God’s original design for his church

25 May 25 Sermon

   I had to share this for those of you who sometimes are struggling to understand the Scottish accents. In the 13^th century, so that’s the 1200s, the Vikings had the same problem! An old saga from Iceland says; ‘Scotland is full of dangerous natives, who speak an incomprehensible language, and the weather is awful.’ 

So that was the travel report of a visitor to Scotland 800 years ago! ‘Scotland is full of dangerous natives, who speak an incomprehensible language, and the weather is awful.’ At least we can say this Spring that the weather hasn’t been awful!

Well, we are in a season of movement, of transition in our church, we are in the process of joining our two congregations into one congregation. And in the process we are also thinking through what our church should look like. Because our church is being reorganised, reshaped though the merger, we are in a special moment of change in the life of our church. We are in a moment of fluidity, where the old way is being unfrozen and we are shaping what is going to come next. 

It’s an exciting time! It’s a time where we have the chance to create something that is new and better than what we had before. It’s exciting because we are getting to know and meet and mingle with people who are new to us. People who speak an incomprehensible language and who might be dangerous (that’s a joke)!! 

But what sort of church should we create? What sort of church does God want built here?

Well lets turn to the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in the great city of Ephesus to find out. Paul is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit a description here of what God wants his church to look like. There are some lessons in this part of his letter to the Ephesians which the church over the last 2000 years has forgotten about and which we need to recover. If we can grasp what Paul is saying here, it might well change our understanding of how things are meant to work in the local church. 

Paul is writing as a prisoner, he is in chains he later tells us. He has been arrested for his sharing of the Christian message. Even though Paul is suffering, he isn’t thinking about his own difficulties, he is thinking of his brothers and sisters in the church and he is concerned about them. He writes to them; ‘I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you received.’

What is that calling? 

Well Paul says in Ephesians 2:19 You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. We are all called by God fellow citizens of his kingdom. We all have the passport of the Kingdom of God. We are all called members of God’s household, all Christians are in God’s family, we live in a sense in his house. But we must show it. We must live up to it. The coming together in unity of our Scots and Hong Kongers in this church is a visible demonstration of the spiritual reality that already exists, that we are all in the kingdom, in the family. By coming together in one service, by building relationships and serving one another we are making visible that reality. The spiritual reality that Christ’s death has overcome division between ethnic groups and brought us reconciliation. We are showing that it is true. 

How do we live up to our calling to be God’s household?

Well Pauls says ‘Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’  

What are the ingredients for unity in a local church?

There are four- humility, gentleness, patience and bearing with one another in love.

Let us take them one by one. 

First humility.

A humble person is someone who sees himself as a servant of others. Someone who stoops down in order to lift others up. Paul helps us understand what humility is in Philippians 2 where he says; ‘In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.’

In your hearts take a low position. Not a high position above others, but a low position as a servant of others. That’s humility.

Being gentle or another translation of the word in English is ‘meek’ means someone who will not react. A gentle person, a meek person, is not a weak person but is a person who is not going to fight for their reputation, their rights, they won’t get revenge. A person can do anything to a meek person, and they stay the same, they do not take offence.

How easily friendship is broken through offence. But gentleness or meekness doesn’t get offended.

Patience- you know what that looks like. You are sitting in your car on the Edinburgh bypass, and it is moving so slowly! And you’re starting to get irritated and you start to lose your cool. Patience. The ability to hold it together. Don’t get mad. We have an English word called short tempered which means easily angered. Well the original Greek word used for patience here means something like ‘long tempered’. Be long tempered.

The fourth phrase is ‘bearing with one another in love’. Put up with one another because you love them in other words. Yes you want to strangle them because they are so annoying! Yes you feel like giving them a piece of your mind, but you don’t, you just let it pass, because you care for them. So often the most loving thing is just to let it pass, let it go.  

Humility, gentleness, patience and bearing with one another in love are Paul’s ingredients for church unity. Its hard work, it takes quite a bit of effort. 

Paul says ‘make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’

There is a natural harmony between Christian believers. The Holy Spirit creates that harmony, Christians are drawn to each other and have a natural rapport. It’s called the unity of the Spirit. That Holy Spirit unity creates a bond of peace. But we need to work to keep the bond of peace. It can be broken. 

So as we come together as two congregations into one. We will need to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit, by being humble, gentle, patient and loving.

But there is another kind of unity which we haven’t reached yet. There is the onity of the Spirit, which we have got, but there is another kind of unity which Paul talks about which we don’t have yet. 

What is that?

Paul says it the unity of the faith in Chapter 4 verse 13. 

We have the unity of the Spirit and we must keep it, not lose it, but we don’t yet have the unity of the faith. That means that we don’t yet all believe the same things. We believe different things about the Christian faith. Hopefully we all believe the same things about the gospel and what Jesus did for us in dying and being resurrected. But there are other secondary things which we don’t yet all agree on. Some of us here believe in baptising babies, some of us don’t, we reckon only believers should be baptised. Some of us think that the moment you believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills you, and others say that filling often happens later. Some of us believe that only men should teach the Bible in church services and others believe that women can do that also. Some of us believe in congregational voting to make decisions and others believe in decisions made by the church elders. Some of us here believe that the world is 6000 years old and others believe its billions of years old. And so on!

We don’t all have perfect unity when it comes to some of the teachings of the faith. We have different views on these things. But what Paul says is make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit (verse 3) until we reach unity in the faith (verse 13). So the aim is that eventually all believe the same things about the Christian faith. That is the goal. But until we get there, until we are all agreed on all Christian doctrine, we are called to stick together and keep the bond of peace with each other. 

By the way that means we should get on with other Churches, even if we don’t like some of the things they believe. We should keep unity with all Christian churches and show love to other churches- the Catholics, the Pentecostals, the Brethren, all who believe in the gospel of Christ, even if we don’t agree with them.

Lets not be too narrow.

Maybe you have heard this joke:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump.

I said, ‘Don’t do it!’ He said, ‘Nobody loves me.’

I said, ‘God loves you. Do you believe in God?’ He said, ‘Yes.’

I said, ‘Are you a Christian or a Jew?’ He said, ‘A Christian.’

I said, ‘Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?’ He said, ‘Protestant.’

I said, ‘Me, too! What denomination?’ He said, ‘Baptist.’

I said, ‘Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?’ He said, ‘Northern Baptist.’

I said, ‘Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?’ He said, ‘Northern Conservative Baptist.’

I said, ‘Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?’ He said, ‘Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.’

I said, ‘Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?’ He said, ‘Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.’

I said, ‘Die, heretic!’ And I pushed him off the bridge.

The truth is that we Christians can allow small doctrinal differences to stop us loving each other.

Nevertheless, we are meant to all get to that place, where we all agree on what is true and what is false. We are all called to come to agreement on the truth. Which means that we should all be willing to admit when we are wrong about something and change.

Knowing the truth, rather than believing error is really important. Doctrine matters. Why? Because what you believe to be true will always affect your behaviour.

And that is one of the aims of church ministry, to help us get rid of wrong beliefs about Jesus and Christian living and to get rid of any errors in what we believe.

And so Paul moves from talking about unity to talking about ministry.

What should church ministry look like?

In verses 11 and 12 you see the answer. Its says:

‘It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service so that body of Christ may be built up.’

Ok so all of Jesus Christ’s people, all of us are called to do works of service. We are all called to serve one another so that the church might be strengthened built up. You might wonder what you can do and you might doubt you can do much to serve the church- but you shouldn’t doubt, because Christ has a ministry for you in the church. And not only has Christ got a ministry for you, but he has given you, or wants to give you, gifts to fulfil that ministry.

It says in verse 7 &8: But to each of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says ‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’ So Christ has given every Christian gifts. Gifts which are like tools to serve others with.

But Christ has also given four types of ministries in the church, and the job of these ministries is to prepare or equip the rest of the church to do their ministry. Christ has given the church;

Apostles

Prophets

Evangelists

Pastor-teachers

Let me explain what they are. The last one on the list is most familiar to you- pastor-teachers. I believe because of the construction of the sentence in the Greek language that this is one ministry not two separate ministries- it should be understood as pastor-teachers. Not pastors as one ministry and teachers as another, but pastor-teachers as a one single ministry. 

A pastor is a shepherd, that’s what the word means and a shepherd’s job is to look after the sheep. A pastor’s job is to look after the people in the church, take care of their needs, guide them on the right paths, God’s paths, help them get healed if needed. A pastor’s job is to protect the sheep from wolves that come in and other dangers. A pastor’s job is also to feed the sheep, which means teaching them the Bible. Teaching is part of a pastor’s call.

They are pastor-teachers. Some pastors are good at helping people one to one, counselling them, nurturing them, but not so good at teaching and some are better at teaching but not so good getting alongside the sheep. But both aspects of the role are needed. We are familiar with that Christ given ministry.

But Christ as also given evangelists to the church. Evangelists are people who just share the good news whether it’s one to one in the supermarket queue or speaking to thousands in a stadium. They have a desire and an ability to be spiritual midwives- to help people be born again into the Kingdom of God.

Misha Vashengolts who came to us from International Mission to the Jews last Autumn is an evangelist. Gavin Matthews from Solas- he is probably an evangelist. We need such people around, people need to hear about Jesus. 

Prophets, a prophet hears from God and speaks out revelation from God. That’s is what Lora Beth Malloy did for us a few weeks ago. 

Apostles. What is an apostle? 

Well the word apostle means ‘sent one’. It means someone who is sent on a mission

There are different kinds of apostle in the New Testament. 

We know of the 12 apostles who Jesus chose. They were a special kind of apostle, they were witnesses to his resurrection. We don’t have that kind of apostle around anymore, they all died, most of them were martyred. We know Paul was also an apostle and that he was given authority to write scripture. We know that we don’t have that kind of apostle anymore. We don’t have apostles like Paul who are given authority to write scripture.  

But the word apostle is also used in the New Testament to talk about another kind of ‘sent one’. 

The word apostle is given to certain people who had a calling and gifting to be sent out and establish new churches and to provide supervision and guidance for churches that they or others have established. Paul had this church planting and supervising ministry, but so did Barnabas, Titus, Timothy, Silas and others.

These kind of apostles work in teams to share the gospel, disciple new believers and start new churches and make sure they are built up in the right way with the right teaching and the right organisation. Apostles are those who lay foundations for new churches. Pauls says in 1 Corinthians 3:10;

‘By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it.’ 

Pauls stayed a few weeks or a few months in a city, he worked alongside Barnabas or Silas or other in the team. They make disciples, formed a new church, and appointed elders and then moved on to another city or town to do the same thing. That is what apostles do. They are expert builders who lay foundations for new churches.

That is why they are mentioned first on the list of ministries in the church- apostles, then prophets, then evangelists. Because they are the ones who come first- they are pioneers. 

But you notice that Paul after he moved away from a church that he had established, he kept in contact with them by sending them letters and coming back to visit. Apostles after they establish churches also work as supervisors, giving guidance, support, encouragement and yes sometimes rebuke to churches.

That is the New Testament model of church. Apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers all in operation. These ministries have never been taken away. They are still all in operation today. The church needs these ministries. We in this church need pastor-teachers to feed us the Bible truth and nurture us and help us. But we also need evangelists to be working with us so that new converts are made. So that souls are saved. Having an evangelist working in a church will stir up others in the church to evangelise also, they model and demonstrate how to evangelise. 

Prophets are needed to work in a church. Prophets give people hope for the future, they give guidance. They make God come really close as we saw with Lora Beth. They come in and bring correction to people and churches. Also having prophets around encourage people to hear from God, they stimulate people to listen to God for themselves.

We need apostles to be working with us. Apostles are the ones who help us build on the right foundations, apostles help churches put things in order. Many churches in the UK today have rediscovered the ministry of the apostle and they have a relationship with someone who has that ministry. And these churches have apostles who come and visit them and who help them build. A bit like business consultants who come in from outside to help a company to solve problems and how things could be done better. Paul wrote a letter to Titus, who had the ministry of an apostle to churches in the island of Crete and tells Titus- ‘The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.’ (Titus 1:5)

That is one thing apostles are called to do, they put things in order in churches.  

Many churches today only acknowledge the ministry of the pastor/teacher and they don’t receive the other ministries. But all four of the ministries of Ephesians 4 are in operation today. They never died out, they are often ignored by the church, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They are still Christ’s gifts to his church, they are still being given and they are still very important. So for us as a church we must welcome and make good use of modern day apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers. 

Maybe that involves paying for their ministry? Let me suggest that as an idea. Right now the only ministry we pay for as a church is the pastor’s salary. But what about the ministry of the evangelist? Should we hire an evangelist? What about having a prophet? Or an apostle? Personally I would be open to taking a pay drop in order for us to hire one of these other ministries if that was what the Lord was calling us to do. Because we want a balanced ministry here.

I feel generally the church, not just us, but churches generally, have put too much money into the wage of the pastor/teacher, but we haven’t invested sufficiently in the other ministries. An evangelist in this country can’t get a paid job as an evangelist, so instead they go into training in Bible college to be a church pastor. And they get hired by a church to be a pastor, but their main gift isn’t pastor-teacher but evangelist. That happened to a church I was once a member of, the pastor they hired, his main gift wasn’t pastor/teacher but evangelist. Many people got saved in that church, but sadly many people left as well, because they weren’t getting the teaching or care they needed to grow.  

And God wants us all to grow mature- in character, in knowledge, in gifting. But for us to grow we need everyone to discover and step into their ministry.

How many ministers do we have in this church? The answer is somewhere between 50 and 100- because every person in this church has a ministry. Everyone has a gift from Christ, an ability and a call to serve, in word or in deed. 



And so let’s go back to God’s original design for his church. Let’s embrace the four ministries of Ephesians 4. Let’s keep working on unity and keep developing our ministry. And the aim of it all is that we grow in every way to be more like Christ, the head of our church. Let it be. Amen