Ron Dunn Podcast - Building Up The Body (Part Two)

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Ron Dunn continues "Building Up The Body"

Verses 7, 8, 11, and 12 of Ephesians chapter 4. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now the exciting thing and truth about this passage of Scripture and others that relate to it is that it reveals

that God has made provision within the church for all its needs in growth. Now, the key word in that statement is the word within. God has made provision within the church for its growth. That everything a church needs to function and to be self-contained, not needing any outside assistance. Now, that may seem to be a very simple, obvious, by-the-way statement, but failure to understand that has led in years past and in years present and will in years to come,

has led the church to adopt worldly methods and means to function and accomplish its growth. And one of the greatest revelations that needs to come to every church is that God has placed within the church all that will ever be needed for it to function as the church and to grow. It's similar to the statement that Paul makes in Philippians when he says, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. Now the word content means to be self-sufficient, needing no outside assistance. And by that statement, Paul simply means that he has something within him, and we know that that's Jesus, he has something within him that is absolutely sufficient, and no matter what his circumstance, no matter what his situation, he doesn't need anything else on the outside in order for him to live abundantly and victoriously. He needs no outside assistance. And so many Christians have not learned this lesson

that Paul learned. We feel like we're dependent upon circumstances, or upon situations, or upon people, or upon this favor, or this convenience. And yet Paul says, I'm content. I'm content. I am self-sustained, needing no outside assistance. For there is within me, made possible by the indwelling Christ, all that I ever will need to live my life. And that same is true of the church, that the church is content, self-sustained, self-sufficient, needing no outside assistance. And that is basically what Paul is revealing to us here in this chapter. Now, that's a remarkable thing because there are some churches

that have more material means than other churches. Some churches have more staff members than other churches. Some churches have more naturally talented and gifted people than other churches. I heard one pastor say not long ago, well, if my church had all the money that church has, my church could do what that church is doing. And the sad thing about that statement is,

and I suppose all of us at one time or another, to one extent or another, have made a similar statement, and the sad fact is that that reveals that we do not understand that God has already placed within every church, in every local body, all that it ever will need to be and do

what God wants it to be and do. God has made provision for the church, within the church, to function as the church and to grow, to build up the body. I'm so glad of that. I'm glad that the

building up of the body of Christ is not dependent upon anything. Now, a lot of people, a lot of us are getting scared today lest the government doesn't legislate properly to favor us so that it'll make it easier for the church to exist. I'm so glad that God has ordained that the church actually doesn't need favors and favorable legislation from the government in order to get along. As a matter of fact, the church flourished most and grew fastest when the government was its enemy. And God is always demonstrating this over and over again. In Ethiopia, back during the Second World War when the forces of the axis moved in and closed down the churches drove out the missionaries there were left only a

handful just about a hundred Christians in all of Ethiopia ten years later when missionaries were able to go back into that country, dreading to see what they would find, because certainly now, for ten years, under oppression, without any outside help, even those few converts have fallen by the wayside, they found to their amazement over 10,000 converts. God just demonstrating again that the church has within it all that is necessary to grow, to build up the body. Now in this passage, the apostle reveals to us that God has made provisions for the growth of the church. And these provisions are gifts. They are gifts from the ascended Christ to the church. In verse 8 he says, wherefore he saith, when he ascended

up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that's a quotation from Psalm 68, verse 18. And that Psalm, that particular verse, is a verse that recalls Israel's crowning event in all of its history. The rebel Jebusites had taken over the holy city, the city of Jerusalem. And David and his armies have conquered. All of the vanquished chiefs and commanders are trailing along behind, chained, and King David mounts the holy hill of Zion, ascends to the throne, and all of those vanquished

armies come before that throne, bow in submission to King David, and they lay before King David all the spoils of victory. And then King David picks up those spoils of his victory and shares them, distributes them to his people. And Paul reaches back into that Old Testament event and compares it with Jesus. And he says that Jesus Christ went into war and he conquered the devil by the blood of the cross. He was resurrected and exalted and he ascended upon the holy hill of God.

And when he sat down, then he took the spoils of his victory, the fruits of Calvary, and gave gifts unto men. And so the resurrected Lord has dispensed certain victorious gifts to his people so that the church might be built up. And that's the secret of the building up of the body of Christ. It's simply the gifts of the ascended Lord. It's not the gift of some rich man over yonder, nor is it the gift of the government's favor, nor is it the gift of the entertainment world, but the simple secret of the building up of the body of Christ is the gift of the ascended Lord. And he mentions three in this passage that I want to share with you tonight, remembering now that we're discussing God's provisions for building up the body. And there are three gifts or three classifications of gifts I want to share with you.

Number one, God's provision for the building up of the body of Christ are the equipping gifts. The equipping gifts. Look at the 11th verse. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, and then in verse 12, for the equipping of the saints. Now verse 11, he designates, describes these gifts. Verse 12, he reveals to us the purpose of these gifts. They are for the equipping of the saints. That's you all, the saints. There are certain gifts that are to be used in perfecting or equipping the saints.

This passage reveals, as other passages do, that the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, gives spiritual gift, and then he takes that person and in turn gives that person to the church as a gift. And so these equipping gifts are a little different from the other gifts that we'll be discussing because these are people that the Holy Spirit has gifted with some supernatural endowment, some capacity for service, and thus equipped or thus bestowed and endowed. Jesus Christ then in turn takes these men and presents them to the church as a gift. And he lists them there in verse 11, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. But in verse 11 there are specific men that God has gifted and then he takes them and these are gifts to the church. And the purpose of these gifts are for the equipping of the saints.

Now, let's just take a moment and look at these gifts that he mentions in verse 11. He gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Now, actually, there are two pairs of gifts in that 11th verse. The first one, apostles and prophets, apostles and prophets. Now, in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20, he says that the foundation of the church was laid by the apostles and the prophets. And there is a sense in which the apostles, those that were directly commissioned by Jesus Christ, chosen by Jesus, and those prophets of the New Testament era, they are the foundation of the church. And then there is another sense in which God still gifts men with this ministry of apostleship and prophets. The word apostle simply means one who is sent. Originally, of course, there were

the apostles that Jesus Christ commissioned, and they were to go out, and they were the pioneers in this matter of telling the story of redemption. They did the first work, and they set up the new churches. Is God still giving the gift of apostle today? yes in a secondary sense not in the sense that the original apostles were who were the eyewitnesses of the resurrection and who were the mediums through which the spirit of god wrote the scripture but in a secondary sense jesus christ still gifts men with a certain spiritual capacity to go out into new areas, pioneer areas, and to start new churches and to go as commissioned of the Lord as those early apostles did. Probably it may be that our modern day missionaries might be more akin to this word apostle than any other.

But I know of a number of men who are in the ministry, and it seems that their special gift is to go into an area, and they either take a church that's already there but struggling and about to die, and they give themselves to that church, and once that church is built up and healthy and going and growing, then they move on to another little struggling church. I have a friend like this. I never could understand him until I came to understand more of the truth about spiritual gifts.

Because he would go to a little church that was dead or dying and just was about to pass on and was filled with strife and problems and difficulties, and he would go to that struggling, dead, defeated, despairing situation and work and work and preach and preach, and man, the harmony would come, the problems would dissipate, that church would begin to grow, attendance would begin to increase, people would be saved. Now he had it right where I'd want it. And lo and behold, he would move and go to another one

just like that. And I couldn't understand that because I knew the suffering, the agony, the turmoil that he went through in ministering to that church. And the minute he got it where it would be a joy

and a pleasure to serve, he moved off to another one just like that. And today I know a number of men that are in this ministry. And in my opinion, they have the gift of apostle, not in the original sense of as Jesus chose those, but in the sense of the work that those original apostles did going into those areas and founding churches and ministering in that way the prophets the word

prophet literally means he who speaks forth he who speaks forth he was a spokesman for god and uh the work the foundation of the church was built upon the apostles and the prophets in the new testament times and in the early christianity the apostles would move in and found the churches and establish them and then the apostles would move in and found the churches and establish them and then the prophets would come in and take that truth of the Word of God and proclaim it to the people and make it clear and make it relevant one of the best ways to discover what the gift of a prophet is is to go back into the Old Testament and see those prophets and their ministry

was twofold. It was one of foretelling and it was one of forth telling. Now sometimes we have clouded the issue by placing all the emphasis on foretelling. And that was an aspect of the prophetic ministry in that Old Testament as you study all of those ministers, all those prophets. But if you'll read them carefully, you'll find that that, compared to their entire writings in their entire ministry the foretelling the foretelling by divine inspiration was a small part of their ministry there the main burden of their ministry was forth telling forth telling they would take the truth of God and the present conditions of the people of God and join them together and share them with the people.

They were spokesmen for God. And there are prophets today that are exercising this ministry. Then he comes to the evangelist. An evangelist, the word means a gospelizer or a good newser, one who tells the good news of salvation. And then the last gift is a twofold gift. You notice the construction of that verse which expresses the construction of the Greek text. He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists, but there's no and some between pastors and

teachers. He says, and some pastors and teachers. And the construction of the Greek text indicates that this is a dual gift, the pastor-teacher gift. The word pastor means a shepherd. As a shepherd tends the flock, cares for the flock, watches over the flock, meets the needs of the flock. And then he is a teacher, one who instructs the word of God. That's the gift of a pastor teacher. He is a shepherd who watches over the flock of God, and more than likely he is that person who stays in one place and has the flock that God has given him, and he watches for their souls. The old theologians, old preachers used to use that term. Don't use it much anymore,

but it's really a good term. They watched for their souls. Overseer and bishop and elder refers to this pastor. They are a bishop, an overseer. They watch for the souls of the flock of God, and they instruct them in the things of God. Now, the difference perhaps in the teaching or preaching ministry of the prophet and the teacher is the prophet comes and he declares the whole counsel of God and preaches the sweeping truth of God's word, but the teacher comes in and he takes topics and subjects and bits, and he goes into detail and line upon line and precept upon precept and does the detailed teaching of the saints of God. Now, all of these are gifts that God has given.

I doubt seriously if this is a complete gift, a complete list of all of those gifts that God has given that equip the saints, but this is the one that is mentioned here. Now, God has placed these gifted people in the church, and their ministry is an equipping ministry. Now, I want us to read that 12th verse again and then to talk about it for a moment. He says that God has given all of these for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. There are three fours in verse 12.

And just casually reading that in the King James Version, you would think that the pastor, teacher, and the prophets, and the evangelist had three functions. They were to perfect the saints, they were to do the work of the ministry, and they were to build up the body of Christ, and that's just about the way we've operated all these many years. We hire an evangelist, or we hire a pastor,

or an associate pastor who will direct music and educate and lead the youth, but all of them are exercising that pastor-teacher, supporting that pastor-teacher gift. And we say, now we've hired this staff, and they're to do three things. They're to perfect the saints, they're to do the work of the ministry, and they're to build up the body of Christ.

Go to it. And so the Church of Jesus Christ has become a very popular spectator sport. And every Sunday morning, our coliseums are filled with spectators, and then the staff, they get up and they perform. And they perfect the saints, and they do the work of the ministry, and they build up the body of Christ. And we all applaud, or we don't applaud, and then we go away

and wait until next Sunday as we come again and watch, sit down and enjoy this spectator sport of watching these fellows do the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, and the building up of the body of Christ. Well, the fact of the matter is that's not the way it is supposed to be. That's the way it is, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. The three words translated for in verse 12 are not all the same Greek words. The first word translated for is the Greek preposition pros, which means with a view to. The other two for's are translations of the Greek preposition is, which means unto or for the purpose of, motion towards, unto.

Here's the way it reads. He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers with a view to equipping the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the body of Christ. Do you get it? The ministry of these in verse 11 is to equip the saints unto the work of the ministry. The work of the ministry is to be done by the saints, not the pastor. And that's not to say the pastor is not a saint but rather the work of the ministry is to be done by the Saints when they have been

equipped by the pastor the ministry of these mentioned in verse 11 the ministry of the pastor teacher and that pastor teacher gift as I mentioned is supported by all of the staff shepherding and teaching All of it is for the equipping of the Saints so they can do the work of the ministry now The word equipping is a very interesting word it means Well, there's several different usages of it one It meant the outfitting of a ship so that it could sail and function as it ought to.

Another meaning is to render fit. It's used of mending nets so that they will hold fish. But there's one particular meaning that I think really corresponds to this entire passage. It means to set bones. It's a medical term using of setting bones properly, by the way, setting bones properly. Now, I want you to see something

down in verse 16. He says that Christ is the head from whom the whole body fitly joined together. That phrase means perfectly adjusted and compacted by that which every joint supplieth. Now notice that next expression, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.

Williams translates that phrase like this, by the proper functioning of each particular part. Then when that happens, that makes increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. Now verse 16 says that body will grow when every joint, every bone is perfectly adjusted

and properly functioning. And that is the ministry of the pastor. It's to take the bones in the body of christ and to properly adjust them put them in their proper place and to equip them so that they will function properly and when that happens then the body will be built up. My primary task and the task of this staff is to equip the saints to make them what they ought to be. So provision number one, and we're going to race right along, provision number one is the equipping gifts that God has placed within the church. Now provision number two is the edifying gift or the edifying gifts for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of a ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ or unto the building up of the body of Christ. Now there is a

there is a progress here in that 12th verse verse, a gradation in that twelfth verse. The ultimate purpose, the ultimate goal is the building up of the body of Christ. And for this to be accomplished, the saints must do the work of the ministry. Those two prepositions, unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ. So when the saints do the work of the ministry, then the body of christ so when the saints do the work of the ministry then the body of christ is built up so how does this church grow how is it supposed to grow how is this church supposed to be built up this church the body of christ is built up when saints who have been equipped do the work of the ministry now the work of the ministry the word

ministry simply means practical service practical service and every christian has been given a supernatural capacity to serve you have a place and a function in the body of christ and first corinthians chapter 12 as it describes the spiritual gifts, says that all of these come from the Holy Spirit for the purpose to profit with all, to profit everybody. They are never given for the enjoyment or amusement of the personal believer, but they are given for the good of the body of Christ, unto the edifying of the body of Christ. So when saints who have been equipped are doing the work of the ministry, that's practical service, then the church will be built up. Now it says in verse 16, it will build itself up in love.

It will be built up in love. And those last two words are so instructive, built up in love now Paul says that when the members of that church recognize and exercise their spiritual gift the church will be built up and by the way it'll be built up in love it'll not only grow statistically but it'll grow spiritually when all the members are exercising their spiritual gift. When every part is functioning properly, then you see there's no jealousy, there's no competition, there's no pressure, there's none of this idea that some congregations have that our pastor is using us as a stepping stone to a bigger church or is using us as a stepping stone to

a big reputation there is no jealousy there's no strife there's no disunity because all of the members are functioning properly and just in course when they function properly by course the church is built up and it's built up in love the edifying ministry of the church. Now, last, there is a third gift that God has given, and it is the enabling gift. The enabling gift. And that's found in verse 7.

But unto every one of us, now this is a gift that all of us have, is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. This is enabling grace. Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Now, every Christian in this building tonight has a gift from Christ. You say, I don't know if I can do what God has called me to do.

Yes, you can, because God has given you enabling grace to exercise that gift all it takes is your willingness and notice that enabling grace is given according to the measure of that gift there are some gifts that take more grace i wonder if perhaps this isn't why some of us who try to exercise certain gifts fall short and fail. It may be because God only gives grace in proportion to the gift. Grace to be obedient, grace to exercise that gift, grace to serve is given according to the measure in proportion to that gift.

So whatever gift God has given me, he has also at the same time given me enabling grace to exercise that gift. My grace is measured by the gift. Now let's just suppose that I have a gift that doesn't take a lot of grace,

doesn't take a lot of enablement, doesn't take a lot of grace doesn't take a lot of enablement doesn't take a lot of supernatural ability but instead of exercising this gift i say i think i'll exercise this other gift that that looks better to me besides more people notice it and it's more popular and i'll exercise this gift may be the gift of an evangelist. Now, the only problem with that is, you see, God has only given you enabling grace in proportion to your gift. And let's say you have a gift that doesn't take a great deal of grace, and so you reach over here and try to exercise this gift, and you fail because you don't have enough grace to measure up to that gift. Now, when every Christian, and I want you to hear me carefully

when every Christian recognizes his gift and exercises his gift he can exercise it successfully without failure because God

has given him grace enough that will enable him to successfully exercise that gift he's given you grace according to the measure of your gift find out what your gift is and we'll preach a sermon on that too how to find it how to know it identify it. Find out what your gift is and then exercise it. And God has already given you grace that will enable you to do that. So there's never any reason for a church

not to be built up. For the body of Christ not to be built up. For every Christian not to be successful in his service. There's no reason ever for a Sunday school teacher to be a failure in teaching if that's their gift. There is never any reason for a person serving as an evangelist, whether he's in a pulpit or one-to-one as he goes to work, never any reason for him to be a failure exercising that gift because God has given him enabling grace. Now, are you willing to be properly adjusted and to be properly functioning?

Verse 16 says, first of all, we've got to get perfectly adjusted to the head. Oh boy, that's so important. Are you adjusted tonight to the head? Are you perfectly adjusted to the head to Christ? It's only then that you can function properly within the body.

Now let's pray together. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible,

please visit rondunn.com.