Text: Ephesians 4:7-16

My purpose for this message: To show that in addition to loving unity, God is glad when the growing church serves.

Delivered: Jan. 17, 2010

 

 

The Growing Church That Makes God Glad (part 2)

 

PRAY.

I was deer hunting and came across a wild apple tree.  Vines snaked around the trunk and lower limbs.  Trees and other brush around it rationed the sunlight.  I didn’t see any apples but by the sad shape of the tree, no doubt any it produced in season were misshapen and wormy.

But when you drive west on Rt. 340 between Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand, look south across the rolling fields, and see Kauffman’s orchards: well-manicured peach, and apple trees lovingly cared for with pruning, fertilizer, and the necessary spray for pests.  You’ll find the best fruit in an orchard.

In his final speech to his followers, one of the things Jesus asked of them was:  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.  (John 15:8).  Fruit.  What is it about a growing church that makes God glad?  Last week one answer was demonstrated love: being humble and gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love. 

Later in the same chapter there is a second answer: service.  Or fruit.  Numbers going up at your church?  Great, but are you bearing fruit?  It makes God dance when the orchard of the church does.  READ Ephesians 4:7-16.

 

Orchard; an image of the church.  What was God thinking when He made her?  If anyone watched Him plant all these different kinds of trees, different varieties, different rates of growth—some growing rapidly the first year, some hardly noticeable, if someone had seen him giving more room to some trees than others, pruning some harder than others, they might have thought, what is He thinking?  How will He ever make something nice out of all these different trees and all their differences?

God’s plan was that above all else—above the beauty of a sunset or the power of an earthquake, the church—the gathering of redreemed people who formerly would not have had anything to do with each another, would reveal—not only to people, but to demons as well, JUST… HOW… WONDERFUL… HE… IS.  (Ephesians 3:10: His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…)

To complete His plan He put His Son to death, made Him bleed.  And then put Him in charge of every church—of every kind: Kinzer Mennonite, Leacock Presybterian, St. John’s United Methodist, Paradise Bible Fellowship, Gordonville Bible Church, Calvary Monument Church, Grace Point Church and the rest.

There was a day when His church mainly competed with other gods.  Today it competes with college courses, children’s sporting events, leisure activities from surfing the net or TV to gardening and workouts.  In addition to facebook, TWITTER and emails to check, there is shopping, and vacations, birdwatching—my personal favorite, home remodeling, there are dvd’s to watch, hunting and fishing seasons (another favorite), books to read (another favorite), ballet lessons and picnics with fireworks following, voice lessons, football games, concerts, getaway weekends, political efforts and the PTA.

If you were tracking with me, you know I didn’t mention anything that’s immoral.  I do almost all those things myself—except ballet.  Still, in the orchards that are the church, less and less fruit is appearing—not because of rank sin, but because believers do not treasure the orchard in the same way that God does.  Which would explain the low harvest of fruit.  In some cases the trees of the orchards are in danger of turning into wild apple trees on the mountain. 

Might there have been a day when the devil concluded, “I’ve been going about my work in the wrong way!  To strangle the life out of the church, I’ll just keep them busy with things that aren’t bad; maybe they’ll even forget about the church, or about what it is, about why it’s so precious to God, about how pivotal they are to its life and health, and about how much its destruction matters to us.  Yeah, time for a different tactic.”  And it’s worked. 

But Jesus isn’t looking for anything less or different than was from those first disciples: fruit.  And when many are bearing fruit, you have a healthy orchard.  The orchard is not the church building, and where we bear fruit is not just the church ministries.  Fruit grows whenever we serve Jesus Christ; fruit grows whenever and wherever we serve Jesus Christ: here, in parachurch ministry, neighborhood or school campus—because we are the church.  What is the church?  Us!

Our fruit grows everywhere, and there are all kinds: like we said, God made an orchard—not just of peach trees, but of apples, and pears, and cherries and plums.  Last week the verses we looked at last week emphasized the unity of the body by common behaviors—common treatment of one another.  These verses emphasize the unity of the body by the different fruit, different acts of service.  Chris Kendig and his Compassion Fund team assess and financially help people in need.  People like Becky Glick and Ken Dull and Kim Stabinger hand out food at Grace’s Grocery.  People like Geoff Lapp and Mindy Lapp (no relation) and Tom Raff and Jenny Bare and Jeff Lefever lead us in praise each Sunday, while people like Debbie Fisher and Beth Ranck take care of your infants.  People like Carol King, Ruthie Heatwole, Joel Robinson, and Curt Ulrich teach your children about Jesus, and not many people know the maintenance work around here that trustees like John Beiler and Dave Barr do. 

And outside the orchard, Brandon Stike is sharing the gospel on the streets of Lancaster; Joel Bare is a chaplain at Youth Intervention Center, some of you provide rides to the Health Campus for local cancer patients that LOVE INC tells us about.  Some of you pray for the teachers and administrators of your local schools, or mow your widow neighbor’s yard.  A CONNECTION group does maintenance work at House of His Creation. 

These men and women and countless others SERVE, bear fruit—not because they’re working their way to heaven, but because when Jesus went back to heaven, He gave us gifts for bearing fruit.

 

1.     Jesus gave them fruit-bearing gifts.  vv.7-10

Jesus descended to earth (not “hell”, earth is the lower earthly region), then went back to heaven (ascended) after He’d done His work.

·       Set captives free (led captives in his train)

·       Gave gifts to them

Saved us, then gifted us.  Died for us, then dispatched us.  The grace of v.7 is the gifts of v.9.  We usually think of grace as an Ephesians 2:8 gift: salvation.  Because grace means a blessing from God we don’t deserve, we right away think of salvation.  But there are other kinds of grace in the Bible: evangelistic ability, ability to give money, and various spiritual abilities.  This is that kind.  Abilities God gives to the trees—you and me, in the orchard of the church, to bear fruit, and thus make the orchard prosper.

But in these verses Paul has divided the orchard into 2 groups: pastors…, and everybody else. 

 

a.     So Pastors can prepare

The Christian church was still and infant.  As of yet there was little organization despite seeing explosive growth.  Apostles like Peter, John and Thomas were the only leaders.  In these days, people came to the apostles, making ugly charges that their needs are not being met.  Needs?  Yes, food.

Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem for Pentecost were coming to Christ in droves, and believing (mistakenly) that Jesus would back any day, they stayed in Jerusalem for the big event.  Which—as you can imagine—placed a heavy burden on the local believers who fed and housed everyone.

Prejudice is not a recent development since widows who spoke Greek rather than Hebrew or Aramaic, weren’t getting their fair share and complained to the men serving as pastors.  The pastors, instead of saying, “We’ll get right on that and take care of it,”  turned for help to the body: “You pick out 7 godly men to make sure these women are fed well, because…”

…it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables.  (Acts 6:2).  It’s wrong for pastors to neglect their jobs by doing someone else’s.  We all have different gifts as 1 Corinthians 12 points out and each one’s important.   But while pastors have different abilities, gifts and skill levels from each other, they have the same calling from God: help the saints bear fruit. 

REREAD Ephesians 4:11-12.

God appointed pastors to help prepare people to bear fruit, to “equip” them some translations say.  Since the apostles died out in the first century, as did the prophets—if not the prophetic gift, today’s training for fruit bearing in the church, is done by evangelists and pastor-teachers (there are not 5 ministries described here, but 4: pastor-teacher). 

Problem is, increasingly believers see pastors as professionals: they view pastors as smarter or better trained than they are, so the pastors should do the ministry.  After all, they get paid to do it.  Smarter is definitely debatable, better trained is probable, but ministry is not what we get paid to do: unless it is the ministry of helping you serve; helping you do the ministry that you were called to do; helping you bear fruit. 

 

b.     So you can bear fruit

Our job is to help you bear fruit.  How do we go about doing that?

·       So we teach the Scriptures—pulpit, classroom, small groups, youth. 

·       We teach God’s calling on each of you to serve Him, to bear fruit.

·       We create opportunities for you to serve. 

·       We urge, we coach, we challenge, we beg you to bear fruit—whether

through church ministries or the rest of the world in which you live.  We push you, we annoy you, we call you and email you; and do it again.   

And the benefit of this—God says—is for that orchard called the church.  Yes, when you share the gospel it blesses the lost sinner.  Yes, when you give a hungry mother some groceries, it blesses that family.  Yes, when you listen for 2 hours to someone who is brokenhearted, you may refresh them enough that they sleep that night.

But this text says that the main thing good about your fruitbearing is the effect it has on the orchard.  REREAD vv.12-16

·       Reach unity in the faith/knowledge of Jesus

·       Become mature, attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ

·       Not victimized by the latest teachings of the latest authors, and tv preachers

·       Instead, we grow up; the orchard matures; everyone benefits.

This is what makes God glad.  Christians looking for a church like to find one that’s busy, has a lot of programs.  But “busy’s” not always the same as a mature church.  Because a mature church is the result of fruit bearing.  An entire body who grasps just how precious the church is to God, and realizes that its maturity is a group project, not the assignment for a few professional trees.

 

Concl:

Under “Serving” our vision reads…,  We foresee each person who is part of Keystone Church learning what his/her spiritual abilities are and using them to help carry out the church’s mission.  We expect pastors, elders and other leaders to lead the charge but doing the ministry of the church is done by each of us.  There is no such thing as a Christian “on the bench” in the local church.  In addition, since the local church is the means through which God ordained ministry with its biblically prescribed leadership, accountability, ordinances, diversity of service, and commissioning of missionaries, we urge those who serve in a ministry outsidethe  local church to also serve Christ in the local church. 

And from the preamble of that vision statement…  As fulltime Christians, we’re always “on duty,” representing Jesus Christ to lost neighbors, family members, classmates, coworkers, or lost people we meet while on vacation.   As the church we’re available whether it is to build a relationship with a neighbor, encourage or admonish an old friend, be an usher or teach a Sunday school class, introduce ourselves to guests, pray for someone in need, or clean up a spill. 

If you’re a member at a health club—as long as you pay your dues, you can use the club or not; come or not; work out or not.  The church is much more than a club.  God planted you as a tree in his orchard to bear fruit.  You were saved to serve.  I hope somebody told you that before you prayed a prayer of faith.  READ Ephesians 2:8-10. 

Be on call as a fruitbearer 24/7.  Get involved in a ministry.  Serve in the church; serve outside of her.  If you’re not sure how, we can help.  Stop by the Welcome Center and leave your name.  We’ll meet with you to help you think through how you can bear fruit here.

So many diversions today—and we are all easily distracted.  But as 2 Timothy 2:3-4 says: No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.