Pentecost Sunday - Ephesians 4:7-16 - May 31, 2020

Ephesians 4:7-16 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people." 9 (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 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. 14 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. 15 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. 16 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. (NIV)

Some things just go well together – Examples: peanut butter and jelly, ice cream on a hot day, piano music and calm. But, these combinations don’t fit with everyone. Maybe you prefer peanut butter and honey. Perhaps you have a better choice of treat on a hot day, or maybe a different type of music settles your heart. Many things that go well together are based on personal choice – they’re subjective and therefore different for people.

Some things go well, not because we simply feel they do, but because they were designed to go together. One example of this is the exact illustration used in our text for the Church – the human body. Paul introduced this illustration in chapter 2 and he builds on it here. Consider some of these facts about the human body:

·       It has 30 trillion cells.

·       There are 78 different organs that belong to 10 separate systems in the body

·       These systems rely on each other and must work in coordination, an example being the brain working with the nervous system to get your heart to beat.

·       The cardiovascular system uses blood to circulate oxygen throughout the body.

·       The skeletal system relies on nutrients gained from the digestive system.

The list goes on and on and the point is clear. The body is made up of different parts working together in unity and harmony. Mess up one of the systems and you have a problem, perhaps even death. Contrary to many of the feeling-based things that work together in our lives – the body is objective. It does not depend on your opinion or feeling. It is designed the same way for everyone. It works this way because it was designed to work this way by God. And in that very same sense, it serves as a fitting picture for the Church. This morning, we study how God builds His Church part by part, and we see several examples of that in our text.

Pentecost is usually seen as the birth of the New Testament Church. It didn’t mark a different religion from the Old Testament believers. They worshipped the same God who accomplished the same work. But, at the same time, no one could deny the major changes that Jesus made. He fulfilled the Old Testament law – moral and ceremonial. The worship requirements of the Old Testament that were designed to keep the peoples’ focus on the coming Messiah were obviously no longer needed. The New Testament Church also found itself in a completely different cultural setting, with God revealing new writings by the quills of the Apostles. This caused stylistic changes in worship and further development of the teaching of the Christian faith now that God revealed more from His Word.

Pentecost was the official beginning of this new era, but clearly its roots stretched deeper. Paul brings our attention to those roots by speaking of the Ascension of Jesus. He describes this in verses 9-10 and then seamlessly transitions into what that means in terms of Pentecost. Because Christ ascended, thereby marking the total completion of His work on earth (including His death and resurrection), God now equips His Church for sharing the gospel message as He first did on Pentecost Sunday. Therefore, as it concerns the Church, the first two things that go together, by God’s design, are Ascension and Pentecost.

The second pair that fits together is leaders and lay people. God blessed the Church through Christ’s Ascension and on the day of Pentecost. He did that to provide leaders. Verse 11 reads, So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers. At the end of the line, we see that God does this to equip the Church, and when the word “saints” is used it indicates each and every believer. Therefore, God intends that Church leaders and lay people work together in the task of ministry.

You can look throughout the New Testament and see examples of this in action. In the book of Acts, extra apostles and servants, called deacons, were appointed because there were too many things for the 12 apostles to accomplish. The evangelists were the foreign missionaries of the early Church, reaching out with the gospel into lands that had never heard of Christ before. There were local elders in each congregation much akin to our current Church Council at Redemption. Regular lay people are listed in the accounts of the New Testament, people like Lydia, Priscilla and Aquila, and Cornelius – people who assisted the apostles, pastors, and teachers.

Each congregation has different circumstances and needs, and therefore the way that leaders and lay people work together will be different. But the basic principles remain the same as part of God’s design in all churches. And so, there are some universal similarities that are to be present across all churches. One universal point is that leaders are meant to equip lay people to share God’s Word. The word “equip” in verse 12 indicates making something completely sufficient for a task. Therefore, we must understand that pastors and teachers, the publicly called servants in congregations, are not to be the only ones ministering. Ministry can involve many tasks, but foremost is the sharing and use of God’s Word. Lay people are to be involved in this task and growing in their ability to do so as well.

Another universal truth in this connection is pursuing unity. Churches are to be united. Paul speaks of the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. There’s a unity to all who believe in Jesus and therefore a unity that crosses over denominations and differences among teachings. We speak of this unity in relation to the Universal Church – the existence of all who believe and confess in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is a blessed unity, but Paul does not stop there.

It is also important that as a church, we pursue a more narrow unity – an agreement in every teaching from God’s Word. Paul gets to this type of unity when we warns about being tossed to and fro like a ship on open waters when it comes to our confession as a body of believers. God desires unity in all doctrine – a difficult task to be sure but absolutely worth desiring as part of God’s design for His Church. It’s true that, at times, different churches disagree on non-doctrinal issues, matters of opinion and tradition we might say. But, that’s typically not the case. The sad reality is that many Christian individuals and churches have given up the desire to pursue unity in God’s Word – acting as if it’s either not important or not possible. This is certainly one reason why different church denominations exist today, but it’s also displays an unfortunate unwillingness on the part of many Christians to take God’s design seriously. Just as the human body is made up of many independent and complex systems, so also no two individuals in God’s Church are exactly the same. Yet, despite our functional differences we can work together for the same goals. Despite possession different qualities, skills, and abilities, we can agree upon and cherish what God has said. Taken separately, the casual observer would consider it nonsense that the human body could function as a whole. How much more so when it comes to sinners working as a church. Yet, God is able to make possible what is impossible to us, because He designed both.   

The quest for unity brings us to the final combination of two things working together – and that’s speaking the truth in love. This text is like an ascending staircase. Part by part, God is building the case for the true vision of His Church. Speaking the truth in love is near the top. By doing this, Paul writes, “we grow up in all things into Him who is the Head – Christ.”

Christ is always with His Church. He is the Head – the true Leader. He governs the decisions and actions of the Church. He gives meaning and life to all its members. He sees what the future holds before the other parts do, and so He guides and protects also. Christ is at the top of this staircase. Every member of the body is joined and knit together to Christ and is thereby given an effective role in the Church.

And though the Holy Spirit has been leading us to this point – part by part – Christ has always had preeminence over all the points of His Church. The roles we fill as different members of the Church are Christ’s gifts – given by grace. He is the One who came down to earth to complete all righteousness for us. He descended into the depths of the earth – the heart of the tomb – as He willingly offered His life in our place. And only Christ rose and ascended in complete glory. As in all scenes of life, so it is in this text – Christ is present throughout.

But this last combination is directed at us. God tells us to speak the truth in love. This will determine your standing with Jesus. Christianity is not a matter of “either or” when it comes to truth and love. Many in the world have taken that position. They say you can’t have both. Either you strive for truth and along the way you alienate those who disagree with you, or you strive for love and you accept all – including their beliefs. The world says you can’t have both.

But God takes this “either or” conundrum and makes it a “both and” reality. We can speak the truth in love, without changing any of God’s teachings and without turning a blind eye or our neighbor’s needs. God designed His Church to work this way – in the same way at the other connections we’ve looked at today. And this last step is so important because you can’t know Christ without knowing both truth and love. Many claim to have Christ without love – relying on the seemingly strong foundation of their teachings and knowledge of the Scripture while they could care less about how they treat people. Jesus said that position – one which claims to account for His Word without thinking about doing that Word, is like building on the sand. It will fall.

The other side claims to have Christ without truth. They minimize any teaching of the Bible that isn’t (in their minds) directly tied to the gospel. They are willing to cut corners on doctrine in order to look more attractive to the trends in culture and in order to sound more enlightened or “woke,” as is the current term. But Jesus said following Him was about abiding in His Word, and not a single stroke of that Word was to be discarded as unnecessary.

Disregarding truth or love is like reaching that last step toward Christ – the final part, and jumping off sideways. It betrays all other steps you took leading up to that point – celebrating the significance of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, learning from you pastor and teachers, working with other individuals in service to the Church, and traveling that ever present pursuit of unity under faith.

Part by part, God builds His Church. Over every step and every part, is the ever-present blessing of forgiveness and salvation in Christ. Let us heed the steps God gives as we recommit ourselves to His work this Pentecost. In Christ’s name, Amen.