Equipped for His Calling

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Well, up until everything got shut down as far as indoor dining and all of that, up until that happened, there was sort of a running joke among people that knew me that if you couldn’t find me in my office or at home, you would find me at Chick-fil-A. And I’ve been asked at times, why do you go to Chick-fil-A so much? Why do you spend so much time at Chick-fil-A?

And my answer was always the same because I haven’t found any place else where you can get a Chick-fil-A sandwich. You know, I would think that would be intuitive, but, you know, I like it. That’s where I know to get it.

And so that’s where I hang out. We do things like that. When we find something we like, when we find something we need and we know where to get it, we go there.

It’s not rocket science. Even our dogs, they know where to go for the food, right? Carly Jo has a habit of she will wander into the kitchen, and it may not even be anywhere near a mealtime.

But I could be in there cleaning dishes. I could just be in there fixing coffee. I could be doing anything, and she’ll walk into the kitchen, and she’ll say, Daddy, eat.

She’s saying, Daddy, eat. I want to eat. She’s not telling me to eat.

She’s saying she wants to eat. Why does Carly Jo wander into the kitchen? She knows that’s where the food is, and she knows that’s where the people are that are going to feed her.

It’s simple. So when we know where the food is, that’s where we go when we need the food. When we know we need medical care and we know we can get it at the doctor’s office, where do we go?

To the doctor’s office. When we need anything and we know where to go to get it, that’s where we go. It’s really simple.

I know that I’m belaboring this point a little bit because I’m working up to a question that people ask all the time. Why should I go to church? What’s so important about the church?

If we can worship God anytime, anywhere, then what is so important about church? And it’s a reasonable question because we do believe, we do believe that we can worship God anywhere and that we should and that we can worship God anytime and we should. I should be worshiping God as much when I’m out fishing.

Matter of fact, I spend a lot of time praying when I’m fishing. Bo Brian asked me if I like to fish. I said, yeah, but I’m not so good at the catching part, right?

I’ve been a lot of time praying when I’m fishing. I should be as much in worship as when I’m out fishing, worshiping God. My life should be one oriented toward worshiping God as much out there on the water as it is right in here.

And if that’s true, then people will naturally ask, then why does the church matter? Why should you take the time out on Sunday morning to do what you’re doing, which is sitting right here, singing, listening. Those of you who are online, why should you take the time to participate at all?

Because lots of people don’t. I know because I saw them today. We got an alarm call right before Sunday school, and I had to go home and make sure nobody had broken into our house.

So all kinds of activity in my neighborhood I didn’t know about. Lots of people aren’t in church today. So why does it matter what you’re doing here?

Why is any of this important if you can worship God? And Paul gives us, by the way, a similar answer to what I pointed out about Chick-fil-A or Jojo wandering into the kitchen. Paul emphasizes the church as the place you go.

Not necessarily the physical building, but the church, the body, as the place you go to get the food you need for spiritual growth. The people that will invest in you for your spiritual growth. And he points this out in Ephesians chapter 4.

if you would turn with me there. And once you get there, if you’re able to, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. And we’re going to look at about six verses this morning in Ephesians chapter 4.

If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find it quickly, it’s going to be up on the screen for you. Ephesians chapter 4. Here’s what Paul says about why the church matters.

He writes, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth and love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. And you may be seated.

Now we’re going to unpack that a little bit. I realize that that might be a little confusing if memory serves that was one long sentence, and so it can be hard to keep up with what he’s saying. So we’re going to look at some of the pieces of this.

But he’s really addressing the question, why is it important that we be part of the church? Why does this matter at all? If I can worship God out on the golf course, if I can worship God driving down the street, if I can worship God waking up late and fixing pancakes and reading the newspaper, then why does it matter that I’m here?

Why does it matter that I’m participating in this? And those of you who’ve gotten to know me know that I’m naturally a pretty skeptical person. I want to see evidence.

I want to hear rational arguments. So just the fact that we’ve always done this isn’t really a good argument for me. But Paul lays out why we do these things.

God designed the church to help you thoroughly live out his calling on your life. That’s what all of that was about that we just read in verses 11 through 16. That God gave us the church, he designed it to help us thoroughly live out the calling of God on each of our lives.

Now I want to be clear up front. Can you be a Christian? Can you be saved and not go to church, not participate in church?

Yes. The Bible teaches that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We do not have to add to it the works of church attendance or church participation.

However, we as believers should have a desire to be part of this because it’s what God designed us for. Some of you watching online may not be able physically to be here. You may not be able to physically to participate.

There have been people over the years who have not been able physically to participate in the life of the church Linda was telling Linda Whittington was telling me yesterday about a voice of the martyrs program She had watched over some people who had been in prison for their faith And my mind always goes to the example of their founder voice of the martyrs founder Richard Wurmbrand Who was locked in a in a romanian communist prison for years?

Unable to participate in in the body of christ somebody that is is sick at home not able to get out somebody who can’t get out because of their health and they’re worried about the what they might catch out there someone who’s in prison someone who for reasons beyond their ability beyond their control is unable to participate in the body does that mean that they cannot grow that God can’t use them of course that’s not what it means God can do anything but I want you to understand God’s plan a for us to grow God’s God’s design for us to grow is for us to be part of this body. Just because God can work in other circumstances that are beyond our control doesn’t mean that if it’s within our control to be part of this body doesn’t mean that we should just sit out and expect him to roll out plan B. No, this is what he designed for us, for us to thoroughly live out our calling.

So can you be a Christian and not be part of a church? Yes. Can you be obedient and willfully not be participating in the church?

I think the Bible teaches that you cannot be fully obedient. God designed this to help us. And some people will look at the church and say, well, the church, you don’t know the church I came from.

They weren’t helpful. There was no helping with my spiritual growth. Then either change the church or change churches.

But it doesn’t mean that we lay out from what the church is supposed to be. Meaning, Work toward making it a healthier church or find one that is. Find one that will invest in you.

Now, anybody that’s sitting here today, I’m not trying to run you off to another church. I’m just saying to the wider objection that there are some churches out there that aren’t helping people with their spiritual growth. Something needs to change, but the answer is not to lay out of church.

God’s design is for each of us to grow to maturity in Christ. And he says this here in Ephesians chapter 4 when he talks about coming to the unity of the faith in verse 13 and of the knowledge of the Son of God. His desire, his design for us is that we grow to know Jesus Christ better. Can you do that through study on your own at home?

Yes, and you should. But those of you who are involved, those of you who come to services, those of you who come to Bible studies and Sunday school, is there not something different and is there not something deeper in coming and doing it together? Is there not a difference?

Have you found that to be the case that there is a difference? I have. I have been studying the Bible since I knew how to read.

As a matter of fact, that’s how I learned to read. I’m sure we had flashcards and things, and then I took my Bible and ran with it. I’ve been reading my Bible since I was able to read.

But some of the strongest growth I’ve ever experienced has been when I was in the youth group, we had a Monday night Bible study that we would get together and not just study, but we would learn how to study on our own, and we would develop those skills together, and we would study the things we’d learn how to study in context, and we’d learn how the stories fit together in chronological order, and then we kind of turned it into a trivia competition we called Bible Bloodbath, because it got competitive. But I learned so much by coming together and doing it together. I learned so much more and so much more quickly than I would have just on my own.

There’s something different. And for us to know Jesus Christ better, God has put us together, he says, for us to come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. Yes, you can grow to know Jesus better on your own, but imagine how much better and how much more quickly you can grow to know him when you do it as part of his body.

And God’s desire is that we become more like Jesus. Not just that we know him, but that we apply what we do know to grow to be more like him. That is the ultimate goal of the Christian life, is that we become more like Jesus.

That today I be more like Jesus. That’s his desire, is that today I be more like Jesus than I was yesterday. And that tomorrow I should be more like Jesus than I was today.

As Paul describes it as being conformed to the image of his son. He lays out in verse 13 that the end result here is to a perfect man, meaning complete, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. that we grow to be more and more complete in the picture that we portray of who Jesus Christ is. Now, spend some time with me and you’ll very quickly see that I am not just like Jesus.

And by the way, that’s true of all of us. But you see me on Sunday morning, and I’m not saying I live double lives, but you see me, a lot of you see me after a week of preparation and polish, getting ready to come and preach and teach. But if you spend time with me outside of this context, you’ll learn that I struggle with things too.

Sometimes I have a bad attitude. Amen? Yes.

She’s been in traffic with me. Sometimes I’m cranky. Sometimes I can be petty.

I’m not exactly like Jesus Christ. I want to be, but I’m not. But you know what? I’m a whole lot more like Jesus than I was 10 years ago.

My wife will say, can you just let them get by with that? Did you hear what they said to you? It’s okay.

We have to forgive. And I think, man, 10 years ago, I’m not trying to be impressed with myself, but 10 years ago I would have laid into that person. I don’t take any credit for that.

That’s the work of God in me making me more like Jesus. But also the more I grow spiritually, the more I see I still have a lot of room to go. But our goal is not just to know things about Jesus, but to also put them into practice to become more like Jesus.

We do that in the context of the church, because the people around me encourage me and spur me on to do better, to be more like Him. I get to see the examples of people and the way they forgive, of the way they pray for their loved ones, of the way they serve. I get to see the things that you all do, and I get to be encouraged by the things that you all do and the way you live your lives.

And that’s what we ought to do for each other as we together grow to be more like Jesus Christ until we come to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And he wants us not just to be like that on occasion, but to be steady and unshakable. Now, we’ll never get to a point where we’re sinless, where we’re completely perfect and we never mess up. But you can look at the pattern of somebody’s life and usually you’re going to see they’re headed one direction or the other.

And the idea is that for our lives to be characterized not just by occasionally we act like Jesus Christ, but most of the time we act like Jesus Christ, where we become steady and unshakable. He says in verse 14 that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. He says he doesn’t want us to be confused about what the truth is.

So there’s a doctrinal element here that he wants us to know the truth and be certain about the truth, but when he’s talking about being distracted and being led astray by these doctrines, in their day and age there were doctrines that weren’t just teaching different views of Christianity, but were teaching that because of these different views of Christianity, you could go out and live however you wanted.

There were teachers that were encouraging people to be involved in things like drunkenness, in things like infidelity, in all sorts of things that we would look at and say, well, that’s clearly wrong, but they were coming along with some kind of teaching justification that you can go out and do these things, and they were confusing people and leading them the opposite way where they were becoming less and less like Jesus Christ. He said, I want you to grow to the point where you’re like Jesus Christ and you’re not confused about what that means. God’s design is for each of us to grow to maturity in Jesus Christ. And the church supports this, first of all, by providing leaders who will equip us, by providing people here who will invest in us spiritually.

You can’t just go anywhere in the world and find people to invest in your spiritual growth to become more like Jesus Christ. You’re not going to get that from Hollywood. You’re not going to get that from Washington. You’re not, you know, you can’t run down to Burger King and get somebody there to mentor you in the faith.

I mean, you might find a Christian there. I’m not saying that there are none, but that’s not what they do there, right? They make hamburgers.

If you want people to invest in you spiritually, you go where they do that. And that’s the church. And he’s put leaders there.

He outlines that he’s given some prophets and apostles and some evangelists and pastors and teachers, and he’s done this for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. God has positioned some to use their spiritual gifts for the benefit of the whole church. Now, I shared with you last week that he’s given each of us spiritual gifts that we are to use in ministry.

Some of us, he has also said, I want you to use this to pour into the others to help them be prepared for their ministry. That’s what he says there with these pastors and teachers and prophets and apostles, they were there to equip the people to go out and do ministry as well. And as I’ve told people before, that doesn’t mean that as a pastor, that’s the only thing I do.

You know, I have my ministry that he’s called me to do. I have things that he’s gifted me toward, but I have the added calling on top of that. And I don’t mean to make it sound like an obligation.

I have the added joy of being able to work with you and try to equip you and help you to do the things that God’s called you to do. And it’s one of my favorite things I get to do is walk with people they learn what their ministry is and see them grow into that. And I love it.

But he said he gave some to be apostles and prophets for that very purpose. Because the goal is for every member of the body to be able to serve as he’s called them to serve. By the way, when I’m talking about those being called to pour into others, that’s not just the pastor.

And I think if God’s called you into any kind of leadership in the church, he’s called you to serve on a broader level of pouring into others. Whether you’re a pastor, whether you’re a deacon, whether you’re teaching Sunday school, whether you’re leading a small group Bible study, God has put you there to pour into others to help equip them to carry out their purpose in ministry. Because God has a calling on each of us.

He says in verse 12 that this is for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. It’s to prepare God’s people to go out and do what God’s called them to do. And I have told this story many times, but I think it illustrates something very important that we have gotten backwards, that we have twisted up in churches in America, where often we are concerned about celebrity preachers, or we are concerned about, you know, doing what the pastor wants, and it’s all about, and it becomes a cult of personality, it becomes a one-man show, that you can end up in a situation where whatever is important to the pastor, that ministry, that vision he has becomes the focus of the whole church, and everybody else’s job becomes to support that. That is completely backwards from what is expressed here.

And the illustration that I like to give about this comes from the American Revolution. It was inconceivable at that time that a group of farmers with pitchforks would be able to defeat the greatest military power on the face of the earth. That would be the Americans defeating the British.

Nobody expected it to happen. There were a few men who were responsible for making that possible. Now, I submit to you it was God’s providence that made it possible, but there were a few men that God used in extraordinary ways to accomplish that.

People tend to know about George Washington. George Washington was the commanding general. He gave the orders. Everybody got in line with his program, did what he said, and they marched on.

One of the people that people tend to know less about is a man named Baron von Steuben, and he’s the one that you see on your screen in front of you. You see a portrait. You also see a painting of what he was known for, what he did.

He was a Prussian military officer, not Russian, Prussian in northern Germany. He left his home and came over here like so many others did to seek a new start in America, and he came to Washington and offered his services to train and drill the men who would become the Continental Army. These farmers with pitchforks that came to serve under Washington grew into an army because it was Baron von Stoiben who took what he knew from his time in the Prussian military and spent his time training them and investing in them and teaching them how to be soldiers so that when George Washington called up and said, here’s the plan, they knew exactly how to carry out that plan.

So many times, our idea of church leadership, in particular the pastor, is that they are in a George Washington role. That they set the agenda, they give the marching orders, and the people in the pews follow as far as ministry. As I read Ephesians chapter 4, I believe that the role of church leadership, including the pastor, is much more in line with Baron von Steuben.

If anybody’s George Washington, it’s Jesus Christ. If anybody gives the marching orders and tells us what to do and what vision to get behind and where to invade, it’s Jesus Christ. My job as a leader in the church is just to be the forgotten nobody who helps equip you and give you the tools you need to go do the job to follow the marching orders he’s given. And the church is where we find people that God has put in place to do that. Again, you’re not going to find that just in random spots out in the culture.

That’s not Hollywood’s job. That’s not the school’s job. That’s not the TV station’s job.

That’s the church’s job to equip you to go and do what God’s called you to do. And let me reiterate this. We all have a calling that God has given us.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, he has given you a calling. He has given you a ministry to do, and he has given you the gifts already to go out and do that with his help. And if you’re sitting there saying, I can’t do anything, I refer you back to last week’s message where Paul made it clear that it’s not dependent on how good we are at anything.

It’s dependent on how good Jesus is at doing his job and gifting us. And Jesus is no less good to you than he is to anybody else in this room. So if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, he has called you and he has gifted you.

Your job is to figure out what he’s called you to do and go do it. My job is to give you the tools and any training necessary and walk with you and support you and help you do what He’s called you to do. And the church is, again, where you find that.

The church supports the calling of God by providing leaders who equip us. The church supports the call of God by providing us fellow laborers who will encourage us. In verses 15 and 16, He talks about speaking the truth in love.

He talks about growing together into the head who is Christ. He talks about the body being joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, every person, every member of the body, providing something that we all come together and we work together and we grow together. And our bond with each other is supposed to grow stronger as we grow closer to Christ. As we grow closer to Christ, we’re supposed to grow closer to each other. He says that in verses 15 and 16, that we will be bonded together.

We will grow up into him who is the head. We will be like a body that is knit and jointed together. Your body works the best. It gets along the best when every part is doing what it’s supposed to do, right?

When one part of the body starts acting up, it affects everything else. Anybody who’s ever been in severe pain will tell you that. When each of us are carrying out the job that he’s given us to do, it grows us closer together, but it also strengthens the others.

When we’re doing what God’s called us to do, we’ll draw strength from each other. Because he talks about being knit together and joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. Every part of the body brings something to the table that equips and encourages the remainder of the body.

And I go back to the example of Carly Jo running down to the kitchen. The mouth wants to be fed, right? Or the stomach wants to be fed.

The mouth wants to call out, daddy, eat. That’s not going to work real well if the legs won’t get her up and get her there, right? It takes the legs running down the stairs, and she runs down the stairs sometimes faster than any of us.

It’s incredible. But it takes the legs running down the stairs. It takes those arms pumping and flailing to keep her balance.

It takes the stomach being ready to eat. It takes the mouth and the vocal cords to be able to shout out that command. It’s not a request, it’s a command.

It takes all of the parts of the body working together and bringing what they bring to the table to the table so that the table gets set. And it takes each of us working together to do what God’s called us to do for all the ministry to get done. But when I do what I’m supposed to do, it strengthens what Jeff is supposed to do.

And when Jeff carries out his ministry, it encourages Kim’s ministry and so on. I see some of you panicking saying, don’t call my name out loud. I won’t.

I’ll stop there. But you get the idea. When we’re carrying out our ministry, it encourages others in theirs.

Where else are you going to find that but the church? Where else are you going to find that but this body that Jesus Christ has put together His own glory. He says in verse 16 that this is according to the effect of working by which every part does its share and causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Folks, I love this passage and I feel like I could go on about it for quite a while longer, but I won’t do that to you. I think you get the idea. God designed us.

God designed us to grow to be more like Jesus Christ, and he designed the church with leaders and fellow laborers and ministry for us to be able to do that together. Because it’s more effective when we do it together. Believers are designed to participate in the life of the church.

And we need to draw a distinction there very quickly. Not just to attend, but to participate. Your search committee, when I met with them, asked me, if we were to call you as our pastor, what would be your expectations from us?

Because then we had talked about the church’s expectations for me. He said, what would be your expectations for us? And I, well, this is a good question.

I sat there and thought for a second, and somebody said, other than attending. And I said, well, no, I’d go a step beyond attending and say participate, because we all know we can attend something and not participate. When Benjamin was in soccer, I attended the games, but I had no idea what was going on.

We were designed to participate. We were designed to be involved, not just to come to church, but to be part of the church to the extent that we’re physically able. Well, I can’t make it out much.

Well, do you when you’re able. Well, I can’t do a lot of work. You can pray.

You can send cards. You can make phone calls. You can encourage.

You can do all sorts of things. You are limited only by your powers of creativity and what God has laid on your heart. But God has designed you to participate.

And I know that this is possible because there are people in this church that I did not meet in person for several months after I’d been here, but were in fairly constant communication over Facebook, by email, calls, cards. Already gotten to know them very well without ever having met them in person. Because even though they physically couldn’t get out during the pandemic, they were participating in the life of the body as much as they possibly could.

And God honors that and God blesses that. Don’t just sit in isolation wondering why you’re not growing. Don’t just sit in isolation and wonder why you’re not finding opportunities to serve and to grow.

Don’t just sit there. Don’t even just attend and refuse to go any deeper in your participation and wonder why nothing’s changing with your life spiritually. Don’t take this as a message about, well, we just need to come to church more.

I do not get a commission on the number of people that walk in here. That’s not what this is about. Attendance is great, but I’m talking about participation.

Are you part of the body? Are you connected with other people? Are you trying to have that connection?

Because if we just sit around in isolation without participating in the body and we wonder why we’re not growing, we wonder why we’re not finding those opportunities to serve, it makes as much sense as sitting around hungry when you know where to find the food. It makes as much sense as those times when Carly Jo knows to come in the kitchen and scream, but instead she’s going to sit in the dining room under the table and just throw a fit. And Charlotte says, she’s just hungry.

Well, she knows where the food is. It makes no sense. But we do the same thing sometimes.

The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to become more like Jesus, and He’s given us the church to encourage that growth. Why does it matter what we’re doing today? Because this is what God designed to help us grow closer to Jesus and to be more like Him.

But we can’t grow to be more like Him unless we’ve received Him as our Lord and Savior. And so this morning as we close, I just want to share this with those of you who are listening who may have never trusted Christ as your Savior. Up to this point, the message has been about believers and how God’s called us to grow together.

One of the things that can be attractive about church is just that idea of connection with other people and fellowship. And listen, that’s important. But this connection and this serving together and this growing to be more like Jesus Christ, it’s not something we do in order for God to love us.

It’s something we do because God loves us, because God has already forgiven us. It’s not a way to earn God’s forgiveness. We’ve all sinned against God.

We’re all separated from Him. And we can do nothing to earn our own forgiveness, to earn our place in heaven. Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died on the cross to pay for our sins in full.

And that’s the only way our sins could be forgiven. And now God offers us forgiveness, and He offers us a relationship with Him, and He offers us eternal life. Not because we go to church, not because we participate, but because of what Jesus Christ di

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