Getting Geared Up

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

As I mentioned earlier, we get to do lots of good things. And having a worship team lead us in song was a great thing. So thank you to Brian and to Chuck and to Lila and to Ginger. Thank you guys very much. I talked to Brian last Sunday. That’s how much time he had to prepare and get ready. And you guys had a couple practices? One and this afternoon. Yep. So thank you guys for doing that. That was great. We have opportunity to sing acapella. We have opportunity, no doubt, in the future to sing with just a guitar. We have opportunity in the future to sing just with a keyboard. We’ll have opportunity to sing with a worship team.

Those are great things. Which one is better? Right? It’s a bad question. Which one is better? Well, they’re all great. They all have benefits and things that are profitable to them. Our Sunday morning Lord’s Day worship is fairly packed. It’s intended to be following a particular purpose. In fact, if you’ve been tracking through the bulletin, you see there are five C’s. And you can look at your bulletin later and follow that even next Sunday morning. It’s pretty packed. It’s intended to be quicker and purposeful in its flow, more intense, and hopefully even maybe wear you out a little bit. What’s coming next? What are we doing?

Because it’s a corporate worship service. It isn’t just one guy performing and everybody else is an audience. We’re all doing it together. And though, obviously, my mouth has been open a lot, The goal is to have us all together offering worship to the Lord. Our then Sunday morning services are more formal, more organized, and our Sunday evening services so far have been anything but that. We had an information night, we had a prayer night, we had a testimonies night, and even tonight, with some time of teaching, like it’s totally different. So which is better, the more formal or the less formal or the totally informal?

Again, it’s a bad question. They all have a particular purpose. Which is better, a wedding or Friday night at home in bed watching a movie with your spouse? If you’re a guy, maybe we’ll have to add some qualifications to the wedding part. It’s somebody’s wedding that you like that you were eager to go to.

You know, which is better, Taco Bell or Daniel’s Broiler? Well, that one I think does have an answer to it. But not necessarily if you need to get in and out. So the point is, like life is full of different kinds of things. And some we enjoy more than others. Some people are built to enjoy naturally more than others. But there’s opportunity for us to do a lot of things as a church. And some of them are more corporate. Some of them are more individual. Some are small and in between. And as a church, which is most important? Is our Sunday morning worship services The most important thing we do as a congregation, and I would probably say, no.

I think it’s absolutely crucial. I love it. I think it’s very important, and I don’t wanna give it up. And yet, if I was forced to choose, and some of you, how many of you, in fact, let me ask it as a question. I’m not asking you, this is not a survey, a Willow Creek survey, okay, it’s different. Well, how many of you have read the Trellis and the Vine? Any of it, how about that? So a number of you have read the Trellis and the Vine. There’s a question, I think it’s near the back. What if the government decided that you could no longer meet in groups of 10 or more? Would Christ Church still be able to go on, not as it is currently today.

I mean, yes, in general, ideally, the church should be able to go on. But in terms of people being trained and ready and thinking in that way, maybe not. I mean, some, yes. But probably a lot of people know. If we had to choose one or the other, I think we probably would choose to go the more personal and smaller route than even a more corporate formal time.

And if you are then wondering, well, then why place any emphasis on the formal time? Well, I’ll argue for that when we’re in a formal time. I get to argue for the less formal times in the right now less formal time. In a lot of ways, it goes back to the air war and the ground war. A bunch of you were at the Making Disciples Seminar. Let me ask that question as well. How many of you were not at the Making Disciples Seminar so that we know who? No, yeah, so a number of you weren’t. Just a quick explanation. The air war and the ground war is an illustration that’s meant to describe different ways to attack and provide supplies Because in a conflict, you also are not just attacking, you’re also providing supplies and provisions.

In the air war, in the ground war, in the church, the air war is more like the corporate, large-scale gatherings, and probably even, we would consider in the air war, many of the technological advances that we have today, like podcasts and websites and even books. In Jesus’ day, they didn’t even have books in the sense that we do, able to get those, the printing press wasn’t around for another 1,500 or so years. So the air war is great. It accomplishes both gospel purposes of breaking up sin and building up believers on a large scale, but then there’s also the ground war. And the ground war is the smaller scale, whether that’s a small troop or maybe even one-on-one kind of things, the small-scale ground war can do things that the air war can’t.

The air war might be able to drop a pallet of bandages for people, but it assumes that they know how to apply it. Ground war, medics maybe, let’s say, come in and they’re able to actually see the need and apply it specifically. So which is more important? the air war or the ground war. Again, let’s not have them be a competition. Let’s have them be a compliment to each other. Let’s totally maximize and work like crazy our air war opportunities. And let’s also love and invest ourselves and work hard on the ground in the less formal smaller group or even more personal type things. Love both. Practice and enjoy both.

It is coming back to and related to some of the imagery of the trellis and the vine. And the idea of the trellis and the vine, if you were there at the information meeting, talked about the book, talked about just that picture of the vine speaking of what’s living. And it’s the people who are living in church. It’s not the programs. The programs are the trellis, the structure on which then the vines can grow. You need enough trellis so that the vine doesn’t fall in on itself and keep the sun and the supplies and nutrients away from other parts. I mean, a vine without any kind of trellis, especially if it grows to a certain size, can actually start to cause itself harm.

Now that’s, at least in terms of the illustration, whether or not a church without any structure at all would cause itself to rot. I mean, we don’t believe that Christ would let his church rot. He’s going to build it. But nevertheless, you need enough structure to lift up and enable the vine to have maximum growth, but not spend all of your time and energy on the trellis, on the structure, on the programs. You’re trying to build up people. But the goal is growth. It’s the health of what’s living. And look at Ephesians chapter 4. All of that was intended to get us to this particular paragraph. Ephesians chapter 4 talks about some of these same kind of ideas just with different terminology.

In Ephesians 4, we’ll start in verse 11. And he that is Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

There are some specific goals. They relate to the health of the vine, to the health of what is living. If you track back through that paragraph, you see the goals of building up. The 50 cent theological word for that is edification, the building up, the strengthening, fortifying. We also see that unity is a goal until we all attain to the unity of the faith. We see that maturity is a goal to mature manhood and even that next phrase, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. a Christ likeness, a healthy looking like the one whose image were being conformed.

Other goals here are stability, not blown around by different teachings and doctrines, discernment to be able to identify good teaching and bad teaching, and then getting near the bottom of the paragraph again, he returns to the ideas of maturity and unity and building up and all of that is to be done in love. The goal of a church is health of the church. The church is the people. The church is not the budget. The church is not the Sunday school.

The church is the people. The goal of a church is the health of that which is living about a church that could be described then as Christ-likeness or maturity or edification or all those different things we just went through. The goal of a church is for the church to be healthy. That is for the people to be healthy. So how do we get there? How does a church, how do the people grow? How do they become stronger? How do they get unified? How do they mature into the fullness of Christ? How does that happen? How do we get there? Do we need more formal or more informal? Do we need the air war or the ground war? Do we need corporate things or individual things? Do we need planned things or spontaneous things? Do we need programs or do we need the people? Well, how about an illustration? Those of you who are parents, you’ve got a hand right on the front row, those of you who are parents, how do you train and grow your kids? What things are more important?

Breakfast, lunch or dinner? School or doing the homework that they were assigned while they were at school or their ability to think about what it was that they were told at school and what they should have been doing in their homework. Are you more interested in their grades? Are you more interested in their growing and ability to learn? Is it more important for you to have family meals where you sit and dad gives a lecture? Or is it more important for conversations in the car on the way to soccer? Would you like to have to choose only one thing? Or would you rather have opportunity to use everything at your disposal because it’s a big job?

And the point of the illustration is to say that we are trying to figure out how to use everything we possibly can as parents to help our kids grow and be healthy and become mature. There are some things that are better than other things. There are some times that are better than other times, it seems. But the goal is to utilize everything all the time and then pray. As Christian parents, we’re throwing in these things to pray and wait and keep working some more. And then pray and wait and keep working some more. Now, that means that in terms of our parenting, We are not trying to keep them dependent on parents forever.

You potentially don’t want your 50-year-old child living at home, asking you to cut up his meat. The goal is not to just make yourself as the parent indispensable. Actually, the goal is just the opposite of that, to make yourself dispensable, to make it so that they don’t need you anymore. That takes a long time. There’s a lot of things that go into that. But good parenting is not about making it so that they always need you to parent them. And you know what? I don’t want to steal too much of my own thunder from the paragraph that’s coming, but the job of pastors and teachers is not to make it so that people are always dependent on pastors and teachers, at least according to Ephesians 4.

It’s not to say that, you know, you should fire me after tonight. I mean, you can. But the goal of a pastor-teacher is not to make it so that everybody, the rest of the body, is forever dependent on them. The goal is to make it so that the pastor-teacher-person, persons, as we’ll see, are dispensable. And there’s people ready to take over and to do the work of the ministry, not that it all comes back to a person or a group of persons. So just as in parenting, the goal is not to keep them dependent on parents forever. The goal, rather, is to get them ready not only to take care of their own needs, but to take care of the needs of others, like when they become parents themselves.

That’s a lot of work. And so another way to say that is parents trying to raise healthy, growing, maturing young people. The goal is for the parents to equip their kids. And that’s the key word. That’s obviously the key word in Ephesians chapter four. That’s why the title of the message is Getting Geared Up.

Because what does it mean to equip someone? It means to furnish them with the supplies that they need to do the job. Whatever those supplies are, Those supplies might be mental in terms of instructions. Those supplies might be very physical types of things. The word equipping could have been used in New Testament times to refer to getting a ship ready to go out to sail. So whatever the ship was going to need while it was on its journey, on its voyage, you’d equip, you’d furnish, you’d supply the ship with the necessary things so that it would have a successful trip, a successful whatever the purpose of it was. So as parents, we’re trying to equip, we’re trying to furnish, to supply, to give to our kids what they need to grow and then eventually become parents themselves.

You know what, in the church, the goal is to equip and supply and furnish God’s people with the things they need to do the work, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Jesse, my wifi went off. Can you move me to the next one? Well, that’s unfortunate that my fancy Greek font didn’t show up. Nevertheless, in fact, I was talking to some people earlier this morning about my geeky affinity for a line diagramming sentences. That’s what you see there on the left. It’s diagrammed in Greek, but the font didn’t show up. So that’s fine, anyway, because most of you weren’t gonna read the Greek. It looked the same, but different.

The point is, I paid lots of money so that I could be a geek when it comes to diagramming passages and things like that. but I have the English on the right-hand side in what is also called a block diagram. So the left is a line diagram. The right is a block diagram, block diagram, where basically you start a new line and you indent and still are showing a relationship between things. So Ephesians 4 starting in verse 11. I’m gonna read it over on this side. And he gave. And the yellow is he himself, and that red, a token, is gave. He gave, who’s the he?

Jesus, Jesus who is the head of the body, the church, read about that later on in Ephesians 5. Jesus has been prime subject in the letter of Ephesians so far anyway, and he’s been the subject earlier in Ephesians chapter four, but he gave, and then what you see to the right of that are four different things, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and then there’s a subsection of pastors and teachers.

All plural, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds or pastors, teachers, He gave these men, and the purpose why He gave these men is to equip the saints. He gave to equip. The purpose of these guys was to equip. And He equipped, and that has a purpose, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, and that has a purpose, which is for building up the body of Christ. It all comes back to Christ. This is His plan. He noticed that he gave certain kinds of men with certain responsibilities. He didn’t necessarily give a handbook or a guidebook. He gave men. I mean, obviously, yes, in terms of having God’s word, we have instructions for how these guys are to do the equipping, but it’s personal.

He gave people to his church, which are people, equip the people, forsake of building up the people. People who have truth who minister to people so that they can have that truth and then minister to other people with that truth. So he gave, it’s all about what Christ is doing. This is his idea, this is his goal and purpose and those particular men are supposed to then fulfill their responsibility to equip the saints. Now, Jesse, can you move to the next slide just for a second. This is a little footnote because I mentioned that there were four types basically that Christ provided, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and then there was this shepherds and teachers.

The reason that I’m focusing in on this is because there is, and I know that this is going to sound pokey and I don’t mean it pokey to anybody. There is no such thing as the role pastor-teacher. That’s not actually a biblical title. I mean, there is such a thing as pastor-teacher. I’m meaning like, this is where we usually get that title from, and that’s not a title. There’s two titles, pastors, shepherds, and teachers. Now, they’re super closely connected. And the reason why some people have taken pastor teachers as one role only is because of how closely they’re connected. So in Greek, what you have is you have one article, one the, shepherds and teachers.

All the other ones get their own the. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. And in Greek, it’s a particular construction where you have one article and two nouns connected by the and in the middle. And it’s referring to sometimes the exact same person. I wanna show that I’m not just super crazy. Why don’t you look, we’ll just take one example at Titus chapter two. Titus chapter two, verse 13. Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now that’s the ESV. The Greek actually has a definite article before God, and not one before Savior.

The God and Savior. And the point of this particular rule in Greek is to show that when you have two nouns with one article and an and in between them, is to show that it’s the exact same person. And so when you come to Titus chapter two, verse 13, were the God and Savior, meaning that Jesus Christ is God and Savior. It’s not two different people that we’re talking about. But what’s important and why sometimes back in Ephesians 4 verse 12, or I’m sorry verse 11, it’s understood incorrectly, is because that rule only applies when those nouns are singular. So God and Savior, those are singular nouns. Prophets, I’m sorry, shepherds, pastors, teachers, that’s plural, not singular.

There’s a couple other rules that have to apply in order for the article noun conjunction noun to be referring to the exact same person, like God and Savior. Can’t be proper nouns, because you wouldn’t want to say something like, the Chuck and Shawn. That doesn’t work. That’s clearly not able to be the same person. So the nouns can’t be proper nouns and they can’t be plural nouns. And what we have here with shepherds and teachers, obviously, is plural. So article the noun, shepherds, conjunction and teachers, is totally meant to say that the groups are closely connected, but rather than see them as these circles on the left, shepherds equal teachers, they’re one and the same interchangeable.

I think that the idea is better that shepherds, and I’ve got elders in there as well because in the New Testament, pastors, shepherds, elders, overseers, it’s impossible to distinguish those from one another, they’re all synonyms to describe the same kind of people, that the shepherds are part of a larger group of teachers, meaning that there are some who are teachers that are not necessarily pastors or shepherds. But all those who are shepherds should also be then fulfilling a teaching role. And that makes sense because one of the things we talk about with shepherds is that they’re regularly feeding the sheep. But there are those who are able to teach who aren’t necessarily shepherding and giving oversight to the body.

Closely connected, not exactly the same person, pastor-teacher, though obviously if you’re a pastor, you should be a teacher, but just because you’re a teacher doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a shepherd or a pastor. That was all for fun, but it’s important.

So we’ll go back to the other slide. This is just the same as before the last one. But notice, because what’s really significant is that those men, and in particular, because I don’t think that there are apostles today, or prophets today, I’m not even sure. We could argue about it later if you wanted to, but I’d be right. No, I’m totally kidding. I’m not necessarily sure that the same kind of evangelists are around today, as what Paul is describing. There are definitely pastors and teachers, shepherds and teachers that are around today. I think the primary responsibility falls on them for the purpose with a purpose with a purpose, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body.

Pastors and teachers do their work so that the saints are equipped. Saints are equipped so that they’ll do work of the ministry, and the purpose of the work of the ministry is to build up the whole body, which means that we all have a lot of work to do, which means it’s not just a particular kind of person. In fact, here are some of the implications of what this means. It means that it is not up to one person to build the body. It’s not up to one person to make sure that the body is growing and the body is maturing. Whose responsibility is that? Everyone’s. Passers and teachers may be first in terms of chronology, but not first in terms of importance or significance.

Because if pastors and teachers are equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body, then that means the saints who are equipped actually are doing the exact same thing that the pastors are doing. Might not look exactly the same, but if the whole goal is to build up the body, then we’re all supposed to be working towards building up the body. It means that my mouth being open a lot could be part of that process, but it just cannot be the only way that our body will grow and that the vine will be healthy, that we will see fruit among us. I mean, it’s not up to one person, And it’s not up to pastors and teachers, plural.

In fact, the health of… we’ll just take our local body, Trinity Evangel Church. The health and growth of Trinity Evangel Church has less to do with me and more to do with everybody else who is not me. It has more to do with everybody who are not elders, overseers, and less to do with the current three, elders, pastors, shepherds, overseers. I say that for a couple reasons, because not everybody is supposed to be a teacher. James says that in James chapter three verse one, let not many of you be teachers, because having your mouth open a lot puts a lot more accountability on you. There’s great responsibility, because usually when we open our mouths, those nasty tongues get us in trouble.

You realize then that that means that most people should not be pastors and or teachers, and that means most of the work of the ministry and the building up of the body is done by people who are not pastors and teachers. And I’m kind of going off on that for a second because my kind, you know, like, And what I mean by my kind are, you know, my kind with business cards that say a pastor or whatever. My kind who have paid all of our thousands of dollars to go to Bible College and Seminary and we go to pastors conferences and we have libraries and we, the ones who know what they’re doing drink coffee. You know, we’ll get that caffeine in there.

My kind are a large part of the problem, and I’m just wanting to admit that. Because pastors and teachers have communicated both directly and indirectly that super-spiritual people are pastors and teachers. Or at least, you know, maybe some kind of full-time vocational ministry type of person. If you are really committed to Christ, then you are probably going to sell all you own and move to Ethiopia. If you are really committed to Christ, if you are really spiritual, those are the people who are in leadership. Those are the people who do ministry. And that is wrong. One of the ways to think about it being wrong, what does that reflect about God?

If we’re all made as image bearers of God, then for one type of person to say that this is what God is really like, is to make God really small and really narrow. And I know nobody would say this, but it would almost be like we think God is in heaven reading his Bible and praying all day. God is up in heaven preparing sermons. Obviously that analogy breaks down. But my point is God created camels. Is he less godly for having created camels? I mean, dare we say, obviously, no, he’s not less God for having created all things. Is God less spiritual, righteous, because he installs kings and removes kings?

But I thought like really Christian type people, we didn’t care about politics. Well, but what about God? He Himself says He really is paying attention. He turns the heart of kings in the direction that He wants like He carves out rivers where they’re supposed to go. God is really big and God does a lot of things. And none of us can fully reflect God by ourselves, but you know what? We get a little closer when as a body, as a multitude of variously gifted and serving people.

Then as the body, we get closer to reflecting more of His fullness. I can’t do that all by myself in my part. And it comes back to Ephesians chapter four. The equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body. If what I’ve just said is true, then that means our Lord’s Day corporate worship services can’t do it all. Should we give those up? No. We saw in Revelation chapter five, the very first Sunday morning, God loves some pomp and circumstance at times. He loves when everybody stops what they’re normally working on and they focus in on bowing down to the worthy one. There’s totally time for that.

There’s a time and place. Then there’s lots of other times where he wants us to worship him as those living sacrifices in whatever it is that we’re doing. I’m trying to make the argument for why you should feel good about what you’re doing and that it’s not, you know, a lower-class Christian who is taking care of babies at home because she didn’t get the opportunity to read through Calvin’s Institutes, you know, in the last three weeks. That’s not a lower class Christian.

The business owners and the musicians and artists and the worker bee employees and the students, those are all ways for people to do the work of the ministry in the places where they are in the things that God has given for them to do, Which means that’s you, which means that’s awesome, which means don’t let me or any pastor type of person look down on you because you’re not a pastor type of person. Because you have a different part in the body. Because your left hand isn’t the right hand. We’re all supposed to be working according to the proportion of faith that God has given us. We read that this morning in Romans chapter 12.

So the job of pastors and teachers is to be enablers. I’m choosing that because I know that that sounds awful to anybody who’s got any kind of counseling history. You don’t want to be an enabler, but in this sense, we totally do. to enable, to let go, to say, run ahead, have at it. I think a lot of the reasons why that’s not as much the typical approach is because that’s messy and it totally then can tend to get out of control. Well, here’s the thing. Are we really nervous about getting out of control when it comes to telling other people about Christ? Are we really that nervous that, you know, God isn’t gonna supply what we need to keep serving?

There’s too many people to serve. So we’ve got to be more wise about who we’re serving. Maybe, but not yet. Like, we got lots of people who need serving, and we have lots of people who can provide for those needs. So like, let’s not funnel it all down to make sure that we have identified the exact one that we should all be excited about. Get excited about what God has gifted you with and the position he has put you in and do the work of the ministry. If you feel ill-equipped for that, well, then like, hey, we got this thing.

where we have some trellis to try to provide some help and equipping for your work. But the equipping is only part of the work. It’s not done just because we sit around and make sure that our ship is full of food and supplies. It’s not done until the ship leaves the dock and gets going. So, yes, I love, we ought to love, totally ought to enjoy and be committed to, a formal, structured, vigorous time of corporate worship together. And we totally ought to love and be committed to and go after whatever it is that is for the sake of building up the body. I don’t know what that is for each and every person. If you need help figuring that out, we’ll find somebody who thinks or who at least seems like they haven’t figured out and asked them how they figured it out.

Or even before you have to try to take a long test and identify it, like try something. Just try it. Do it. See how it goes. Get help if you need it, but like go for it. Because it’s going to be a while until we’re all exactly like Christ. And in that sense, I’ve got good job security, not in terms of employment, but in terms of Christian life. There’s work to do. And we all have that work to do. And you know, from my standpoint, you know, I have had to, my own perspective on it has definitely been tweaked over 15 plus years and continues to be tweaked. But I want to be an enabler for my part. The elders, pastors, and teachers want to be equipers, enablers, and we’ll We’ll know that that’s successful not when you need one of us or me to do something.

We’ll know that’s successful when we’re all busy building up the rest of the body. Father, help us do that. And maybe that even sounds better than it is clear, but that’s fine because the goal in parenting is not complex and yet getting there takes prayer and waiting and more work. So we need lots more praying and we’ll have lots more waiting and we’ll keep working. We ask that you though would be the one who works in us by your power. We will labor and strive but that’s all according to your power that you mightily work within us until we’re all like Christ. Help us to honor Him on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights when we meet here, when we’re in each other’s homes. Help us to honor Him when we go to work, when we’re sitting in class, when we’re driving in the car. Help us to honor Him in what we eat, whether we eat or drink, and whatever that is. Whether we’re inventing software programs or we’re selling coffee or we’re taking tests or we’re preparing sermons or we’re changing diapers.

Let us have the passion and the purposefulness to do all of those things to build up the body until we are all properly working, each part working properly and building itself up in love. And we pray this in your son’s name, Amen.