Christ's Gifts to the Church

CHRIST'S GIFTS TO HIS CHURCH Spring Valley Mennonite; April 18, 2021; Ephesians 4:7-12 Did you hear the story of the man with a heart condition who inherited a million dollars? His daughter received the call about her father's good fortune, and promptly called his minister. "Pastor," she began, "I just learned that Dad inherited a million dollars from a distant relative, but I'm afraid that the news will be so overwhelming that he will have a heart attack when he hears. Do you think you can figure out a good way to gently inform him of his good fortune?" The minister agreed, and went to see the man. He began by saying, "Bill, do you ever suppose you might ever inherit a million dollars?" Bill replied, "Oh Pastor, things like that don't ever happen to people like me." His pastor continued, "But Bill, just suppose it did happen. What would you do with the money if you did inherit, say-a million dollars?" Bill thought for a minute, then said, "Why, Pastor, I would give half of it to the church!" ...And the Pastor had a heart attack! There is a story about one of the Caesars of Rome who gave one of his servants a fabulous gift. Overwhelmed, the servant responded, "Such a gift is too great for me to receive." "But it is not too great for me to give," replied Caesar. As believers, we are the recipients of a generosity which is unimaginable. Jehovah God, out of His unfathomable love, has given us the matchless gift of His Son, and through the Son has given us every spiritual blessing. That is the great story of Ephesians, and here in Chapter 4 we find the giving nature of the Son demonstrated, both to we as individuals and to the Church. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4, beginning with verse 7. (Read 7-12) This wonderful passage speaks very practically about how Christ gives us the ability to minister within our new family, and how He builds up the Body as He gives gifted men to the Church. As we read this passage, we notice first that... I. CHRIST'S GENEROSITY EXTENDS TO EVERY PERSON Verse 7 begins with a contrast, as seen by the conjunction "But." Looking back in the immediate context, we see the subject has been all the things we have in common that unify us in the church, for we remember that our "worthy walk," our upward walk is in the company of all other believers. Yet there are some unique things that are given to each individual believer. We have much in common, there is wonderful unity, but there is also diversity. Paul tells us that to each one is given a "grace gift." The context tells us that he is speaking of what we call "spiritual gifts," abilities which come from the indwelling Holy Spirit. God wants us to realize that each believer is tremendously important and uniquely gifted. Not a single believer has been left out in this distribution of gifts. There are no "little people" in the Church. The investigation of the World Trade Center Towers disaster 20 years ago revealed that the insulation within the walls of the building was deficient, and this inadequacy contributed to the premature and rapid collapse of the towers. In building those magnificent 110 story towers, insulation in the inner walls was not considered especially important, yet increased insulation could have slowed the fires and saved many lives. It turns out that what someone designing the building considered unimportant turned out to be vital. An unseen and seemingly insignificant component had great importance. In the structure of the Church, each believer is vitally important. Some gifts are more public in nature, but each person is vital to the health of the body. Please realize that each person is vitally important within the church. Never say that you are unimportant or are ungifted; to do so is calling God a liar! A second thing to understand from this first verse is the relationship of the gifts to grace. Grace means these spiritual gifts are unearned, unmerited, and undeserved. What is the meaning of the phrase "according to the measure of Christ's gift?" It means that Christ as the Head of the body sovereignly dispenses the gifts for the mutual benefit and growth of all the members. Thus, we see here in Ephesians, unlike the other passages which emphasize the link of the Holy Spirit to these "enablements for ministry", Christ is the giver of these gifts. Verses 8 through 10 draw from the imagery of a Triumphant Victory Procession, common in the Roman world. II. THESE GIFTS COME FROM A TRIUMPHANT CHRIST Look again at verse 8 (Read). This is a quote from Psalm 68:18, written by King David most likely to celebrate his successful campaign to capture Jerusalem. It views God ascending Mount Zion, leading His triumphant people to possess the city, with the spoils of the battle given to the people. The city, its houses, gardens, furnishings within the houses, the streets, the trees-all these became the possession of the people, with God pictured as the Divine Giver. Paul takes that imagery and merges it with the Roman practice of honoring a triumphant general returning after a victorious campaign. Upon his return, a grand procession through the streets was held in his honor. Leading the procession was the victorious general, followed by his soldiers. Then came the captured slaves and wagon loads of treasures from the conquered people. After the procession, the spoils of battle were distributed to those on the winning side. We see this image repeated several other places in scripture: Colossians 2:15: "When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him." The conquered and disarmed ones are the forces of Satan whose doom was won at the cross and the empty tomb where the weapon of death was taken from the enemy. After 40 days, the imagery was completed when the Lord Jesus ascended triumphant into heaven. Turn back and look at verses 20-22 in the first chapter (turn and read). Christ was raised and seated in the heavenly places, far above the powers and dominions, names used for the evil forces of Satan. Remember the aspects of spiritual warfare in Chapter 6 of this epistle, where we fight against powers and principalities in the heavenly places, the spirit world? Paul wants us to picture Jesus triumphantly ascending through the realm of evil spirits, taking His exalted place far above all other powers. Final victory over these forces is guaranteed, although we are still engaged in spiritual warfare. We are given both offensive and defensive resources to fight these battles, as Ephesians 6 instructs. Another place we find a reference to this triumphal procession is in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16: "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life." The pageantry of the Triumphal Victory Procession included many people carrying incense burners. In addition, flowers were strewn in front of the chariots. As the flowers were crushed, their aroma, along with the incense, filled the air. This scent either was delightful, or despised, depending on whether you were of the winning or losing side. This picture speaks of the victory won by Christ over the enemies of God and man-the devil and his demons, as well as over their weapons of sin and death. After winning the war, Christ triumphantly ascended to heaven and gave gifts to men, sending the Holy Spirit who dispenses the gifts to we believers. In the upper room, Jesus told his disciples that it was to their advantage that He leave them, for then the Holy Spirit, the Helper, would come. As the spoils of battle were distributed as undeserved and unearned gifts by a gracious general, so spiritual gifts are given in grace. A word of explanation regarding verses 9 and 10. I believe it is speaking of Christ having descended to earth when He was born a baby in Bethlehem. Jesus took on human flesh, and it was in His resurrected body that He ascended into heaven. Down through the ages, there have been many who have disbelieved that Jesus actually became a man; they wrongly taught that Jesus was some sort of a spirit being who only had the appearance of a man. But our Lord Jesus did take on human flesh, becoming fully man, being born in a manger, walking as a man among men; He was crucified on the cross, buried and bodily rose again. This same Jesus triumphantly ascended into heaven in His resurrected body, taking His exalted position of power at God's right hand. From there He dispenses grace gifts to His followers. With that in mind we further learn concerning these gifts that: III. THESE GIFTS ARE FOR THE COMMON GOOD Turning to verses 11 and 12. Only five gifts are listed here. One also must go to other portions of scripture such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 to compile a complete list of the spiritual gifts. The reason only five are listed here is that the focus is not upon the gifts given to men, but to the gifts given by Christ to the Church. What is the difference? Verse 11: He gave some Apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some Pastors and teachers. The five spiritual gifts have something in common, and that is seen in verse 12: each of these gifts are what are termed "equipping gifts." The men with these gifts are the gift of Christ to the Church. Their purpose? "To equip the saints for the work of the ministry, the building up of the body of Christ." A brief word on the definition of these five gifts: John MacArthur comments, "The basic meaning of apostle (apostolos) is simply that of one sent on a mission. In its primary and most technical sense apostle is used in the New Testament only of the twelve, including Matthias, who replaced Judas (Acts 1:26), and of Paul, who was uniquely set apart as apostle to the Gentiles (Gal. 1:15-17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:7-9; 2 Cor. 11:5). The qualifications for that apostleship were having been chosen directly by Christ and having witnessed the resurrected Christ1" The term was used more generally for those like Barnabus, but they were called "Apostles of the church", not "Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ." Prophets: Before the canon of scripture was completed, these gifted people communicated truth from God, sometimes personal and practical messages, but often more generally expounded upon the message of the Apostles. Along with the original Apostles, the need for prophets ceased with the completion of the New Testament Canon. (This opinion is disputed by some, but the standard for a biblical prophet is very high-100% accuracy is required.) Evangelists: Those with a special gift for presenting the gospel message and seeing results. Paul told Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist," a command we all are to follow, but there are certain individuals who obviously see great fruit as they minister, people like John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Finney, D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and more recently Bill Bright, Billy Graham and Luis Palau. We recognize many who have this gift to bring people to Christ but are less known. Pastors and teachers probably need less explanation as we are all familiar with their ministries. This is the central passage of the New Testament describing how the church operates. The importance of these verses cannot be overemphasized! How is the church built up and strengthened? Through specially gifted believers who train and equip believers "for the work of the ministry." It is wrong to look at those called "the clergy" and assume that the work of the church is to be done exclusively by them. That is not at all God's way of building up the church, as well as reaching and discipling the world. God gives special equipping gifts to a few who train the many, who serve the body of Christ with their various gifts. While the church is to be a place of ministry, it is also to be a training center where we all learn how to minister. We are to come to church to be prepared and motivated to minister, both within and outside the church building and its meetings. This really does make sense, for when we gather for worship there is very little opportunity to use many of the spiritual gifts. Take the gift of mercy: that is best done one-on-one. Meeting the practical needs of others through the gift of giving certainly is expressed through the weekly offering, but also outside these four walls as God brings us in contact with people in need. I can exhort from this pulpit, but exhortation is most effective when it is done privately, face to face. Certainly, this principle is true of evangelism: this is a ministry for all believers, although there have been a few like the Billy Graham who had that specific gift. If we are to reach the world we must each go, as Jesus told us: Go into all the world and make disciples... While we can hold events and programs which can attract non-believers, I have noticed that really very few actually show up. Perhaps that is why Jesus told us to go, rather than telling us that non-believers are to be invited to the church meetings. It is not wrong to invite people to church, but to be honest, most outside the family of God have very little interest in coming to church. Let's make this practical. Someone has compared the church to a football game where 22 desperately tired men in need of rest are being watched by 70,000 spectators desperately in need of exercise! If ministry is limited to those with the equipping gifts, the church will not be built up in any significant way. We believers need exercise to become strong. If all one does is sit around and eat, and never exercises, we know the result. He soon suffers the effects of poor health. As I said earlier, the importance of this passage cannot be overestimated. Here in our meetings, the leaders are to prepare everyone else for the work of the ministry. Our local church grows only as together we use our gifts for the common good. Each person is vital, and God wishes and expects us to develop and use our grace gift. Each of us are a "minister" as we use our giftedness to help and meet the needs, physical and spiritual of another. And as I mentioned earlier, the exercise of most of the gifts are done one-on-one. Do any of us doubt that there are many, many needy people out there? And here is an added benefit: true joy and fulfillment comes as we are privileged to use our spiritual gifts. There are many things that give us joy and pleasure in life, but few compare to knowing that we are doing exactly what God has created us to do. Do you know what special gift or gifts God has given you? I would encourage you to explore further the passages in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. One hint about discovering your gift is to ask yourself, "What do I enjoy doing in relation to other believers? What brings me joy as I am doing it?" Our spiritual gifts flow freely as we cultivate our closeness to God and to His people. There are many tools that have been developed, "Spiritual gift inventories" some are called. If you are interested, I can link you to those resources. Each of us has been given at least one primary spiritual gift. You owe it to yourself and to the church to discover and use that gift. This is one aspect of walking in a manner worthy of His calling. 1 MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1986). Ephesians (p. 141). Chicago: Moody Press. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ 2