Word-based Ministry

Ephesians 4:11-16

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Welcome, and thanks for being here today. Please know that all of you, both member and guest, have been prayed for this week, and we hope that you are blessed today in worship. We have a number of announcements to go through this morning, so please listen along carefully:

First, thank you to all of you who were able to join us at the Heights Center last week, both at 9:30 and 10:45. What an exciting month, weekend, and such a special day that was!

Next Sunday 3/14, Dr. Ligon Duncan will be joining us. Dr. Duncan is the chancellor of RTS, serves on the council of The Gospel Coalition, a member of Together for the Gospel, participates regularly with Ligonier Ministries, and is the former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS. You won’t want to miss this rare and very special opportunity to hear from one of the major voices in our denomination and the Reformed faith today.

We need to ensure as equal distribution as possible for the two services, so please consider joining us at 8:45 next week.

Signups are underway for our Heights Outreach Initiative beginning April 7 through May 12 on Wednesday nights from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Heights Center. We will have teaching for our children of all ages running concurrently to our training. If you’re unable to make it on Wednesday we will offer a back-to-back Saturday option with a minimum of 5 signups.

The next Explore Westminster class will take place on Sunday evenings beginning April 11 at 6:00 p.m. If you’re interested in learning more about Westminster Church or would like to join your life with our church here, this course is for you. We’ll begin signups for the Explore Westminster class starting next week and running through the end of the month.

Our Elders have opened officer nominations now through the end of the month. Please carefully review the information about elders and deacons in the PCA, the requirements for nomination, and then prayerfully consider who you might nominate for consideration to these offices.

Please note our upcoming Easter schedule coming up at the end of the month.

Finally, for those of you joining via livestream, we will not have words on the screen, so please use your Westminster app to follow along with the liturgy today.

LITURGY

Adoration/Invocation – Randy Thomas

Call to worship – Randy Thomas

Confession/Assurance – Justin Poythress

Sermon Text 8:45 – Lori Thomas

10:45 – Randy Mercer

Morning prayer 8:45 – Justin Poythress

10:45 – Randy Mercer

Benediction – Byron

Ephesians 4:11-16

Word-based Ministry

Good morning everyone. In case you’re new with us today, or you’ve not been paying attention for the past several weeks, we’re working our way through the Westminster mission statement: We exist to worship the Lord, evangelize the lost, and develop and deploy maturing disciples. In January we focused on worship. We just finished an excellent missions month focused on evangelizing the lost. And now we turn our attention to the final portion of our mission statement.

What does it mean to develop and deploy maturing disciples? How do we do this? Is there a process/method? What about organic discipleship? We hope to answer all (or at least most) of these questions over the next month.

The Apostle Paul outlined for us the ground and the goal of Christian discipleship and gave us the means by which we grow as believers.

Of all the passages that have been especially meaningful in my life and ministry formation, this may be the single most instructive regarding how I view ministry.

There are some within Reformed circles who hold to a peculiarly clerical perspective on church leadership. It’s the minister’s job alone to handle the ministry of the Word in the church. At most, the ruling elders (lay elders) may have some teaching components delegated to them, but primarily it is the job of the minister/pastor to preach and teach and evangelize while all the other Christians can just sit back and enjoy the show. As great as that sounds, and as good a sales pitch that may be, Paul told us that the Christian experience is not akin to floating down the Peace River or a weekend cruise to Nassau.

Why does the church exist? Westminster? Every church that’s ever been? The church exists to worship the Lord, evangelize the lost, and develop and deploy maturing disciples.

How, then, do we grow in Christian maturity? What does a maturing disciple look like? And finally, what does it look like to mobilize or deploy maturing disciples into ministry?

FCF: The church grows through Word-based ministry.

Ministers of the Word (v. 11)

Foundational ministry

· Apostles

o Sense in which all four of these offices (evangelists, pastor-teachers) were foundational to the church, but Paul specifically refers to these two offices as being so

§ Eph. 2:20; 3:5

o Technical term – apostle – one who had seen and learned from Jesus and had been sent out

§ No use in which apostle ever referred to anyone who did not meet these qualifications.

o John 17:18; 20:21 – Jesus prayed, and then sent his apostles into the world – they are the sent ones

§ Paul referred to himself as the last apostle

· 1 Cor. 15:7-8

§ Paul’s claim to apostleship

· 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1; 1 Tim. 1:1; 2 Tim. 1:1

o Understand two things about NT apostles

§ They saw and were chosen directly by Jesus, and

§ They were sent as functional evangelists into the world to declare the Word of the Lord.

· Prophets

o Fewer offices in the NT are more misunderstood or misinterpreted than the NT prophets

§ So much of modern thinking swirls around the predictive aspects of prophecy – equating the NT prophets w/the like of Nostradamus and other dooms-dayers

o The NT reveals very little about the role of prophets in the NT church, but with what we have, I think we can get a pretty clear picture of their function. Let me offer you a few summary thoughts:

§ The prophets, like the apostles, were directly inspired by God (see Acts 21:11)

§ The prophets had a speaking role in the church

§ The prophets were connected to teaching (see Acts 13:1; 1 Cor. 12:28-28; Eph. 4:11)

o These offices together were foundational to the church. They revealed God’s Word and will in a direct fashion. But once God’s Word was revealed, there was no more need for direct revelation. That period ceased, and so the propagation of God’s Word transitioned from the apostles and prophets to the evangelists and pastor-teachers.

Furthering ministry

· Successive ministry

o Let me suggest to you that the apostles and evangelists are to be considered a type of successive office just as are prophets and pastor-teachers.

· Similarities in terms of functions

o Apostles and evangelists are sent out to gather, to proclaim, and to expand the sphere of God’s kingdom influence in the world.

§ Paul – Rom. 15:20

· Preach the gospel

· Not building on someone else’s foundation

o A keen interest in those not yet connected to Christ.

§ Paul referred to himself as an apostle, never as an evangelist; now listen to what Paul tells Timothy – his protégé who would carry on the ministry in which the Apostle Paul had mentored him

· 2 Tim. 4:5 – As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

o Prophets and teachers were almost universally linked in the early part of the NT (see Acts 13:1), and so, without belaboring the point, I would make the same case here as was made for apostles  evangelists.

Key takeaway – Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers all share one common function: they are ministers of the Word, and the Word of God is foundational to the church.

· What changed? Let’s look at Acts 21:9-11 as illustrative of the change.

o …and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit…”

§ We no longer have need of individuals singled out saying, “Thus says the Lord,” because we all have “The Word of the Lord.” Every person has direct access to God’s revealed Word without the need of a special calling.

Ministry of the Word (v. 12)

The role of the ministers of the Word

· God gave gifts to the church – ministers of the Word

o These are men specially gifted and called by God to teach, preach, proclaim, and explain the Word of God for the entire church.

§ These ministers fail in their calling, however, if they do not lead and live in accordance with v. 12

· Why did God gift the church w/ministers of the Word? To equip the saints (you) for the work of ministry.

What is ministry?

· διακονία – ministry/could also be rendered service

o NIV/NASB – to equip the saints for works of service

o ESV/NRSV – to equip the saints for the of ministry

· Acts 12:25 – And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service (διακονία), bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.

o Barnabas and Paul were sent to Judea to deliver a gift from believers in Antioch (end of Acts 11)

§ Concurrently, James was killed, Peter was imprisoned, and the fire-breathing Herod was contrasted with the power of God’s Word. Herod took to his throne to speak, and an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give glory to God.

§ 12:24 – But the word of God increased and multiplied.

§ 12:25 – And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their διακονία.

· Acts 6:4 – But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the διακονία of the word.

Equipped to speak

· What’s the purpose of discipleship? I assure you the goal of the Bible, and biblical instruction, is not to make smarter sinners!

o The ministry for which you are to be equipped, for which every Christian in every church is to be equipped, is the ministry of the Word. In other words, discipleship is about preparing people to speak God’s Word.

§ Again, we don’t need special revelation from God to do this. We’re not waiting on God to beam down his Word to us in a whisper or vision. We have God’s revelation and the Word he has spoken. We don’t go about in the world declaring, “Thus saith the Lord.” We go saying, “the Word of the Lord.”

· John Stott – If the sixteenth century recovered “the priesthood of all believers” (every Christian enjoying through Christ direct access to God), perhaps the twentieth century will recover “the ministry of all believers” (ever Christian receiving from Christ a privileged ministry to men).

· We have three prepositional phrases that must be followed in order

o To equip the saints – that’s the work of the ministers of the Word

o For the work of ministry – that’s the ministry of the Word.

o For building up the body of Christ – that’s ministry by the Word.

We must know God’s Word

· If ministers of the Word are called to equip the saints to be Word speakers – engaging in the ministry of the Word – then the source of our equipping must be God’s Word.

· For the church to grow in maturity, the congregation must be equipped to speak the Word. Where long-tenured believers are unable or unwilling to engage in the ministry of the Word, you have an immature church.

Key takeaway – How can we grow in our apprehension of the ministry of the Word? Tom Hawkes offers a very helpful guide:

· Engage in Bible memorization, meditation, and prayer.

o Memorization: Read a verse or passage slowly and carefully. Commit it to memory.

o Meditation: Consider how the passage interacts with your life. What does it say to your relationships, tasks, past, future, fears, and hopes?

o Prayer: Take the issues brought up in your interaction with the Word and your life to the Lord in prayer. Allow the Word you have taken in to be a means of offering to the Lord your deepest hopes and concerns.

I would add to this a fourth caveat - do this in community with other believers.

Ministry by the Word (v. 13-16)

The goal of Christian discipleship is growth in maturity

· The greatest objection I hear from potential small group leaders, elders, deacons, Sunday school leaders – “I don’t know enough.” Let me dispel that myth so you can look for a new excuse. You’ll never know enough! The real issue is not whether you know, but will you grow?

o If you’ve been in the church for more than, say, a year, and you’ve never led a small group or served in a ministry, then you need to take this as a real challenge.

§ Heb. 5:12 – For though by this time you ought to be teachers – who was this written to? The entire faith community. Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.

· So much of Christian discipleship has taken on the form of a classroom where the truly pious gather to receive a lecture, fill their heads with information, and place a gold start on their growth chart.

o This really shouldn’t be our goal. Again, see Heb. 5:12. What happens to churches (and Christians) who simply take in and never give out?

§ The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the surface of the earth. The salinity is so high that nothing can live in the sea.

§ All along the way to the Dead Sea is a river a life, the Jordan River, that flows into the Sea, but then life ends.

· So how is it possible that a body of water filled with life and vitality comes to be a body of death in the Dead Sea?

o It has no outlet – it doesn’t have an outflow.

· If the goal of Christian discipleship is growth in maturity, then how do we measure maturity? Heb. 5:12 – by the outflow of our lives?

Speaking the truth in love

· What is the difference between an immature Christian and a mature Christian? Or an immature church and mature church?

o It is the advance of the ministry by the Word within the church.

· v. 14 church – tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine

o They’ll believe what’s easy, new, or in fashion

· But the mature church, v. 13 attains unity in the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, growing into mature manhood, by being a v. 15 church – speaking the truth in love, we grow in every way into him who is the head, into Christ

o And what is the truth we speak? According to Jesus, God’s Word is truth, and it is the very Word of God which grows us up into maturity, when each member of the body – that’s you and me – does it’s part in speaking God’s Word – when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

FCF: The church grows through Word-based ministry.

Final takeaway:

How then do we equip the saints for the work of ministry?

· We have four primary ministry areas

· We need to think in terms of how we take people who are far away from God to being fully devoted, developed, and deployed maturing disciples

o Disciple-making pathway

o Equipping to Evangelize – Christianity Explored

§ Perhaps you’ve gone through the study, or you’re interested in learning how to have conversations about faith – we’ll have a sign up at the end of the month for those wanting to jump into this ministry

o Equipping to Engage – Assimilation

§ Once someone comes to faith in Christ, or is new to the church, how do you assimilate into the life of the congregation?

· Explore Westminster (next course after Easter)

· Small groups where you can learn and grow in your faith and in community

· Shepherd-leaders – enfolding into our shepherding process

· Commitment to serve – every member is expected to select an area of service within the church and an area of outreach

o Equipping to Extend – Moving Beyond our Walls

§ Word-based ministry in the community, beginning in Harlem Heights

· Wednesday night Heights Outreach Initiative (4/7-5/12)

· “Adulting” classes

· Taking the Word where we live, work, and play

o Equipping to Enrich – Leadership Pipeline

§ We want to have a pipeline process for ordination – elders and deacons

· We’ve opened nominations for those who are biblically qualified to serve as elders and deacons, and we would love for you to pray about who you might nominate based on the information you received today.

FCF: The church grows through Word-based ministry. So commit to being equipped and then fulfill your ministry. Let’s pray.

BENEDICTION

May the Lord of Hosts be with you

So that you will become greater and greater still,

Until you receive that crown of life

Which the Lord has prepared for those that love him.