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We will continue our studies from the book of Ephesians and we'll turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4 and we will read verses 7 till 16. Let's read the Scriptures. Ephesians 4 verses 7 onwards. “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.' Now this expression, ‘he ascended,' what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?
“himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things. And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.
“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your precious word, and we pray and we believe, we acknowledge, Lord, you build us up, Lord, through your word. And we pray, God, that, Lord, you would allow the blessed Holy Spirit to work in our lives, in our hearts, to illuminate our minds and our understanding, to grasp the Lord, the meaning of your word, so that Lord, we all would be able to live, Lord, under the authority of your word.
Give us grace, Lord, to submit to the teaching of your word. And we pray, Lord, that these teachings from your word would be formed as convictions in our hearts, Lord Father, and so that Lord, our lives would be governed by your word. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. The title of today's sermon is Christ's Provision for the Church's Maturity. Christ's Provision for the Church's Maturity. In the previous section, we have seen that Paul urged the church, implored the church to walk in unity.
And walking in unity, and that is a manner worthy of our calling in Christ. And we have also seen that unity is not an option for believers, but it is the essence of our Christian existence and witness. And Paul says we need to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit with a bond of peace, and we need to put every effort to deny ourselves and to obey the truth. And the root of all problems we have seen is that our set is ourself, and we must put every effort to walk under the control of the Holy Spirit. And we must be careful enough that we are clothed with humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance, and
when and when there are uh disagreements among us we need these qualities. We must embrace these qualities before even attempting to bring any correction, rebuke or warning. And these are, we have seen that, are the non-negotiable qualities. And we have seen that some people simply like correcting people. They are passionate about a lot of things, but at the same time, we should be passionate about these qualities. To have these qualities, to own these qualities in our Lord Jesus Christ. And in the previous section, Paul, and we have seen that it's all about unity. And in this present section as well, Paul still holds on to the theme of unity.
And note also that Paul shifts from using the second person plural you to the first person plural we in this section. So to identify himself also with his readers. And the way we can continue to be united is by maturity. And that's the theme of this passage. Unity is not possible unless we are maturing in Christ. And Paul shows how God sovereignly blessed this church with diversity, with diverse gifts to help the church grow into maturity. Right? So this is a basic outline. I wish I had made some PPTs, but I couldn't make. From verses 7 to 10, Christ, the giver of the gifts.
Verses 11 till 13, gifts are for edification and maturity. And verses 14 to 16, the results of a gifted church. Number one, Christ the giver of the gifts, verses 7 to 10. In the first section of this passage, you know, we see that Paul turns our attention to the great giver of the gifts, our risen Christ. He turns our attention to our Lord Jesus Christ. He builds the church through these various gifts, and it's interesting to know here that Christ gives grace to each one.
It's important that we observe this. Each one is enabled by God's grace and this grace is not saving or sanctifying grace but ministry grace it is an enablement to serve in the body of christ it is graced to serve in different capacities right and peter says in first peter chapter 4 verse 10 that as each one has received a special gift employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And this grace is given to each person. And this gift should not be confused with natural talents.
Many of us are naturally talented and and but we see that these are a special grace to given to each member to serve specifically in his in the body of Christ. And nevertheless, as believers we must also use our natural talents, natural abilities for the glory of God. So we must all realize that Christ saved us not to be spectators, not to be spectators, but to serve in different ways, right? And here Paul says each one, which means no one is exempt from serving, right? No one is exempt from serving. So when I say, when we say day of serving, and when Paul said serving is not talking
about preaching is just one gift, right? But there are many gifts, many abilities that God has given which are important in the sight of God to build the church. And everyone is called to some, in some way, no, in the body of Christ. And every believer should accept and be content to serve the Lord in whatever capacity that the Lord has given them, right? And but we see very few believers volunteer to serve. Very few believers are excited to serve. Very few believers are passionate to serve. And which means that the majority of the believers are disobedient to the Lord, right?
Because each one is gifted in some way, each one is called to serve, right? And we must all serve in some way or the other as the Lord enables us. The emphasis here is not particularly on the gifts in this particular passage, but the emphasis here on the source of these gifts. You get verse one, but to each one, sorry, verse seven, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” These gifts are not based upon a person’s merit but according to the measure of Christ’s gift. It is Christ who measures or proportions appropriately to each one.
He sovereignly distributes the gifts in the church to each believer, the right amount of power necessary to accomplish the task that the gift requires. And Paul supports his claim in verse 7 by an Old Testament quotation in verse 8. He says, “Therefore it says,” verse 8, “when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.” This particular quotation is from Psalm 68, apparently from verse 18. And Paul’s citation has some significant changes here. And Paul changes the, here, God to Christ. In the original text, in Psalm 68, the psalmist uses God, Paul uses Christ.
In the original text, the main subject is God, but here the subject is Christ. And then the most significant change are the verbs that we see here. In Psalm 68, it says that received gifts, right? But in, in Paul’s writing we see that he gave gifts. And the original text says received, but in the Paul citation he says he gave. So why did he change? Did, does Paul have the liberty to change the citation, you know? In the, in the Masoretic text, one of the oldest Hebrew texts, it says that “thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts among mankind.”
And in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, it says “you ascended to the high places, you captured captives, you received gifts from mankind.” In both of these texts and also in our Old Testament Bibles we see that it is, it said received.
But in Ephesians 4 verse 8 it says that he gave gifts to men. Did Paul take the liberty to change the wordings here? No, he didn’t take the liberty to change the wordings here. We must understand that Ephesians 4, verse 8 is not a word for word quotation from Psalm 68. But it is a summary of the whole Psalm. It is a summary of the whole Psalm 68. Psalm 68 praises Yahweh’s deliverance of his people from his enemies. The conquered enemies are now captives of Yahweh. Know, and they pay tribute to the victor in Psalm 68 verse 29. We see that now Yahweh is enthroned as king in Psalm 68 verse 24, and as the king of his people and over his captives he gives strength and power to the people.
We see that idea of giving in Psalm 68 verse 35. So we see here that this idea of giving gifts is derived from the entire Psalm but not from one particular verse 18. So Paul’s idea of giving gifts comes from verse 35 of Psalm 68. So, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul gives the Christological interpretation of Psalm 68.
The coming of Christ, His incarnation and ascension is Yahweh’s victory over His enemies. And to clarify this, we need to understand verses 9 and 10 of Ephesians 4. 10 says, “Now this expression, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?” Verse 10, “He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.” Now Paul’s point here is that the one who ascended is the same person who descended. That’s the main point. Before Christ ascended, he descended to where? To where did he descend? To hell? The lower part, it says the lower parts of the earth. Did he descend to the hell, you know? So this was, this was some of the early church
interpretations of this text, and this was, uh, and but modern scholarship, you know, uh, I think the modern scholarship is better scholarship, and it denies such a view. And it only means that Christ, it refers to Christ’s incarnation, his death on our behalf. And the phrase “lower parts of the earth,” you know, I think we can go to the extent of he descended to the grave. That’s it. Right? His burial. Maybe we can imply from here that it also may speak about his burial. This paved way, his incarnation, he descended, he lived here like a man. He lived in humiliation.
He was humiliated on the cross. He died for us and he was buried. And this paved no way to be exalted to the highest positions in heaven as the one who has victory over sin, death and the enemy. He is the ultimate victor who defeated the sin, death and the enemy. And we also see this, the similar idea in John chapter 3 verse 13. It says that “no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of man,” right? And he is exalted as the eternal high priest and king. He is exalted as eternal God and man, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, so that he fills all things. The filling
In Ephesians we have chapter 2, that we is about the glory, the filling is about his glory, is talking about the Messiah's glory. There is fullness. His sovereignty, power and glory touch all things. Nothing in God's universe will be left untouched by Christ's glory. His glory is the glory of Yahweh. His victory is the victory of Yahweh. He is Yahweh. He is Yahweh. And this is a parallel to Yahweh's victory in Psalm 68.
Right? And the acts of Yahweh are foreshadowed in Psalm 68. But in Ephesians 4, Paul gives us the full view of Yahweh's triumph. It is cosmic sovereignty in Christ Jesus. As the victorious Yahweh gives power and strength to his people in Psalm 68 verse 35, Christ the divine victor distributes gifts to the church, his people.
Right? So, he is the source of these gifts. He enables the church to serve for His glory. The second point, gifts are for the edification and for maturity. Verses 11 till 13. It says, “And He gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers.” No, after Christ ascended to the glory, he did not distribute the properties or wealth.
As the sovereign king of the heaven and the earth, he did not distribute wealth to his people. But he distributed men to bring the church to maturity. In 1 Corinthians Paul says varieties of gifts or diverse abilities in the church. But here in Ephesians, you know, in verses 11, you know, the gifts here are the persons themselves. Christ supplies these gifted men or gifted ministries to the church. You see there, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.
What are these apostles and prophets? Do we have apostles and prophets today? You know, we see sometimes on television or some flyer that apostles so and so, prophets so and so. No, do we have prophets and apostles? Can, you know, can someone claim to be an apostle and a prophet of God today? Now as we have seen already in chapter 2 verse 20, Christ has given the church no apostles and prophets, and through the apostles and the prophets Christ laid the foundation for the church, and Christ builds the church upon that foundation. The, and that is the apostolic teachings and the teachings of the twelve and also of the Paul of and also of Paul are the basis for the Christian doctrine and practice. It was primarily from the apostles that we have the New Testament writings. And when we think of the
prophets, the prophets are not the Old Testament prophets here, right? But they are the New Testament prophets. We have seen that in chapter 3. And it's very clear in chapter 3, verse 5, that they are not the Old Testament prophets, but they are the New Testament prophets. And these prophets were in the times of apostles. These prophets gave inspired revelation in the New Testament communities. Their teachings are not recorded in the written format like the apostles' teachings or writings. But nevertheless, the revelation from the prophets was consistent with the apostles' teaching. That's the reason Paul writes to the churches and says that you should test every prophecy.
They should be consistent with the teachings of the apostles. Proposals, right? And in Acts chapter 15 verse 32 we see there that Judas and Silas were called as prophets. It says that “Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message,” right? They encouraged the church, they and there were prophets like Agabus, their message was from God and was critical for the people of that time.
And when you think of the prophets, who comes to your mind? Or even about prophecies, what comes to your mind? When you think about prophecy today, in our time, what comes to your mind? We all have been affected by this in some way. See, our minds are so polluted when we think about prophecy, right? Our mind is so polluted by these new age prophets and prophecies. These are, I want to say, these are simply jokers when we see on television. And what they do in the name of prophecy is simply a joke. They have made Christianity a laughing stock before the world.
And when you think of a prophet, you must think of a man like Moses. He is one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. And there are many other prophets in the Old Testament. And he did not go around predicting the future of individuals in the land of Israel or of the Israelites. He did not go around predicting the future. You take any Old Testament prophets, they always came with the word from the Lord. And someone like Moses said come as he prophesied, you know, he came and he prophesied, and someone, you know, uh, you know, he always came with the word of the Lord for the people, word that was
necessary for them, to encourage them, to correct them, to rebuke them, to strengthen them, to comfort them. And Moses said that someone greater than Moses would come, right? A prophet like me would come from you. And he is greater than Moses. He is the great prophet, our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is greater than Moses. He taught his disciples, enabled the apostles to record the word from the Lord for the church.
Right? And Jesus did not go around predicting the future. Right? In the Bible, you don't see that. The prophecies in the Bible are always twofold. One form is like the warnings, rebukes, instructions and comfort. And another form is a prediction of the future. It's talking about the future. But these foretellings were always closely associated with the covenant that God had made with his people. It is always concerning with the house of Israel. Right? And the Old Testament prophesied also about the new covenant and also the future glory. There are prophecies of Christ and his people in the Old Testament. The New Testament have prophecies of the future. Now, do you observe these prophecies have to do with God and his people? It has to do with
God and his people. But the major portion of prophecy in the Bible is always instructions, warnings, rebukes. And these ministries, apostles and prophets, were the foundational offices. These offices did not continue after the groundwork of the New Testament church was — or New Testament church was — laid. These ministries, because these ministries were, are associated with the revelatory functions. And the special revelation has ceased with these officers. If anyone comes to you that they have a revelation, you know, you know what you need to do. Right? Don't entertain such people. Don't entertain such jokers. Instead you teach them the word of God. You prophesy from the word of God. You tell them the word, what the word says, the reveal the word
already revealed the word. And these are the apostles and prophets, and upon, you know, they are the foundational officers, and and even now God builds his church upon that foundation, upon the apostles' teachings. And next he says he gave some as evangelists. He gave some as evangelists. The term evangelists itself occurs only here and in Acts chapter 21. And also we can see the reference also in Acts chapter 4. Where Philip in Acts chapter 21, Philip was called the evangelist. You know, you can observe, you cannot, as you can observe in Acts 8, Philip was in Samaria. There was, there was persecution in Jerusalem, right? People scattered, people, uh, went out, and as they went out they preached the gospel, and Philip also preached, went about preaching the gospel, and he was
in Samaria preaching the gospel and many believed the gospel there. And see, that was the work of the, of an evangelist. He preached the gospel. But as soon as his work was complete, after his initial work, we see that in Acts chapter 8 verse 14, it says, “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John.”
People believed the gospel through the work of an evangelist, now they have sent Peter and John to establish the work, right to confirm their confession in christ right and and the term was also used for timothy in second timothy chapter 4 verse 5 paul doesn't call him an evangelist but he says that you do the work of an evangelist paul challenges timothy to do the work of an evangelist and he traveled primarily alongside paul for the furtherance of the gospel and uh their task of ministry we see here in verse 12 no centers on the proclamation of the gospel as the foundation for
the planting of new churches. No, interestingly Paul views this as a particular church office, right? There should be gifted evangelists, you know, which the church sends out to preach the gospel, especially when, you know, you're going to the unreached places and you're starting a new work, new churches. You know, always probably these could be the missionaries who support the church planters, right? Um, and yeah. So, and this does not mean that only certain people were tasked with evangelism. All Christians are expected to evangelize. All Christians are called to preach the gospel, right? And, um, yeah. And then we see here that in verse 11
he says that he gave some as pastors and teachers. There is considerable disagreement among the scholars regarding the final two offices. Some say it is only one office and some say it is two offices. The reason for saying that it is one office is because the two offices have only one article here. You observe here some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and it says that some as pastors and teachers. There is no article, you know, some is a article in Greek. So there is no article before the teachers. So people argue that, the scholars argue that it is talking about one — that is, pastors and teachers are one office.
And main thing that these two offices belong to one category because they are attached to a local congregation. Their primary work, pastors and teachers are, you know, their primary work is in the local congregation. And the pastors are expected to teach. We see that in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 2. It says that they should be able to teach. Now, since these offices overlap, many conclude that these are not two, but one office. But these arguments are unpersuasive, says a New Testament scholar, S. M. Baugh. And even Frank Thielman says the evidence is not clear enough to allow us to consider pastors and teachers as a single group.
The term pastor is used here only here in this text in Ephesians 4, but the verb form of the same word, to shepherd, is used in many places, many other places. So, they are the overseers of God's flock. They also teach to equip and build the church. Teaching is an essential part of pastoral ministry. Pastoring, which includes teaching, guarding, counseling, is a holistic ministry. And teachers are those who explain the truths of God's word to the people and will bring clarity to the text to help the congregation understand the word of God better. Their authoritative function is especially stressed in the pastoral letters, where they are depicted as those who transmit sound doctrine and pass on the tradition of the apostles to the church.
They don't come with new teachings. They pass on the tradition of the apostles. And there are teachers like Timothy. And he was not exactly a pastor when he was at Ephesus. No, he addressed elders. To make this observation, we need to go to 1 Timothy 5, verse 17 and 19. We see there, Paul particularly addresses elders separately. He addressed elders separately in that epistle. But maybe he was an apostolic representative there. But he was at Ephesus for some time. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy while he was at Ephesus. And Paul asked him to pay attention to the public reading of the scripture, exhortation and teaching. We see that in 4:11 of 1 Timothy. He asked
him to pay attention to himself and teaching, 1 Timothy 4:16. Called to train other faithful men who would teach others, Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 2. Timothy is to be diligent, work hard to handle the word of God accurately. We see that in Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 15.
I suppose it's my understanding, I may be wrong. I suppose that these two offices are one, but there is, there could be a little difference. No, pastors, elders, shepherds and bishops are synonym terms. There are synonym terms. They are not different offices. There are, there are some people who are called as pastors, some are called as bishops. No, or bishops, pastors, elders, shepherds are all synonymous terms. All pastors, it's very clear in the word, all pastors should be able to teach the word. But all pastors necessarily need not be gifted teachers.
Right? Some pastors are gifted in counseling. Some pastors are gifted in administration. There are some pastors who are gifted especially in teaching, in handling God's word, in handling heavy stuff. Paul makes this distinction very clear. He makes this distinction in 1 Timothy 5, verse 17. If you turn your Bibles to 1 Timothy 5, verse 17, he says there, “The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.”
Right? There are elders. All elders rule. All elders rule. Right? And according to Paul, all elders should be able to teach, understand the word, word, right? But there are some elders who are given to the work of teaching and preaching. That's the reason in some churches there are teaching elders, right? And there are non-teaching elders, right? So I think, I'm supposing that there's this slight distinction within one office of pastors. Pastors who should be able to teach but not gifted teachers. But there are pastors who are exclusively gifted teachers. So yeah, and all these offices, except the apostles and the prophets, they exist today.
Now what is the responsibility of these men? Verses 12 and 13. 13, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to building up of the body of Christ, until we attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
Even these verses 12 and 13 are debated among the scholars. The English translations like KJV and RSV add a comma after each phrase. You see this is an ASB and also you can see in ESV, they are almost similar. Similar. It says that for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the, sorry, for the, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the service, to building up of the body of Christ. You know, in KJV it reads like this: “for the perfecting of the saints,” comma, “for the work of the ministry,” comma, “for the edifying of the saints,” of the body of Christ, period. Right? This is how we also, the same format has been used in RSV.
And the problem with such rendering is that it supports a misunderstanding that the leaders in verse 11, leaders in verse 11 equip the saints. If you take the KJV rendering, it says that they equip the saints and also they will fulfill the work of the ministry and they will edify the body of Christ. Right? You know, it's all the leaders doing. They equip the saints. They fulfill the work of the ministry. They edify the body of Christ. Then the ministry in the church is like clergy dominated.
All that the church does is sit and relax, watch the show and go. Right? And we do not disregard such reading or such rendering for this reason that I mentioned. But there are some syntactical and contextual issues here. In Greek these phrases are not syntactically parallel. Because there are two different prepositions used in Greek. In English you see that, you see there are for, for, for. Or KJV has used for, for, for. But there are two different prepositions used in the Greek language. If all these propositional phrases here speak about the task of the leaders, then the position of the word saints — you look there in verse 12 — the position of word saints after the first phrase does not make sense. It does not make sense. If the three phases are the activities of the elders or the leaders, then
if the word saints appears at the end of the final phrase, it makes sense. It should read like this. For the equipping, for the perfecting, for the equipping, for the work of the ministry, for edifying the saints. You're getting the point? That the word is placed intentionally after the first phrase, right? It appears immediately out of the first phrase. So the task of the leaders is to proclaim the word, teach the church, and through the word equip the saints, right? Then the rest of the following phrases are like dependent on this first phrase. The word for equipping means properly furnish. It can also suggest training. For the work of service, you furnish the saints, you give all everything that is needed from the word for them to be equipped. You furnish them so that they are prepared to serve in whatever capacity that God has called them to
serve, right? Does it make sense? Right. So the work of service, it corresponds well with to each one in verse 7. To each one of us grace was given. This corresponds well with verse 7. So the ultimate goal of equipping of the saints for the work of service is for the building up of the body of Christ.
The exalted Messiah gives ministries of the word to the leaders to equip the saints in their grace given to them for different ministries in the church to build the body of Christ. So building up all the body of Christ is not the entire responsibility of the leaders. The responsibility of the leaders is to properly teach the word, furnish the church, you know, equip them, train them in whatever the responsibilities that they have, so that as they serve, as we all serve together, we see that the church is being built up. Right? This is how the church matures. This is how the church matures. Look
at verse 13, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and all the knowledge of the Son of, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” You know, why is this ministry needed? Paul answers this with three more parallel propositions, propositional phrases here. This kind of ministry is required until we attain. Until we attain what? Number one, to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. The ministry of the word and the gospel, you know, by the leaders and the ministry of the saints is needed till we attain or arrive
at a particular state called unity of faith. Right? Faith here is not your personal belief in the Lord. Faith here, as we have seen in chapter 4 verse 5, it is the particular body of doctrine, right? It’s a, it’s a deposit which was handed down to the church once for all. Right? It, faith here is a particular body of doctrine. We should be united in all the same biblical truths that define the Christian faith, all should be equipped. All should know this. That is why understanding Christian doctrines is very important for every Christian. Studying systematic theology is not pastor’s business, not only pastor’s business.
Yes pastors should be able to teach systematic theology, but it is the business of every member of the church to know and to be equipped in systematic theology. Every believer should know and be acquainted with the doctrines of the Word of God. Every member, every believer should be the sincere student of God’s Word.
Every member should have a systematic theology copy. Right? Right? I’m not saying this. This is what Paul is saying. It is not for a few members, but for every believer. It is not just for people who are going to get trained for ministry, but for every member. Every member should know the systematic theology. Every member should be equipped with every doctrine in the Bible. Whatever the Bible teaches, it’s important. We should know it thoroughly. Thoroughly. Not to teach here, from here, but for ourselves, for our own edification, so that we would grow, we would mature. This is the way we, we grow, we grow. It is essential. So the object of such knowledge is the knowledge of the Son of God. Right? The object of knowledge, all knowledge, is Christ Jesus. We are together? We are together?
grasping, and enjoyment of the unfathomable riches of Christ Jesus. Remember Paul’s prayer in Ephesians chapter 1. He prayed. He reports of his prayer for the church. And one of the prayers that he prayed for the church, Ephesian church, was that God may give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.
How would we grow in the knowledge of him? Prayer is not enough. Prayer starts something, ignites something. Prayer sustains something. The knowledge comes to us when we are exposed to the teachings. When we study the word. Paul’s prayer is that. He says, “My prayer is that you would know God better. You would know. You would have all the insight into the word. So that you would grow in the knowledge of God.”
And this should be our prayer. That we would know God better. And it’s important that we study. We become sincere students of God’s word. That we would systematically study the word, understand every doctrine of Christian faith. It’s very important. So as Christians, as believers, you should have this passion to study, to know.
Right? I want to encourage you that you, you know, you should all be the students of God’s word, students of systematic theology, biblical theology, whatever theology that’s there, that edifies and builds the church. Right? So, and he also says, until we attain, all attain, the next phrase is to a mature man. This means that the church may grow into maturity. This idea is in contrast to the spiritual infants in verse 14.
Instead of being infants, we need to grow. We need to mature. Right? And this is the way we grow, as we’ve seen in the first phrase. And it also says that “until we attain to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” We should keep knowing, we should keep growing until we attain the measure of stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. The apostle has prayed that the readers might be filled up to all the fullness of God, verse, chapter 3 verse 19. This, the growth is measured by nothing less than Christ’s full stature. God’s goal for us is spiritual growth, not just spiritual maturity, but full, but full Christ-likeness. We must seek to be more like Christ. In all our studies we should all always has aimed to know
Christ, to become like Christ, right? And we must be more like Christ in every area of our life, but such fullness is only attained at the eschaton, at the coming of Christ. But nevertheless, we must aim at not becoming like Christ in every aspect of a life. So the point here is that these gifts are for the edification of the church.
And the next point here is that the results of a gifted church. Verses 14 till 16. It says, the proper use of gifts in the church, from the handling of God's word to all the ministries of the members, like daily encouragement of one another, it results in a mature church. Church, right? In verse 14, children here is figuratively used for infants, you know, or the word infants or children here is figuratively used for spiritual immaturity or instability in Christian life. The immature believers are tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. You hear this teaching, you get excited, you hear
that teaching, you get excited. We shouldn't be like — Paul's point is that you shouldn't be like that. That's the reason we need to grow. That's the reason we need to be, we need to be the students of God's word. We need to be acquainted with every doctrine of God's word. That's the reason. The only antidote for being infants or immature is to know and to mature by that knowledge, right? You remember what Paul, what the writer of Hebrews said to the Hebrews. The way, you know, you see there many people were going back, reverting, trying to revert into the Old Testament rituals, and the point
of the writer of the Hebrews is that do not revert, because there is better than someone, who is someone, you know, better than Moses, who mediates a better covenant, you know, who offers a better and lasting sacrifice, the only sacrifice which can take away your sins. And writing to them he says in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 11 onwards, he says that you have become dull of hearing. You have become dull of hearing, because they were not paying attention to the teachings of God's word. And he says, by this time you should have been teachers, but you need of milk. He says, you're infants, you're babes.
The point of the writer of Hebrews is that you shouldn't be babes, you should be infants, you should be mature people, knowing what the truth, knowing what the Bible says, knowing the doctrines of the Bible, established in the doctrines, so you're strong in faith. Is not subjective. Faith is objective. It's wholly dependent upon the teachings of the word of God. And on God. So all believers should know the truth. To strive to know the truth. Right? Right?
So, yeah, it's important that the immature believers are tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. You see here that cunning, it says that, how are they, how they are carried away by every wind of doctrine? By the trickery of men. Another word here for trickery is cunning. The cunning men promote these false doctrines. It literally means cunning or trickery. Behind every wrong teaching that's there around us, behind every wrong teaching there is deceitful scheming.
False doctrines are not innocent errors. False doctrines are not innocent errors. They are deceitful schemes. They are there to deceive us. Deceive the people of God. These false teachers turn religion into a money making scheme. They serve for their own personal gain. There are many false teachings out there.
It is essential that we give ourselves regularly to the sound biblical teaching of God's Word. We should learn to study the Bible correctly and discern right and wrong teachings. We should be grounded in the apostolic teachings. On the contrary, we ought to mature instead of remaining immature and unstable.
The way we remain immature and unstable is by not giving ourselves to the study of God's word or teaching of God's word. And what is a sign of a mature church? What is the result? A very tangible result that we are growing? Verse 15, “but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ.” Now Paul isn't exhorting us to truthfulness in general here, or merely that we are to be kind when we interact, no, when we are interacting verbally with one another. As we learn the word of God, believers should speak the gospel truth, the truth of the word of God, with all believers. He is calling us on to proclaim the doctrinal truth of Christianity with one another. We should have word centered fellowships. We need to discuss the word when we meet. We need
to discuss theology when we meet. We need to learn from one another. Some people may have studied more and they have more to contribute and we should be humble enough to learn from them. We should be humble enough to learn from those brothers and sisters. Now we need to hear the word in our fellowships. And all of this should be done in love.
All done in love. Do not speak out of pride. Do not speak the truth to show off or to put others down. Do not make others feel that they do not know anything. So love here involves seeking the benefit of the others, and is bound up with humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance that we have seen in chapter 4 verse 2 onwards. Even when you're correcting the error of others, you know better, be it by truth in love, humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance. Otherwise please shut your mouth, because truth in love will set us on path of building up. If it is not truth in love,
if that, if you're not speaking truth in humility, gentleness, meekness, gentleness, patience and tolerance and love, if you're not speaking like that, we are tearing things down. So if you're not able to speak the truth in love, doctrinal truth or whatever truth, no, to build the brother and sister, if you're not able to do that in love, humility, gentleness and patience and tolerance, it's better we shut our mouths.
The goal is to grow up in all aspects in Him who is head, even Christ. The goal is to become like our Saviour. And Paul now uses a metaphor of human body here in verse 15, the last part, and verse 16, it says, where Christ is the head, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together, every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. You see here? And this is another proof that verse 13 is not the responsibility. Responsibility is not the only work of the leaders, it's of the entire body.
Leaders equip the church to serve in different capacities. And they, what they do, individual part, the proper working of the individual part, what does it say? It supplies, right? Causes growth. Both. We are all joined to our head and all the body parts are held together. And it is essential to observe here the word every again.
In the previous verses we see each one, and here every — the word every is very important. It emphasizes that every part of the body needs to contribute to providing the spiritual nutrients for the building of the church. It is necessary for the entire body's growth.
God has given each member a gift that can be used to serve the whole. So the inactive, immature, unstable members are stunting the church growth. In other words, if you are not using your God-given gifts and serving the church in whatever capacity that God has called you or enabled you, if you are not using the gifts to serve the church, if you are not outward focused, if you are not there to serve others — it could appear as minimal, insignificant to the people, to the eyes of the people. It doesn't matter. You're doing before the Lord, and whatever you're called to do, whatever the Lord has enabled you to do, you do it.
You do it for the building above the church. As everyone contributes, what's happening? What's the big picture? What's the big picture there? We are built up. It causes the growth. It causes the body to grow. You're building up. You're contributing to the health of the church.
Our growth is twofold. We should be connected to Christ and one another. We should be connected to Christ and one another. We cannot mature in isolation. You cannot isolate yourself into a study room. You may be spending hours together on your knees, or you may be devouring all the doctrines of the word, or studying the word, memorizing the word — that's not enough. You're not maturing, we all mature in the body of Christ, that's the reason. And we all, you know, being part of a church is very essential. Not just being part of a healthy church is enough. A healthy church is not just known by its doctrine and teaching. Yes, it's important. But also, and according to Paul, a healthy church is where everyone contributes to the health of the church. Everyone
serves. Everyone denies their self and deems others as better and worthy, and serves in humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance and in love. Everyone contributes and the church grows. That's the healthy church. That's the healthy church. And we should be part of such a healthy church, and we should make a church healthy.
So we learn three things today. The victorious ascended Christ, He gifts every believer. And the leaders should equip the church with doctrine and train them for service. And the mutual service of the saints builds the church. So, know your calling, know that you should be sincere student of God's word. You should give yourself to learn to study God's word. Right? You should know the doctrines of the Bible. You should grow mature. And also, we should contribute to the church, to the health of the church, in whatever capacity that God has given us or called us.
Right? And thereby, we build the church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you, God, Father, for your word. We pray at this time that you make our church healthy. Lord, we pray that you make the leaders of this church healthy. You make the members of this church healthy. Oh Lord, we pray that we all would be equipped, strengthened.
We all would contribute to the health of the church. We pray Lord that you all would become sincere students of your word so that we all grow and mature. We thank you, we bless your great name. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.