. If you see somebody else who has a gift of evangelism, encourage them. Support them.

In terms of apostles: The authority that God gave the original Apostles - who knew Christ personally, were called by him personally, and experienced his resurrection - has come to us through the New Testament and the Bible. The Apostles and their close friends, with their encouragement, wrote every book in the New Testament. It represents the same authority that they had in person. If Paul was here in person and he was conducting this teaching rather than me, then you would have the authority of the Apostle, and you could be confident that what Paul said represented the will of God for you. But Paul isn’t here. We are 2000 years later. Peter isn’t here. James and John aren’t here. The Twelve aren’t here. Barnabas isn’t here. But they have left us their writings. The Church has recognised the authority of these writings. and so, these are the Apostolic authority of the Church. That is why to teach the Bible well and accurately and in detail is very important, because we are passing on the Apostolic message. In my Collection on Ephesians, I am passing on to you, as best as I can, the Apostolic messages that Paul gave to the Ephesian church, because they are still relevant for us today.

So are there apostles today? Paul in Ephesians 4:11, was thinking only of the original Apostles but God calls people to function like them in every generation. What I mean is this: God calls people to go to new cities, plant new churches, pioneer the gospel, and develop church networks. They are functioning, not exactly the same as the Apostles in Ephesians 4: 11, but in a similar way. They are under the authority of those original Apostles through the Scriptures. Their authority comes from the Scriptures and from God’s calling. In the world today, we find in different countries, as the Spirit moves in these end times, many people called to an ‘apostolic type’ ministry - to get the gospel to new places, to plant new churches, to move the Kingdom of God forward as we approach the Second Coming of Christ. You may belong to a network of churches that has started in that way; this passage is very important for you. Paul, in Ephesians 4: 11, was thinking of the original Apostles. They were called by Christ, person to person, face to face, in his earthly life and in his resurrection. Others, like those Apostles, are following them to continue the mission of the Church. Likewise, there are prophets today, but they are under the authority of Scripture. There are evangelists today and pastors and teachers today. Sometimes we only think of church leadership in terms of pastors and teachers, but Paul has in mind evangelists and prophets as well, in every local church.

This is a truly magnificent passage where we get a very big vision of what the Church should be. Let us move step by step towards that and let us pray for those leadership gifts to function well in our country, in our town, in our city, and even in our church. Thanks for listening.