When Each Part is Working Properly (Ephesians 4:7-16)

For the past few months, we've been looking at the book of Ephesians together. Ephesians is all about God's eternal plan in bringing all things together in Christ. Paul has been explaining how this plan works, including how God has brought us together within the church, which is his new humanity.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the topic of unity. But if you take a look around within any church, you realize that unity does not mean uniformity. There are huge differences between us. Take any issue – our logo for instance – and you'll have tons of different opinions. How in the world do we operate as a church as a unity, and yet as a unity of people who are different from one another?

Do you ever encounter someone in a church and wonder how in the world they think? Sometimes we come across people who make us scratch our heads. Other times, we appreciate the differences. Our musical guests this morning do things I'll never be able to do.

And this, according to the apostle Paul in Ephesians, is for a purpose. Today we're going to look at this passage which says that our diversity as a church is for a purpose. Let's look at the goal that we're shooting for, and then let's look at how this passage says we're meant to progress toward that goal.

The Goal: Maturity

One of the hardest things to come to an agreement about as a church is our goal. Believe me, I've been in the meetings! If you ask around about what the church should look like at its best, you'll get a hundred different answers.

While there's some room for filling in the details in a particular context, we really don't have to wonder what our goal is as the church. Paul tells us in verses 12 to 16:

…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 in all things grow up into 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.

The goal, according to these verses, is one word: maturity. Paul gives us a number of images here, but the overarching theme is that we become a church that is mature, until we "grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ."

Take a look at the images he uses. Verses 12 and 13 use the image of a mature person, compared to verse 14 of an infant. Paul's a master at mixing metaphors, because in verse 14 he also offers a picture of a boat being tossed around at sea in the middle of a storm, before he switches back to the picture of a body that is growing up with every part of that body doing its work.

Understand that he's not writing about becoming mature individually. He's writing about the maturity that the church attains as a body. It's important to understand this as you think about the image we encounter in verse 15: growing "up into him who is the head, that is, Christ."

Some people have large heads and small bodies, and they don't look quite right. You see this little body and then this big head. Paul says that we are the body of Christ, and maturity means growing so that our church grows to take on the proportions that are befitting a body that has Christ as its head. Paul's hope is that the body – the church – grows and matures so that it takes on the proportions of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church.

Practically speaking, Paul says that this will mean two things: truth and love. When we're mature, he says, we'll believe the right things, the true things. If you read verse 14, you realize this won't come easily. There are going to be winds of teaching blowing us off course, and cunning and crafting people who scheme to persuade us of lies. Believing the truth is crucially important if the church is going to grow to the proportions befitting the body of Christ. This is why the basic truths of the gospel are so important. If we don't hold on to them, we'll easily be blown off course and we'll never reach maturity.

Paul also says that we'll experience unity and love. If you find a church that holds to truth, and is unified in love, then you've found a church that's mature.

How We Reach Maturity

The question is: how do we get there? We don't have to guess, because Paul tells us. But that hasn't stopped us from guessing. For some reason we've come up with all kinds of theories about how the church should grow and mature. We try all kinds of things: business methods, programs, books, personalities. None of these are bad in themselves; they're just insufficient. The church won't become what Paul has described by reading the latest business bestseller, or by implementing a new program.

Instead, Paul tells us that there are three things we need if we are to mature as a church:

1. We need gifts from the ascended Christ

If we are going to grow into maturity, it begins with what Jesus has accomplished for us. This takes a bit of explaining. In verse 8, Paul quotes Psalm 68, except he adds a twist. He says:

When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.

What does this mean? When a king was victorious in battle, he would plunder the opposing army, and when he returned victorious, he would share the spoils with his people. The victorious king shares the spoils of victory with his subjects.

Paul applies this to Jesus, who came to earth and won victory at Calvary. At his death, he defeated the invisible and hostile forces, and he won victory. Now, Paul says, he has ascended to heaven to the place of victory. In fact, he's in a place of authority beyond what we could imagine. Verse 10 says, "He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe."

And the victorious Christ give gifts to his people. Verse 7 says, "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it." As we're going to see in a minute, Paul's not talking about grace to become a Christian at this point. He's talking about grace to serve his church. Let's read this again: "to each of us" – to every single person within the church – "grace has been given as Christ apportioned it." Every single person within the church has received the grace of serving his church. This is where it all begins: with the victory Jesus won at the cross, and the spoils of victory that he's given each of us. It all begins right here.

Before we move on, let's stop here and think about this for a minute. Most of the stuff I've read about the church has a problem. It begins with us. A couple of years ago I saw a pamphlet that said, "The future of our church is up to you!" The friend I was with is a bit quicker than I am. He said, "If the future of the church is up to us, we're doomed!" He's right.

But the future of the church really isn't us, and the solution to the church's problems is never us. It's Jesus. It's the victory that he won at Calvary. Paul says that it all begins here: with Jesus' triumph over evil at the cross. The victory he won at the cross paved the way to his triumph in heaven, where he reigns over the whole universe and is head of the church. It all begins with, and it all depends on Jesus. The future of the church is up to him.

But it still involves us. Do you ever wonder how anything we could do makes a difference? Paul says that it's because God gives us grace, so that when we serve the church, we're actually benefiting from the victory of Christ at the cross. That victory has translated into grace to serve. If it wasn't for this, we'd never expect much from what we do. But what we do matters, because "to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."

This is where it all begins, Paul says. The church is going to grow into maturity. And the process begins with the grace that has been given to the church through the victory won at Calvary.

But Paul says we need something else:

2. We need Christian leaders

This is going to seem a little self-serving, because I am one. But I keep reading people who say that we need to get rid of Christian leaders because they just get in the way. I think I know where they're coming from, because a lot of Christian leaders do get in the way. But Paul says that Christian leaders are necessary. He writes: "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service" (Ephesians 4:11-12).

Here Paul lists four or five different roles within the church. There's some debate about whether pastors and teachers are one or two in this list. This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is a list of Christian leadership in his day. Apostles and prophets had a foundational role in receiving and proclaiming the mystery of Jesus Christ. Evangelists were kind of like church planters. Pastors and teachers lead and teach the church. Paul says that all of these are given by Christ for the church. This means that Christian leadership within the church is not only necessary, but it is actually a gift from Jesus Christ himself for the benefit of the church.

Notice something else here. Business leadership says that what people need is visionary leaders. I'm all for visionary leadership, but the leaders Paul lists are by and large all teachers. What we need more than visionary leaders are Christian leaders who can teach about what Jesus Christ has done. Tim Keller has said:

My dear friends, most churches make the mistake of selecting as leaders the confident, the competent, and the successful. But what you most need in a leader is someone who has been broken by the knowledge of his or her sin, and even greater knowledge of Jesus' costly grace.

Our goal is maturity, so that the church grows to its proper proportions under Christ. To do this, Paul says, we need gifts from the ascended Christ, and Christian leaders. But then we need one more thing:

3. We need every part of the church working properly

If our church is going to grow to maturity, then we need one more thing. We have gifts from the ascended Christ. We have Christian leaders. Now we need every part of the body doing its work. Every person is needed.

Paul says, "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers," why? Verse 12 continues, "to equip his people for works of service." Every single believer in Jesus Christ has been given a gift for ministry (that's point one). Every church should have Christian leaders (that's part two). But their job isn't to do the ministry. It's to equip all the people in the church to do the work of ministry. That's part three. Paul said it perfectly in verse 16: the church will grow and build itself up in love "as each part does its work."

The way that Paul says we will grow into maturity as a church is by tapping into the gospel, putting Christian leaders into place, and then allowing them to equip – to make sufficient and adequate – for ministry.

I need to pause here for a second and defuse an excuse for not serving. A lot of us don't serve because we don't know what our gift is. It's interesting that the Bible never tells us to figure out what our gift is. We don't need to take surveys or assessments. These can be okay, but they can also be a form of narcissism. They're too focused on us. The emphasis in the Bible is simply beginning to serve, and the gifts are merely the ways that the Spirit uses us for the good of the community. We don't need to discover our gifts; we just need to get serving somewhere, somehow.

The key to our becoming what we should be as a church isn't some new strategic plan, or some new book from a business guru. The key to our church becoming what it should be is actually quite simple.

One: Focus on Christ, who gives us all that we need. Two: Put leaders in place, who don't do all the work, but who make it possible for others to minister. Three: as each one of us have received grace that was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ, then serve. Because "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."

What's keeping us from this? Christ has been doing his part, so we really can't lay any blame there. There are only two other places to lay blame. One is with the leaders. It may be that we — and I include myself in this — have to do a much better job at equipping, so that we don't hog all the ministry to ourselves.

But it may also be that in the busyness of life, with competing demands, career pressures, family, hockey, baseball, life – that not every part of the body has been doing its part. This passage teaches that everyone has a gift. Everyone is needed. It's going to take every single part doing its job for a body to work, and we can't afford for some of you to sit it out. You may need to pray, you may need to read Scripture, and you may not know at first how God can use you – but I guarantee that God has you here for a purpose, and we'll never grow to maturity as long as you sit it out.

I'm really glad that God didn't leave us to guess what our church should become. We should grow into maturity to become a church of truth and love, that fits the proportions of a body belonging to its head, Jesus Christ. And I'm also glad we don't have to guess how to get there.

What remains is for us to increasingly focus on what the ascended Christ has done for us, to make sure that our leaders do everything they can to get you ready to serve, and then for you to use your God-given grace to serve the church. If we do this, Paul says:

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 in all things grow up into 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.

Would you pray with me.

Father, thank you for Jesus, who has ascended and given gifts to the church, gifts that enable us to serve.

Father, thank you that Jesus has given leaders to the church. I pray that these leaders would know your grace. Lord, help us to do a better job in equipping others to do the work of the ministry.

Father, I thank you for all those who serve. Thank you for the reminder that it takes each part of the church. I pray today that you would deal with those parts of our church that aren't doing their part. I know for some of them it may be they don't know where to begin. For these, help them find a way to serve.

But for a lot of us, Lord, we need to repent that we've been content not to serve. I pray that today you would change us so that every part of this body is doing its part, so that 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. In Jesus' name, Amen.