Now I am going to talk more about this and we are
going to turn in our Bible's to the book of Ephesians.
If you have your Bible's you can open them with me.
Ephesians chapter 4. And before we begin to read I just want to
point out several things in a few of these verses.
The first one is that it says here in verse 11, it tells us
about these five callings that God gives to men.
And it says that he gave some, apostles; some prophets; some evangelists; some pastors
and some teachers. These are often referred to as the five fold
ministry gifts. We are going to talk a little bit about that.
So then the next thing is in verse 8. It tells us where these callings came from.
I want you to notice this. It says that that when Jesus ascended up on
high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.
So where did the gifts come from? Jesus
Jesus gave the gifts. That's very important and you are going to
see why in a moment.
Then in verse 12, it tells us why these callings were
given. It says they were given for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Christ.
Notice that, the ministry was not intended to be done
by the five fold, they were supposed edify the saints so
that they could do the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ.
And then it tells us in verse 13 what these callings
will ultimately accomplish in the church.. It says that they are given until we all come
in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ.
Somebody say wow. Wow.
Wow, that is an amazing destiny, is it not? We are talking about God's will and God's
calling. I want you to realize that is ultimately the
calling that we are all called to as a corporate body.
Now, it's true that as believers we are supposed to
model our lives and our ministries after the ministry of
Jesus. We are supposed to aspire to be like Him but
here is the reality.
As an individual you are never going to attain to the full
status of Christ's perfection and power in your mortal
life. Now I've had people challenge me on this but
I want you to hear me out because I'm saying this for
a very good reason and I think you'll see in a moment
why I am saying this.
Notice I said that you won't be able to do it as an
individual. Because if you could do it as an individual,
if you could achieve that fullness on your own then you
wouldn't need the body.
If you could do it on your own you would be the body.
You would be Christ. There is a reason God's intended design for
the body of Christ is that we would all need one another.
And as a collective body, not only can we attain to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ but also
we will. But in order to reach that fullness, that
stature that God told us we would reach, the Bible says that
God gave five gifts to help us achieve it.
The apostle, the prophet, the pastor, the teacher and
the evangelist. Now I want you to notice that these five gifts
that were given to mankind when Jesus ascended into
heaven are not just random callings.
It wasn't as though God just made up a bunch of words
or that He came up with a bunch of random job
descriptions. These are very intentional.
They are five facets of the ministry of Jesus Himself.
Jesus gave His ministry to men through the apostle,
prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist. I want you to think about this.
Who was a greater teacher than Jesus? Has there ever been one?
You remember when the priests and the Pharisees sent the soldiers to arrest Jesus in John
7. It says that they came back empty handed.
And when the religious leaders asked why this was
their response. They said never before has a man spoke as
this man speaks.
They were dumbfounded. Jesus was known in Jerusalem and in Israel
as a Rabbi which means a teacher.
And so great was His teaching that Matthew 7:28 tells
us that the multitudes were amazed at his teaching.
And then it goes on to say, for he taught them as one
having authority, and not as the scribes and the
Pharisees. Now this perplexed me because, you know in
the ancient world, in Israel these scribes, these
Pharisees they were the most learned.
They were the experts of the law. They were considered by many to be the authority
when it came to matters of religion and of scripture.
And I always wondered why it said that Jesus taught
as one having authority not as the scribes and
Pharisees. Because if anyone would have had authority
on matters of scripture, I thought it must have been
the scribes. And then one day it hit me.
This is the reason. How many of you know what the job of a scribe
was? A scribes job was to copy, to replicate what
others had written.
They were like the copy machines in the ancient world.
But what is the root word of the word authority? It's the word author.
You see when Jesus spoke He wasn't just copying somebody.
He wasn't just regurgitating some rehearsed information
that he had learned from somebody else. He spoke with authority because He was and
is the author.
And he was even the author of what the scribes were
writing and what the Pharisees were teaching because
He was the word Himself. The scribes were like teachers teaching out
of a textbook but Jesus is the textbook.
Jesus is the greatest teacher that ever lived. Well let's look at another one.
Can anybody think of a greater prophet that ever walked
the face of the earth than Jesus? According to Hebrews 1 it says that God, who
at sundry times and in divers manners spoke to
the fathers by the prophets. Hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son.
What it is saying is that in the old times God used to
use these mortal prophets to declare His work. Now God has a better spokesman and it's the
very Son of God himself.
He is the voice of God speaking in our time. According to Hebrews 3 verse 3 it says that
Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses.
Moses is the prophet through whom the law was given.
And when Moses and Elijah appeared on the Mount of
Transfiguration, remember these are two of the Old
Testaments greatest prophets. They appear with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration
in Mark 9:7 And the voice comes from heaven saying this
is my beloved Son: listen to him.
Imagine that, two of the greatest prophets in scripture
are told to be quiet. Listen to this one.
He's got something to say. Jesus was the greatest prophet who ever lived.
Let's look at another one, apostle. Jesus was the greatest apostle that ever lived.
According to Hebrews 3:1 it says that Jesus is the, not
just an apostle, He is the apostle and High Priest of
our profession. He is himself according to Ephesians 2:20,
the chief corner stone of the apostolic foundation of
our faith. Jesus Christ was the greatest apostle that
ever lived. And there's one left, or no, there is a couple
left. There is a pastor.
Who was a greater pastor than Jesus? A pastor in the natural world is an under
shepherd of the flock of God.
But in John 10:14 Jesus proclaimed himself to be the
good shepherd who not only ministers to the sheep but
he said who lays his very life down for the sheep.
Jesus was the greatest pastor that ever walked the
face of the earth. And there is one left, it's my favorite, it's
the evangelist. I'll let you guess why the evangelist is my
favorite. Jesus was the greatest evangelist to ever
live. He didn't just go from one country to another,
he came from heaven to earth to seek and to save that
which was lost.
Jesus Christ was the greatest apostle. He was the greatest pastor.
He was the greatest teacher. He was the greatest prophet.
He was the greatest evangelist that ever lived and my
friend let me reiterate. The five ministry gifts that we are talking
about here are not random.
They are all very specific aspects of Christ’s own
ministry. It's as if he took his ministry and rather
than having one successor he divided it up into five pieces,
into five parts and he gave twenty percent to the
apostle, twenty percent to the prophet, twenty percent
to the evangelist, twenty percent to the pastor,
twenty percent to the teacher.
Now I realize that I may be being a little bit overly
specific here but you understand what I am getting at.
When Jesus ascended into heaven he made provision for his agenda to continue on the earth by
giving men and women the gifts needed to equip the saints
to do the work of his ministry.
And notice that he dispersed those gifts. He didn't give all of them to one person,
he dispersed them.
And he gave them to multiple people. In order that for us to continue his ministry
in the fullest sense we would have no alternative
but to work with each other.
That was the design, that's not an accident. Turn to the person next to you and say, I
need you. I need you.
Because that's the truth. We need one another.
Say amen. Amen.
Now according to Ephesians 4 verse 13 the end result
of this will be that the body of Christ, or the people of
God, that's us right here, will attain unto the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is such a mouth full I almost can't get
it out. The fullness of the stature of Christ.
What a glorious destiny.