Church Growth

In our series on Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we come this morning to 4.1-16.

I am a parent. Watching children grow up to adulthood is an exciting, nerve-wracking and astonishing business. None of ours has reached adulthood yet (something we keep reminding them of). But we are in the thick of the process. And it's pretty disconcerting at times.

The other day I was struggling to open a jam jar that was being very stubborn. I passed it to someone who shall be nameless. Suffice it to say he's my son. I was quietly confident about the outcome, but I was prepared to humour him. In fact it rather amused me that he thought he might be able to open it – after all, I was finding it hard, so he wouldn't have a hope. Off came the lid.

I think that in retrospect that will be seen as one of the defining moments of my life. I should have seen it coming. My shoes are now too small for him. Not that he'd been seen dead in them. Actually I'm thinking of having the soles built up so that I stay taller than him.

As a parent, there's a lot to do as you supervise, protect and feed the growth of your child. There isn't a moment for complacency. But you know that whatever you do, the growth is going to happen anyway.

This passage makes clear that the church is in the process of growing up. God is making it grow. If you've been around here for a while, you will have gathered that I think it's important for Christians in this country to face the facts about the drastic decline in the visible church here – and not least in the Church of England. But we can only do that without despair when we realise that that isn't even half the story. God, it seems, is pruning the church in England hard back. But that's because in the long run he is growing it.

So how is he going about it? What is God doing in the church? These verses tell us, and I've summed up what they're saying in three headings. First, God plans for his people to be united with Christ. Secondly, God prepares his people with his word to do his work. And thirdly, God produces by grace full-grown members of the body of Christ. So:


First, GOD PLANS FOR HIS PEOPLE TO BE UNITED WITH CHRIST

We were isolated from Christ. But now we've been brought back and we've become part of him. We are united with him.

So what's the nature of this unity with Jesus that belongs to the church? There are several word pictures in this letter that help us to understand what it means to be included in Christ. There's the family; the temple; the bride and the body. We need to hold all of these images together. But in this passage the picture is of the church as a body. And Christ is the head of the body. It's an image that keeps cropping up through the letter. In our passage, it comes first in 4.4:

There is one body and one Spirit…

Then in 4.12 Pauls says Christ gave some to be apostles and so on…

so that the body of Christ may be built up…

And the image reappears at the end of the passage in 4.15-16:

we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body… grows…

What then is the nature of the union with Christ that God intends for his people? These images help us to understand the wonder of it. Christ is our fellow-heir in the family of the Father. He is our chief cornerstone and lives within us. We, the church are so to speak engaged to him and will one day be united with him in marriage. And he is our head. Each one of us is a unique member of his body. God's plan is for his people to be united with Jesus.

And when God makes a plan, it isn't provisional or contingent like the plans that we make.

Many of our plans are just vague hopes and they fizzle out like a cheap firework. Even the most definite of our plans are still subject to all kinds of events beyond our control. We have a holiday planned for the summer. I could tell you in some detail all kinds of places we're going to and things we're going to do. I'm looking forward to it.

But a thousand things could go wrong. I hope that the holiday company is financially sound. I hope the ferry isn't going to break down like it did a few years ago before we travelled. Last time we did something similar our booking was messed up and our plans had to be changed. And so it goes on. The more I think about it, the more amazing it seems that any of our plans ever come to anything.

But God has none of those worries. His plan is definite and unassailable. And it is already being put into effect. So for instance in 4.4 we're urged to "keep the unity of the Spirit". In other words we don't have to create that unity. God has already given us unity with one another in Jesus. We are to hang on to it. God's plan for the church is guaranteed. 1.11 leaves us in no doubt about that:

In [Christ] we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will…

And, says 1.14, the Holy Spirit

is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…

We cannot wreck God plans. We're not that powerful. On the contrary, we are constrained by God's purpose for our lives and for his church. Like Paul, we are prisoners of God's plans for his people. Look how he describes himself at the start of chapter 3:

I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus…

And then here at the beginning of chapter 4 he calls himself

a prisoner for the Lord.

Certainly he was literally in a prison cell, but he is saying much more than that. He is a prisoner of Christ, and he is a prisoner for Christ. What he is and how he lives is constrained by God's plans for him. And that is true not just of the apostle but of every Christian.

But this is a glorious imprisonment. It is true freedom. If you are a believer, then God has united you with Christ, and he is deepening that union, and one day it will be complete.

That's guaranteed.

So we can be full of anticipation. We should have the confidence of a child that they're on their way to their full stature. There should be an underlying joy in our lives at the prospect ahead. And when times are hard, we should take courage. We will not be overwhelmed. We will not sink beneath the waves. God has plans for us. God plans for his people to be united with Christ. And nothing's going to stop him.


Secondly, GOD PREPARES HIS PEOPLE WITH HIS WORD TO DO HIS WORK

Plans do have to be put into effect. How will the temple be built? How will the body grow? God's plan is to use his people to build up and grow his body. Now whenever you're going to carry out a plan, first of all there is a always a good deal of preparation work to be done.

I don't know if you've wandered along the Quayside recently. Opposite the Baltic Flour Mill there's a display of the plans for the Millennium footbridge that's going up. They're up on hoardings. Behind the hoardings, you can see elaborate preparations being made. They've been going on for months. To the untrained eye there's very little to show for them. But they are vital if that river is going to be spanned permanently and safely.

The first stage in carrying out a plan is the preparation. Foundations have to be laid. Workers must be recruited and fed and trained and equipped. How does God do this in order to build and grow the church? He provides trainers and recruiters and equippers and feeders. That's what Paul is getting at in 4.11-12:

It was he [Jesus Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…

These diverse roles in the church are God's gift – not so much to the individuals concerned, to whom the gift may actually be a considerable burden, but to the church as a whole.

The apostles and prophets are the trainers. They write the manuals and draw up the plans under God's direction. The evangelists are the ones who recruit the workforce. Pastors are leaders – that's what pastoring is in the Bible. They are the ones who equip the workforce and make sure they know what they're supposed to be doing. And teachers feed the workers and explain what's in the instruction manuals and what's on the drawings.

So what do they use to do their work, these apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers? They use the gospel. They use the Word of God; the Scriptures. The necessary preparation work for God's project of growing the church and uniting it with Christ is done through the understanding and application of the Bible and its message. Paul is quite clear that not everyone is given the gifts necessary to do this preparatory work. Very few indeed were given to be apostles and prophets. God spoke his word directly through them. Their role was unique. So in 2.20 Paul says that the church is (I quote):

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets…

Those who were given that role generally paid a very high price – often their very lives, as was the case in the end with Paul himself.

Many people have some kind of role as an evangelist or teacher or pastor. It may be to their family or friends. But by no means everyone is a minister of God's word even in that way. There are some, though, who have a particular gift of communicating God's word. So if that's you, then the message is simple. Get on with doing it.

How do you know if it's you? I think the best way to tell is this: people ask you to do it. Whatever the context may be – and there are many: we're not just talking about being in a pulpit; that's just the tip of a very big iceberg – you will find that people ask you to explain the word of God. So do it. God's people need to be prepared. It's not glamorous. There's a lot of hard graft getting to grips with the scriptures behind the scenes. But it's vital work. So if you can do it, do it.

And if that's not the role that God has planned for you, then there will be another one. Look out for it. And make sure that you get on the receiving end of the ministry of the word – consistently, week in and week out, in season and out of season, all your life long. None of us ever grows out of the need to learn more from the scriptures. This side of heaven we will never be the finished article. What we can do is grow up. And that brings me to my third point from this passage.


Thirdly, GOD PRODUCES BY GRACE FULL-GROWN MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF CHRIST

All this word ministry prepares people for what? The answer is there in 4.12. Christ gave those ministries of the word

to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…

You can see basically the same thing back in 2.10:

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

And the same idea is there at the end of 4.16, where Paul speaks of the way the whole body

grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

The church needs all kinds of different works of service. My brother is a highly skilled furniture maker. He makes very beautiful and expensive pieces of furniture. He has a large workshop crammed with an extraordinary assortment of tools, nearly all of them power tools. Some are rough starter tools. Some are for fine finishing. Some are abrasive. Some gentle. Some noisy. Some almost silent. Some enormous. Some very small. Some cut straight through. Some chip away.

All of them would be quite useless on their own. But put them into my brother's hands, and switch on the power that drives them, and they work together to produce something unique and precious. That is the way God works to grow the body of Christ. Different gifts for different tasks, all put to use by the power of his Spirit to do the work he wants them to do, so his plan will be fulfilled.

If we're going to do the works of service that God has planned for us, then we have to be what we're supposed to be, and do what we're supposed to do. There's more about what that means in the rest of this letter. But there is some guidance here in these verses. Look at the start of the chapter:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

And what is that going to involve? It's there in 4.15:

speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

And what will be the result? What is the purpose of these works of service? They are (4.12-13):

so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.

God's plans will be put into effect. We will experience the unity that God plans for us, through a shared knowledge of Christ. We will grow up and become mature members of the body of Christ – not perfect, but full-grown; adult. And that unity and maturity will bring stability and further growth. 4.14-15:

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead… we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

I've been in a small sailing boat once or twice that has been quite out of control and at the mercy of the winds. Not that the winds were all that strong. But those of us trying to control the boat were immature and didn't know what we were doing. It is a rather frightening and potentially dangerous situation to be in. You can harm yourself and you can cause damage to those around you.

To be mature is not about finding hairs in your ears. It is to be like Christ. That is God's goal for each of us. That is God's goal for the church. And it is all by grace. Paul says back in 2.8:

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that noone can boast.

And it's not just becoming a Christian that is by grace. It is the whole Christian life, and it is the whole growth and maturing of the church. So here in 4.7, Paul makes clear that that source of all these gifts that lead to the works of service that grow the body of Christ is grace:

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

But that never means we just sit back and take it easy. Being on the receiving end of God's grace is hard work. "I urge you," says Paul, "to live a life worthy of the calling you have received… Make every effort…" A child grows from babyhood to adulthood. There is much to do. There are many hazards to navigate. But the process is exciting and astonishing to watch and participate in.

One of the advantages about being part of one local church fellowship for a long period is that you see this process going on all around you in this great extended family. You see whole generations grow up to maturity.

But there is nothing more exciting than seeing spiritual growth from birth to mature discipleship. There is nothing more deeply satisfying than to be part of a fellowship – part of a body – in which you've watched people move from not being Christian at all, to being mature fellow workers in the cause of the gospel.

Play your part, and see what God will do. In fact let me end by telling you what he'll do. I can, because he tells us at the end of chapter 3. He'll glorify himself through us; and he'll do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine - because it's his power that is at work within us.