Lesson 5

Alright, so last week we looked at how the apostles wrote letters to the churches, and that's where our doctrine came from. They got them established. And to this day, those same apostles are still ministering to the church, because we're still reading from their letters as they wrote to the church then, what the church needed back then is what the church needs today is what the church will need tomorrow. People say, "Well, times change." Well, time changes. But people change in time, but God doesn't change. And so His word doesn't change, His truth doesn't change, and thank God there are some things that you can be certain about will remain the same. If you want a society that's ever evolving, then you don't want the kind of society that I want. If I want a house that's built on the foundation that does not move, and I've had a house before where the foundation moved and the walls cracked, and it affects the house inside and out. And to pretend like the house evolving and improving is very foolish. If you take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians 4, we're going to look back in one of the epistles that the apostle Paul wrote to the church, and learn some more from him. Ephesians 4, God willing, we're going to begin in verse 1. Ephesians 4, Paul says, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called." In other words, he's telling people, "I'm encouraging you to walk worthy of the vocation." That word "vocation" means calling. Sometimes we still have folks turning to Ephesians 4. I'm sorry, I got ahead of you. Oh, okay. All right. So sometimes we say something is an occupation, like something that occupies our time, but then sometimes we say, "Well, it's a vocation." Well, vocation means a calling, and as a Christian, what we do is a Christian that's our calling. It's not just something that occupies our time, it's something we were called to do. As a pastor, that's my vocation, something I've been called to do. It's my purpose in life. And so he's encouraging the Christians at Ephesus that they should walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they've been called. Recently in the news, we've seen pastors in Texas who have had to step down from being the pastor because of some misconduct. Whether they explain the misconduct or not, they say, "Well, there's misconduct." He had to step down. There's been a rash of them lately, and it does not surprise me. Not at all. A lot of the churches are choosing people to lead them just like they're choosing presidents to lead them. They're not choosing to lead them based on their qualifications in God's Word, but based on their worldly appeal or, I don't know, something other than Scripture. They get in there and they don't teach God's Word as they should. They don't live God's Word as they should. And then the church acts surprised when everything comes tumbling down in their leadership. Well, I say that to say this. The people who are the pastors there who are supposed to be fulfilling this vocation, they're not walking worthy of it. We as pastors are supposed to live in a certain way so that we don't shine Christianity in a bad light. The same way with policemen or judges or anyone like that that represents something, whether you're representing the law, representing God, you should walk or your lifestyle, your conduct, should be according to the vocation that you've been called. Don't live unworthy or in an unworthy manner to what you claim to be and to what your calling is. But it's that way with every child of God. If you're a Christian, then you, in everything you say and do in the public eye, and I think about this, if you claim to be a Christian publicly and then you act or speak in an unchristian manner publicly, what are you doing? You're causing people to say, "Ah, they're all a bunch of hypocrites." Now look at them. He's not for real or she's not for real. And let me ask you this about your Facebook posts or your speech in public, your actions around other people. If you post something on Facebook, would you be pleased for every man, woman, boy, and girl in this church to read it? If not, you shouldn't post it. If Jonathan shouldn't read it, you shouldn't post it. So well, we're adults. Maturity should make us more holy, not less holy. As we grow up, we should be becoming more righteous, not less righteous. You can't say, "Well, I'm grown, therefore God will understand. I can speak nasty or I can do this or that or the other." That's not walking worthy of the vocation with you've been called. And then it says, "With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering for bearing one another in love, in bearing to keep the unit, in endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace." Now this is where we're really marching toward this morning, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. The Holy Spirit is one Spirit. It's God's Spirit. So there's a unity there. There's no division with God's Spirit. And the bond that holds that unity together in the church is the bond of peace, the peace that Jesus made for us on the cross. And so we should endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in that bond of peace. In other words, we should get along with one another in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We should serve with one another in the gospel of Jesus Christ, serving as one body. Look here now in verse 4. There is one body. That's the church. And one Spirit. That's the Spirit who is in the church. Remember, Jesus now inhabits his new body through the Holy Spirit. "Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. There's a very powerful doctrine there. "But unto every one of us is giving grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Now watch this. He's saying that there is one body, the church. There is one Spirit, God's Holy Spirit. There is one calling for all of us. And that same calling we have is to labor, to love, to serve, to live in the grace of Jesus Christ, who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Verse 7, "But..." That's the difference now. This is what's happening now. Everything's one. We have the same calling, meaning we have the same responsibility as Christians. We have the same God. We have the same Holy Spirit who is in all of us. We have the same baptism, the Holy Spirit who made the church. One. But even though we're one in everything, there's a "but" here, meaning not everything is one. "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." So yes, we are all one in God's Spirit. We're all one as a body in Christ, but "unto the individuals in that body God gives grace according to a particular measure." Now the Bible says, and I don't have this Bible reference handy right now, it's not in my notes, but the Bible says that the Spirit was not given by measure to Jesus. He had all of God's Holy Spirit in the sense that He was God. And so as God, He had no measure of the Spirit given unto Him. But when we measure something, if we're cooking something, let's say Jonathan is going to fix some bread for Chris. He needs to do that more often. Let's say he's going to fix some bread for Chris. Do you measure the ingredients in that bread? You do, don't you? You don't pour the whole sack of flour in there. You don't put the whole gallon of milk in there, the whole stick of butter, or all the eggs you collected that day. There has to be a measure. And if that measurement is not right, then your bread won't be right. And so in the same way, God doesn't give us His Holy Spirit without measure. The Holy Spirit is in every one of us, but He's in every one of us in measure. So He gives a measure of the Spirit to everyone who believes, to Chris, to Gwen, to Jonathan. And that measure, the totality of that measure is God's Spirit. Does that make sense? All right, so what we mean is this. I have God's Holy Spirit, but God's Holy Spirit is going... God gave me a particular measure that He didn't give somebody else. So God's Holy Spirit in me is going to teach His Word through me, going to counsel through the Scripture through me, and minister to people in God's Word through me. Right? God's Spirit in Tanya, for example, she had an incredible passion to fill in a gap of cleaning when it needed to be done. And that servitude. Brother Billy gets up here and mows the lawn and cares about that. And others like... Miss St. John, Leah St. John, she comes up here during the vacation Bible school or just in a regular church service and sings. God hasn't given that measure to me. I can't play the guitar. I can't sing like her. And she can't teach like me. And so everyone has a measure, everybody does, that God will serve through you individually in your own unique way that God has gifted you for. And so let's look here now in verse 8. "Wherefore," or this is why He says, "when He," that is Jesus, "ascended up on high," that is when He came out of the grave and ascended on high, He led captivity captive and gave gifts unto man. So Jesus, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive. He took our enemies, which had held us captive, and He led them captive and set us free in the Gospel. And not only did He do that, but He gave gifts to men. And when He's talking about gifts, here He's talking about spiritual gifts. Okay, watch now. Verse 10, "He that descent," I'm sorry, verse 11, "and He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers." Now, in other parts of the Bible, you will see different spiritual gifts that are listed, but in this particular passage, He's focusing on spiritual leaders. Okay? Spiritual leaders have the gifts of apostleship, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And of course, the apostles. We don't have new apostles now. Prophets, that doesn't have to be a foretelling, but a fourth telling. In other words, they don't always have to be telling the future, but encouraging others through God's Word. Evangelists, those are people who share the Gospel with others around the world. And some pastors, and of course the pastor is a shepherd of a local church, and teachers, every pastor is a teacher. And why did He give these particular gifts to the church? If you look down verse 12, here's why He gave them to the church. "For the perfecting of the saints," that word "perfecting" there means their growth. When we first trust in Christ as our Savior, the Bible refers to us as newborn babies spiritually. A newborn baby is weak, a newborn baby has a lot to learn, and a newborn baby needs people to help take care of it. And a newborn baby can't eat the strong food that grown people can. They have to be taught little at a time, spiritually speaking that is. And so the perfecting here is talking about the growth. We're going to take a saint who believes in Christ and help that saint by teaching them the Bible, grow up into a full grown man or woman of God. So for the perfecting of the saints to get the saints grown up, for the work of the ministry so that God's ministry in Christ can continue working on. When the saints get grown, when they get mature, they start working. You don't have a baby work. But when people start getting older, you start giving them more responsibility. It's the same way in the church. I was visiting with Brother Barker this week, and he showed me some pictures of some older men. It looked like an un-air-conditioned warehouse, and they were boxing up Bibles and things like that to ship off to the Philippines. Somebody's got to do that. That's the work of the ministry. And here's some people on one side of the world who will never meet people on the other side of the world, but they care enough about doing Jesus' work, his ministry. They're boxing this up so they can go to people they'll never meet to make sure they hear the good news of Christ too. And when the boxes get over there, there's going to be pastors, there's going to be teachers, there's going to be evangelists who take the Bibles and who take the materials and then distribute them to the people and start teaching them God's Word. And it all works together, you see, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. That word "edifying" means building up. Building up. And not just getting them grown, but getting them strong in the Lord and the power of His might. That's the way we want our people to be. Now look here in verse 13. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith." So we have the same Lord, we have the unity of the Spirit, we have the unity of God's message, but we all need to come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect, that means a full grown man, "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." When we're little, John, come up here, would you? When we're younger, we're going to have someone like this, but His potential as He grows older will get to the measure of the stature of the fullness of a grown man. And the man to be measured after is not me, but Christ. So to mature Him up in the knowledge of Christ, so He can be a full grown man in Jesus spiritually. That's the job of pastors, teachers, the apostles that we're reading from, thank you very much, and these evangelists, it all works together to do this. My job as a pastor is to not entertain the flock, but to edify them, to get them grown up, to make sure when they leave church, they leave knowing the Bible better than when they walked in. That's my job as a pastor. Verse 14, "What happens when our spiritual leaders build up the saints in Christ Jesus?" Verse 14, "that we henceforth be no more children." There are a lot of churches where the members are children. There are a lot of churches where the members are not children at all. They're not even saints. They don't even know the gospel. I went to a church one time to fill in for six months, and a lady was experiencing some health trouble. She's in heaven now. But she was experiencing some health trouble. She wanted me to come to her home and talk to her about her salvation. I started in Genesis. I explained what Adam and Eve did. I worked my way through the Bible, kind of like in the Genesis to Jesus class, but in one sitting. I explained what Christ did and how He fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies and was the sacrifice by which God could accept us. When I got to explaining to her, she said, "That's wonderful. How come no one's ever told me that before? I've been in church all my life." How sad. But I've heard things like that so many times as a pastor and speaking to people, because we get so caught up in functions, in programs, in activities, in bounce houses, in whatever else we do to try to get people to continue to come. But the pastor's job is not trying to get people to come in. The pastor's job is trying to get people to grow up so that there will be no more children, look now, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. The idea here is of a tender plant in the wind blows. And when the wind blows, you've seen even trees and times of storm, right? When the wind blows, you have these plants out there, and the wind blows this direction, the plant blows this direction. Wind blows this direction, that direction. The next thing you know, it's whatever direction the wind blows, the plant's moving. And so what happens is, every wind of doctrine means this. There are people who are like children spiritually. They believe the truth, but then someone else can be heard on YouTube, someone else can come into a pulpit, someone else can come up and start teaching them something. And I have someone who goes to this all the time. He's not a member of this church, but he's writing me all the time. Someone told me this today, and now I'm all confused. And it's sad. Well, quit being confused. Quit listening to these people. If you know the truth and they tell you something that doesn't conform to God's Word, just stand up and say that's a lie. It's all right to do that. But when the wind blows and some doctrine blows, that doesn't mean we have to be moved by it. Man, I love the time in my life when as a Christian, I finally matured to what wasn't moved around by every wind of doctrine. I remember listening to someone teach something on the radio sometime. I remember thinking, "That's not right." I just shook it off. That's not right. That's not true. That's not in God's Word. I thought, "What a wonderful place to be to finally be able to do that." And you can do it too by knowing God's truth and standing on it. Look here now. "No more children tossed to and fro, cared about with every wind of doctrine." By what? By world-meaning teachers? No, by the sleight of man. You know what the sleight of man is? Trickery. The sleight of hand with a magician. Hands quicker than the eye. The other day, little Troy St. John was here when his mama and sister were down. You can't pull this on everyone, but the little bitty kids, it was absolutely amazing. Troy and his sister were watching me. And I said, "I'm going to stick my finger through my ear and to my mouth." And I went... Like that. I want to tell you, Troy's eyes got about that big. He's like, "Wow! This man's amazing! How did he do that?" His sister's watching, and she's scrutinizing. A little older Cora is watching. She says, "That's your tongue. That's not your finger." And then Troy's like, "Ah, you can see the light click on his eye. That's what it is." Well, that was the sleight of man. That was me trying to trick that little boy for fun. You have preachers who try to trick people too. They want to be heard. They want to be respected. They want to be paid. They want all these things, so they get out there, and with the sleight of man, they try to make people believe things in God's word that aren't true. That's how Jim Jones got all those people to drink Kool-Aid. It was the sleight of man. And so, just to understand, not everybody that wears a suit and a tie or preaches and is called a pastor is a man of God. And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. You see that in the Scripture? Cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, they're ready to sneak up on you and trick you. And so, it's the pastor's job to make sure that the people aren't tricked. So, we teach you God's word, you learn God's word, and then you stand on God's word, and then when someone tries to do this little number here, you say, "No, that's your tongue." That's a lie. Oh, it looks clever, but it's a lie. Now, let's look here if you would. We've got apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So, that's who God gives us for that. And because that's our role, is to lead people in God's word. God gives, along with the gift of the ability to communicate God's word, He gives them the authority to rule with God's word. Okay? So, let's go to the next thing here now. Turn to the book of Hebrews, please. Hebrews chapter 13. With responsibility, you always have authority. God never gives responsibility without authority. People should never give responsibility without authority. At work, I'm responsible for the security of the courthouse that I'm in. Well, you can't give me responsibility and not give me authority. It's not possible. So, let's say that, for example, we have construction going on right now. And a few weeks ago, there was a door that was not able to lock. And because of that, I instructed an officer to be posted at that door until we could get that door secure. That way, no one could just walk in on our people. Well, that makes sense. Now, what if the officer said, "Well, I don't want to be posted at that door. I think I'd like to be on Facebook for a while, or I'd like to watch YouTube videos, or I think I'd like to go hang out over here, and I don't want to go down there." I said, "Well, no, we've got to go down there. Go down there." And what if he were to say, "Well, you're not my boss." You see, what would it be if I had the responsibility of the courthouse but didn't have the authority to make sure that things got done the way they should be done? It wouldn't work. It's the same way with the church. God gives the pastors their responsibility, therefore He gives them the authority. Now, let's look at that authority because what happens is the devil always wants to challenge authority in the church. The first thing the devil did to get Adam and Eve to sin was to challenge God's word, to challenge His authority. And when he got them to not listen to God and to listen to Him, that's when everything became a mess. So look here if you would, in Hebrews 13, verse 7, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God." Ah, man, I love this. Watch this now. "Remember them," that means take note of them, "consider them which have the rule over you." You know what the word "supervisor" means? Think of it like an etymology. Think of the word "supervisor." "Roll over." "Roll over." Well, look at this. What does the word "super" mean? Well, it's like over, abounding over, like a superabundance, right? So over, what does "visor" mean? Has the idea of seeing, like a sun visor, right? Blocks the sun so you can see. So a supervisor is someone that watches over or rules over. So a pastor, there are people who rule over the church. That means they supervise the church. They have responsibility, therefore God gives them authority. Now I want you to watch. This is what's so beautiful. And our church here is a pastor-led church. We have no committees. We don't have any deacon bodies that meet. There's nothing like that. We do it exactly the way the Scripture says, because the deacons were for something entirely different than what people use them for today. We do it exactly the way the Scripture says. At least we try to. And it goes so smoothly. I've been in churches before where it wasn't like that. They didn't go by God's word, and my stomach got in not every business meeting we had. And there were arguments. Has anyone been in a church where there were arguments in business meetings and stuff? Yeah. I had my fill on it. Because they weren't following the Scriptures. Ours are smooth. They're simple. And God's work keeps going, just like the train going down the road. It's smooth and it's working. And the gospel's getting out of it. Why? Because we're doing it by God's word. So they rule over you. Watch now. Watch the combination. They rule over you who have spoken unto you. Ah. And what do they speak unto you? The Word of God. So how does a pastor rule over the church? With God's word. That is so important. God's word. So a pastor doesn't have innate authority. Just because I'm a pastor, that doesn't mean, I say, "Well, you do this, you do that, you do the other." I'm the pastor. It doesn't work like that. A pastor rules with God's word. When I'm at work and I'm supervising at work, do I rule according to my own whims? No. I've got a set of policies that I go by. And so I supervise according to those, I'm making sure that the policies and that the program, that security program is being implemented. It's not me coming and saying, "Give me a sandwich." "Do this. Shine my shoes." That's totally different. That is someone with innate authority, like a king or something, and who just says, "Well, I'm just going to exercise authority for my own will here." But no, we rule with God's word. So the pastor is to do this. True pastoral authority is when a pastor takes scripture, he's looking at the church, he's saying, "What does God's word say about this?" Okay, then this is what we should do. And then they teach the people and say, "This is what we should do." And the people follow the pastor as he's following God's word. So watch what it says here, verse 7, "Remember them which have the rule over you," that's the authority, "who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow." You see how that works? So the pastor takes the word, he applies it to the situation at the church, he then teaches the people, and the people follow the pastor as the pastor is following the word. If the pastor ever tries to rule contrary to God's word, then the people have the responsibility to not follow, because it says, "Whose faith follow?" That is, as I have faith in God's word, you follow that faith as I teach it to you, but if I ever depart from God's word, it's time for you to depart from my rule. That's when you say, "We love you, Brother Richard, but that's not right." You see, that's not right. I had, in fact, I will probably look at changing our bylaws pretty soon. We have a wonderful state of affairs here at the church, and the world's getting worse and worse, and to protect the church. I may look at changing some of our bylaws, because they were written more like for business than a church, years and years and years ago. But I wrote some bylaws for a church I pastored once, and in those bylaws I gave specific details on how to get rid of a pastor that departs from God's word. So I wrote up a way that people could get rid of me. I wrote up a way so that if I were to go away and someone come after me, they could get rid of him. Why? Because the church is about the church. I'm your servant. A pastor is your servant, not your master. Yes, they have authority, but the whole thing about having the authority so they can get you grown up, so they can minister to you. Remember what Jesus did when he was here? He washed the feet of his disciples. Did he have authority? Yes. Was he their Lord? Yes. But you know what? He didn't come for himself, he came for them. And a pastor has to have that same spirit because it's God's spirit in him. It can't be about us. Now if you'll look here, we're about to leave, remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God. That's how we rule. We rule with the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. It means the end of their life because we have to give account when we stand before God. And it says that in another place too, but real quick, I want you to turn with me to look at Genesis please. Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one. I was teaching on this in church one day. There was an old deacon out there. He was a grumpy fella. He was always trying to challenge me and stir stuff up. He caused trouble in the church. He really did. And this is a long time ago in another land far, far away. But I was teaching on this about Obathen had the rule over you who have just spoken to you the word of God for they watch for your souls. And he looked up at me and says, I don't like that word rule. You know what I said? I said, well, I didn't put it in the word of God. I had to take that up with God. I didn't write the Bible. But watch the word rule here. When we think of rule, if we think of it the biblical way, it's such a beautiful thing. Watch now in Genesis chapter one verse 16. And we'll close with this. And God made two great lights. The greater light to what? Rule the day. And the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. Do you want to be learned from that? God rules by light. And here it is. He rules by light physically. Because of the light we have, we know which way to go. We know which direction to walk. Because of light, the light rules the day. But in the church, we have this great light here. This would be like the moon reflecting the light of Christ. The greater light. When He comes, there'll be no need of the Bible anymore. But right now, this is the light that rules in the dark ages of our world. The Bible says that we shine as lights in a dark world. That's what the Bible says about us right now. The world's dark. But you know what? We have the light of God to rule in this darkness. And so a pastor rules the church out by the light that God's given. And in that light, we see how to walk, how to govern a church, how to get God's Word done. And that's all the pastor's for. He's given authority because He's given responsibility in all that's limited to the light in which He teaches. That's it. With that, we'll go ahead and stop. Any questions or comments? All right. Thank you, Lord willing. We'll see you next door.