Discipleship-Week 3

Ephesians 4:11–16 NIV

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. 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 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.

Serving God is about living a life worthy of the forgiveness and grace you have received, and of the call you have received

The purpose of our giftings is to be there for each other - and to go out into the world to minister

‘The gifts Christ gives to the church are people to promote serving and building up’

Works of service are the efforts that result in us having maturity, knowledge, and the fullness of Christ

‘Our problem is that we have a million dollar salvation and a five-cent response’. Are we making the kind of response that shows the value of the gift?

There’s two BIG things in this verse

FIRST:

God has called us to ‘live a life worthy of His calling’

Paul says before this section we read above:

Ephesians 4:1 NIV

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

This concept is what informs his teaching above. ‘Living a life worthy of the calling’.

Live a life that shows that the work of the spirit in your life is actually accomplishing something

He references is more extensively in colossians.

Colossians 1:9–11 NIV

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience

This is not the same as ‘earn it’.

Earn it means, hit this bar before i’m willing to accept you. If you want this - you have to do these things.

This is about understanding that

Life change should mean behaviour change

Paul is holding up a metric.

We have the best of intentions when we say things, but that doesn’t mean we’re right about ourselves or our feelings

Sometimes, we mean really well - but we don’t do the follow-through part.

Another way of saying it - If this message is meant to be life changing, then life change is the real metric for our belief

And this is great because it eliminates the ambiguity and makes it really clear for us.

So what does it look like to reflect life change?

There’s two fundamental places to look:

Your Character and Your Choices

in terms of character, Paul gives us a great list:

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. But the idea is - if the spirit is planted in our hearts, this is the fruit of that seed

Sometimes, these things come easily to us. Sometimes they are more difficult.

But however far we think we have come - the spirit always has more and more and more for us.

These are a metric for us. If you plant a potato, you get a potato. You plant an apple seed, you get an apple tree.

So we look at our character, and ask ourselves - what is ACTUALLY planted in our hearts?

And if we can’t look at ourselves and say, ya, this is what the fruit on our trees looks like - then we need to take a good hard our life

In terms of choices

Colossians 2:6–7 NIV

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Paul says - you received Jesus - so keep choosing to walk down that path.

And there’s a lot in this verse, but describes it sort of like a plant growing.

We are ROOTED in him

We are strengthened by faith and by teaching

And we overflow with thankfulness, and other gifts from the Lord

SECOND THING:

Every single person and gift is necessary

There’s an easy way to create a group of people that get along and do life together well - kick out everybody that doesn’t look like you, or disagrees with you, or you just don’t like.

1 Corinthians 12:21–26 NIV

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

We think, if we want to be good disciples of the Lord, we have to look a particular way, or have to have a particular set of gifts.

The guy who preaches or teaches is OBVIOUSLY worth more to the lord than somebody who just knows how to bake well, or is a good host

But paul says - the body doesn’t work like that.

The parts that are WEAKER are indispensable

What would it look like for you to say, and believe,

My gifts and my skills are indispensable to the church

Paul stresses that every single Christian is responsible to build up the church, and to reach the lost

Preaching is valuable - but it’s only one point of contact. it’s rare to find people who are saved completely out of the blue by a powerful message. The vast majority of the time, it’s multiple small points of contact across many different kinds of gifts. Someone shows kindness, someone invites over to a house, someone takes care of someone else.

Sometimes, it doesn’t occur to us to serve God with our lives, because we do that cross comparing and say, ya, but look at what THAT guy can do. God obviously uses him. But i can’t do that.

remember - learn to look at it from God’s perspective.

He has different priorites

He has different values

He has different goals

And here’s some things I’ve learned.

A church may suffer without someone who can preach. But it’ll also suffer without people who know how to practice hospitality, or kindness, or supportiveness.

I’ve seen churches thrive without mens and women’s ministry, without 2 hour long evening worship services on sundays or 8 piece worship teams or fancy buildings.

I’ve seen churches die without people who knew how to be friendly, or kind, or gentle

God hasn’t called you to be the other person that has the gifts you think are what REALLY make a church. He’s called YOU, and he made YOU the way he made you.

What do you bring to the table?

I’ve heard of these things called spiritual gift inventories, and they can be helpful to a small degree, but here’s a much better test.

What are you passionate about?

What do you feel needs to get done in life for it to be real, meaningful, productive?

What of those things lines up with God’s values?

How can you practice that more around the church?

If we can do this,

The Body of Christ will be built up and strengthened

And it’s not just the church corporate - it’s every single one of us.

And here’s the great part. If you’re struggling - the other healthy parts of the body kick in to help you through it.

Ephesians 4:16 NIV

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.

The body can’t be truly healthy without each part being healthy. and likewise, each part can’t be truly healthy without other parts around it that are healthy too.

But when we prioritize this, and practice doing whatever we can to live a life worthy of our calling - we’ll see real and amazing health.