Small steps in faith

Sunday, December 16, 2007

"People Gifts"

These are my notes from the sermon I heard last night based on Ephesians 4:11-13

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.



"People Gifts"

When you look at these gifts, one isn't more valuable than the other. It takes all of them. One of the big mistakes that we have made is to feel that the pastor up front is "the best" at all of them.
The church today is a train wreck in western culture. We put so much emphasis on the person of front and not on the ones in the pews. It's why the mental health care field deals with many pastors in churches and why you see pastors leaving after a short period of time in a church.

We need a "second reformation"
We need to give the church back to the people for the work in the kingdom of God
The role of the pastor in a church is to equip their people to do God's work and service.

God's Intent For the Bride

Is tangible servanthood
a. works of service for the community

That would result in the building up of the bride
a. the church is full of broken people

Which achieves unity in trusting Jesus and develops a maturity that resembles the character of Jesus
a. This work is never done
b. You can't just sit in a pew and expect that to happen
c. There needs to be leadership

Leadership

Apostles...Many churches believe there is no longer apostles
There are apostles(not as in the 12 with Jesus) They don't write scripture
Apostle means "send forth" they go...they are concerned about the bride moving into new territory...these are your church planters...missionaries

Prophets.. They are concerned about the bride's obedience into God's word. They don't "predict the future" They have a knack for saying the right thing that parallels God's word at the right time.

Evangelist They are concerned with the bride communicating and relying on the right message. They preach the gospel....the gospel isn't just a message...it's how we live...it's our bloodline...it's our oxygen

Pastor..They are concerned with the bride's protection...they are the nurturer...the shephard...they are concerned with people's hearts

Teacher....They are concerned with the bride's capacity to learn..they equip the bride to learn how to teach herself. Everything is a learning experience


In all of these roles...some are staff...some are not.

Jesus is all of these

Bottom line....it's about suffering servants for the glory of God.

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