A Spirit-Empowered, Jesus-Equipped, Unified, Mature Church Body
[Read The Ephesians 4:11-13 Mandate.]
Ephesians 4:11-13 is such an important passage about gifts…about leaders’ role as equippers of the Body…helping point us to Christ as we grow in unity and maturity. The Message Bible translation has this to say about unity and maturity…including verses 14-24:
7-13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift…
Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.
14-16 No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are easy prey for predators. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.
The Old Way Has to Go
17-19 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself…
20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.
Clearly, as we try to live as God’s people, His Church, we are to rely on Jesus as our empowerer and model, be committed to one another (Body), make unity a priority (not uniformity), and be equippers and equipped. One recent church workshop participant boiled it down to: “We need you – you need us… We need each other.” Another summed it up as “This is our mandate...To Serve People...To Know God....To Become like Christ.” To that I say, Amen.
For those of you who have read or engaged in a small group with The Other Half of Church content, you’ll recall that the authors talk about four things that make up a healthy church community:
· Joy
· Hesed attachment—steadfast love, great love, loyal kindness, lovingkindness, mercies, faithful love.[i] “This Hebrew word carries the sense of an enduring connection that brings life and all good things into a relationship. Hesed is a kind and loyal care for the well-being of another.”[ii]
· Group Identity: what kind of people are we?
· Healthy correction
The authors go on to say: “Healthy correction is always an invitation to return to our true identity and start acting like ourselves again.”[iii] Recall the Ephesians 4 passage quoted above—we are to grow up, to mature, to put off the old ways and to embrace new life in Jesus…and encourage one another to do and keep doing the same.
What if we ALL asked God, through His Spirit, to enable us to live as those who are holy, as saints, as those who belong to Christ? What if we encouraged and exhorted each other to live in our Christ-bought freedom, to be those who act as inclusive, peace and service-oriented ambassadors of reconciliation?
The Message translation of Ephesians 2:8-10 encourages and exhorts us: God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
· If God has ordained my days/numbered them…
· And created me to join him in his good work…
· Then I am called to show up, say yes, and trust him for the equipping.
1 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to bless you abundantly…Stop a moment…close your eyes…bask in the abundance of God’s blessings to you…
“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in ALL things at ALL times, having ALL that you need, you will ABOUND in EVERY good work”—meaning every work to which He has called you.
Additional Resources:
• Downloadable Resources--See Sample List of Interest Areas; Your Spiritual Gifts—A Study Guide; Knowing Your Unique Calling and Purpose Study Guide; Whole-Life Ministry: A Form of Worship, Grace-Giving, and Living into Your Calling.
Shirley Giles Davis, author of the God. Gifts. You. Your Unique Calling and Design workbook, Your Unique Design Class Guide, Your Unique Design Facilitator Guide, and Gifts-Calling-Purpose blog, is a consultant, coach, facilitator who has worked with faith-based organizations, nonprofit agencies, and leaders in a diversity of fields for over 30 years. She has also been Equipping Ministries Director at her church since 1999.
© 2022
© Photo by Shirley Giles Davis, all rights reserved.
[i] Adapted from hesed definitions found in The Other Half of Church, Location 1,145ff. [Hesed…is translated “steadfast love.” In different versions of the Bible, hesed is translated “great love” (NIV), “loyal kindness” (NET), “lovingkindness” (NASB), “mercies” (KJV), “faithful love” (NLT).]
[ii] Ibid, Location 1,145.
[iii] Ibid, Location: 1,969.