Hopefully, most of you are way beyond where I was in my youth.  But I still find a lot of churchianity in the South.  It isn’t a word in your dictionary, so don’t bother looking it up, but it fits what I see in the culture.  When I first met a neighbor where we used to live, he immediately identified himself with a local church, but then described himself as a “back-slidden Methodist”.  I never quite figured out what that meant to him.  I invited him to church many times, shared the gospel with him when he was in the hospital, but I never saw him go to church.  He was struggling to get by in life, but had no sense of belonging to Christ or even to a church.  This isn’t our vision for church or for any of you at Trinity.  Our vision is this:  we want for every one of you to be growing in grace, longing to know Jesus more fully, so you can both experience His life and love for you, and then be used by Him to bless others with your God given gifts.  We believe very strongly in body life and body ministry. 

What we are talking about this morning is a part of our overall vision for who we are as a church– wholehearted, worshipers, who are healed and delivered, equipped to do good works Jesus has asked us to do, and then sent out with the gospel to a lost and dying world.  This morning, we are looking at the fourth part of our vision– being equipped for every good work.  We believe Trinity is called to be an equipping center, a place of development and preparation for ministry.  Jesus calls your leadership to prepare you for the work of ministry He has designed for you to do through teaching, encouragement, accountability and correction.

I. The role of your leaders is to equip you to be a minister.

Verses 7 through 10 in our passage this morning are confusing to most people as they read them.  Paul is using a quote from the Old Testament to support the idea that Jesus gave gifts to His church in the form of those He would use to establish and build His church.  In a different passage, I Corinthians 11, it talks about the Lord giving gifts to the people of God in the church.  Here, in Ephesians 4, it talks about giving gifted people to the church.  These gifted people God gives to His church are leaders of various types.  These leadership gifts are listed in verse 11.  Apostles are those who have a supernatural ability to plant churches.  Miguel Robles, who visited Trinity 6 years ago, had this gift– the Lord used him to plant 45 churches in his life time.  We have already talked in past sermons about the importance of prophecy.  The prophet speaks an immediate message from God which edifies the body of Christ.  The evangelist has supernatural ability to lead others to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and often plays the role of initial church planter.  Most initial church planters are not strong at building the church once it is established, because that is the role of the Pastor/teacher.  It is clear in the Greek that pastor/teacher is one role or leader, not two.  I play this role at Trinity, as does Perry. 

First, I want to make sure all of you understand what my role is and is not, and then what your role is in this body, according to Jesus.  My role is to do all I can to prepare you, or to equip you to do ministry.  That is what verse 12 clearly tells us.  I do not like the title, “Minister” when it only applies to me in certain contexts, because that is an unbiblical use of the idea.  As a pastor/teacher, I am supposed to do everything I can to equip you all to be the ministers.  Who are the ministers at Trinity– every person who belongs to this covenant family is a minister.  You need to take on that identity, that role and responsibility, because this is who Jesus says you are!  I don’t care how old you are– youth, if you know Christ and have agreed to be a covenant member, part of God’s will for you is to find your gifts, to take classes offered which will prepare you to use those gifts, and then to look for places to plug into the life and ministry of this body!  POWs, we need you, all of you to plug into the life and ministry of this body.  I know Perry and Jeanne have led many of you to do this very thing, and it is good.  This is true for every person!  We tell people who take our Inquirer’s class that there is no gift of “pew sitting” that we can find in the Bible.  Every person is gifted by God to serve others.  Look at verse 16 which summarizes what is said before it.  The picture is of Christ as the head of the body, leading and directing each member of the body to do what they were created and called to do by God.  As each part does its work, his job, completely fulfilling his role, then the whole body is strengthened, is built up and grows.  I love what it says in this verse– the whole body grows and builds itself up in love, as each person does his work.  We have a very real and important responsibility here, to serve.  The rest of the body needs each one of you to serve, using your gifts.  The body together is to build itself up, which only happens when each of you choose to serve others in ways God has gifted you.

What does this look like and how do I know where I can serve?  First, we take every new member through a process to help them discover their spiritual gifts.  I believe every Christian should be able to tell others what gifts the Lord has given to him or her.  Paul tells us in I Corinthians 12:1– “About spiritual gifts, brethren, I do no want you to be ignorant!”  If you do not know for sure what gifts the Lord has given to you, then ask Him to show you.  If you need a copy of the inventory we use, call the church office, and then look for ways to use gifts you think you may have.    The only way to be certain of your gifts are to use them.  As you use them, you will be blessed, because a person experiences the pleasure of God when she does what she has been created to do.  And others will be blessed, because, when you are using your gift, the grace of God is flowing through you, literally, to others.  Think about that concept for a moment.  God pours out His grace upon you so that those around you would be touched from the overflow from your life.  It isn’t your ability, but God’s grace which is filling and using you to accomplish His purpose.  This is for every Christian!!

When I used to serve as an associate pastor in another church, the church had 4 pastors, plus several other full time people in various positions.  The joke at the church was that the church could run well for a long period of time without any of the pastors or other staff, except for Pat.  Pat had encountered Christ at a Bible study Rev. Horace Hilton was leading at a Catholic Church.  She and several others in that church sponsored Bible Study were born again.  A few years later, she was hired by the church where I later became pastor.  Pat knew she was a good organizer, but her gifts of administration literally strengthened everyone else’s ministry at the church.  Pat was never up front, but she oversaw the support staff and coordinated all the events of a large church.  She blossomed as she began to use her gifts and everyone else’s ministry increased when she used her gifts.  This is exactly how God has designed us all to work!!

The only gift and only person who is indispensable is the person of the Holy Spirit who gives, directs and empowers gifts to be used!

II. Growth into maturity comes as we serve with our gifts.
Look at verse 14.  “Then” refers to what will happen when we are equipped, which leads to spiritual maturity.  “Then, when we are mature and unified as a body, because each person is using his gift to serve others...”  We won’t be infants any longer!  Infants are wonderful!!  But if an infant stays an infant and doesn’t grow and mature, that is terribly sad.  We were all infants spiritually when we first came to faith in Christ.   But we don’t want to stay in infancy!!  We don’t want to be tossed all over the place by the wind and waves of every teaching that comes down the pike. The expectation is that there will always be new winds of teaching coming our way, blown by the winds of hell.  We don’t want to be tossed around by these deceitful teachings.  I have noticed a couple of things that bother me in American churchianity.  There is the ‘herd’ mentality.  “Oh boy, this big name speaker is going to be over here next Sunday, so I want to go to church there!  This is the happening church now, so people flock over there.”  There are legitimate reasons to change churches, but they are few and rare.  If you are part of one body, then you need to be very prayerful about changing to a different family.  We want to be a place which consistently gives sound teaching in classes of all types for all ages.  We long for each of you to be grounded in the Word of God, so you will not be tossed all over the place by the newest rage.

I know people who are conference junkies.  It isn’t bad to go to a Christian conference– I just went to one a week ago.  But to adopt this mentality because it works in that huge church, or that mentality because it works in that huge church is not the will of God for us.  We are to borrow strategies and programs and adapt them to the context in which God has called us to minister perhaps, but mostly, we need to listen carefully to our Master, Jesus, by setting aside time to listen, and follow whole-heartedly after what He speaks to us.  As the elders both study the Word of God together and listen corporately to what the Lord is saying, there is no doubt in my mind that we will know and then follow the will of God for Trinity!

III. Living according to what we have been taught in the Scriptures.

Look at verse 15, which gives us the next result of each member serving by using his or her gifts– we have relationships which reflect the character of Christ.  As we speak the truth in love to one another, we can grow up in Christ.  Apart from these types of relationships, we will not reach maturity.  Many Christians neither have these kind of relationships with one another nor want them.  God wants you to have authentic relationships which are bathed in love.  Let’s say I am serving on the men’s ministry leadership team.  The members of this team have given permission to every other man on that team to call them on any issue of holiness, their marriage, how they are fathering their kids, etc.  You come to a meeting and another guy asks me how I am loving my wife.  This question alone stops me and causes me to think about how I have shown my love to my wife.  “I don’t know because I haven’t seen much of her this week because of my work schedule,” is not a good answer.  Another guy tells an off color joke, but is called on the carpet by his brothers.  The context is love– we love each other, period.  In fact, we love each other enough to ask the hard questions and are committed to honesty with one another.  I am in a small men’s group like this and have been for the last 13 years with 5 different groups of men.  How about you?  Have you asked others to speak the truth to you in the context of love?  Don’t tell me you don’t need this when the Scriptures say that you do. 

This whole idea of equipping has several facets to it for us at Trinity, so let me briefly unfold these.  First, we have tried to offer classes on Sunday morning during the traditional SS hour and on Wednesday evenings which will significantly help people grow in their walk with Jesus.  We have tried to offer courses and classes on different levels of maturity, because people are all over the place regarding their maturity in Christ.  Remember our end goal is to equip you so that you can minister to others.  I know there are tons of options for every one of us in how we choose to use our time.  But think about this: is investing 2 hours of my time on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, listening and learning about my faith so that I can live a fuller life in Christ worth those 2 hours?  Someone has said, “You are what you eat.”  I used to know this guy named Bob who would eat a Twinkie and a Hostess Ho-Ho for breakfast, a greasy hamburger and fries for lunch, and spaghetti and ice cream for dinner– no vegetables.  He started to have bad stomach-aches and wanted us to pray for him– “hello Bob... my prayers aren’t going to make a difference until you choose to change your diet!”  I’d like to revise the saying slightly, “You are what you believe you are, which is dictated by what you digest into your mind and heart.”  If you choose to spend your time ingesting junk into your heart and mind, then you will embrace more and more junk in your life and struggle more and more in your faith. Romans 12:2 commands us as followers of Christ not to be conformed into the image of the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we know the good, acceptable and pleasing will of God.  We know the mind of the Lord as we have a transformed mind!  It might be okay to have a spiritual Twinkie now and then, but you gotta get some vegetables and healthy protein or you’re going to die young.  Spiritual fast food won’t do it.  Many Christians are starving spiritually, because of how they’re spending their time– what they’re digesting.  Listening to a sermon Sunday morning at 11 a.m. for an hour is not enough!  If you spend several hours during the week getting input from other sources which are not godly, and everyone here does this on some level, then 1 hour a week won’t cut it.  You will never grow into maturity!

How do you tell what is enough?  I don’t believe God is white knuckled about these sort of things.  He is after an abiding relationship.  He wants your heart– all of it.  He wants for you to enjoy a dynamic relationship with Him.  I interact with the Lord all day long, which is His desire.  No matter what I am doing, I seek to be in fellowship with Him.  There are times for deeper study of the Word.  There are times for interaction with brothers who hold me accountable to what I know Christ wants from me.  There are times when I sit in a conference or a class to learn from others who can teach me more.  I will always learn and grow in my walk with Jesus– I have made that decision already.  This is God’s will for me and for you; but I have to do my part– which is to make time to deepen the relationship through worship, intercession and study of the Word.    The kinds of studies which I believe are most helpful are those where you are forced to think and study on your own, searching the Scriptures for an answer to a question.  I believe that you each should take classes which will help you mature or help you gain skills or knowledge in your walk with Christ.  If you have had all the classes we offer any given quarter– then you should be leading, serving or teaching yourself!  It isn’t healthy for a person to only take in the same diet, so we offer courses on all kinds of topics, with all kinds of people in mind.  None of you have arrived yet– you know it all, so have nothing else to learn.  I still have a lot of growing to do– so do you. 

So, what do I do?  Carefully evaluate how you spend your time.  Clock the time you spend in prayer, in the Word, in classes learning and in every other endeavor for a week.  Then you will be able to see what your diet is like.  This reminds me of the overweight woman who went to her doctor to ask what she should do about her weight. The doctor asked her about her eating habits, and she swore she only ate one serving per meal and few snacks.  She did cook a lot though.  The doctor asked her to do one thing– instead of tasting as she cooked, he asked her to put what she would have tasted into a bowl and see what was in the bowl at the end of the day.  The woman did this and found out that all the things she tasted as she cooked wouldn’t even fit into one huge bowl.  She saw what was out of balance in her diet.  This is a good thing for all of us to do with the input we place into our hearts and minds.  While you are at it, also time the amount of time and energy your kids or grand-kids are putting into knowing Jesus versus into TV and Computer time.  Look at it on a piece of paper and ask– does this stewardship of my time or their time please my Lord?  What needs to change and when?  This will help you begin to grow more deeply in Christ. 

What are we asking?  Do everything in your power to present yourself as a workman approved by God, ready to do every good work.  2 Tim 3:16‑17 says, “All Scripture is God‑breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  This is God’s will for you and for us as a church.  Trinity is called to be an equipping center.  We are looking into the possibility of offering a seminary level course on Thursday evenings if there is enough interest– you can check this if you are interested in it.  We are offering our women a new course on Tuesday mornings or Tuesday evenings in the Fall, which we are excited about.  I told you last week about Dunamis and Cleansing Streams courses if you need to grow in your knowledge of the person and work of the Holy Spirit; and Cleansing Streams if you need to by cut free from issues in your life which hinder or bind you.  Take the classes and courses which will help you grow the most.  And remember, that our goal is for you to be involved in ministry.  If nothing being offered in a particular quarter excites you, then teach, serve, or help in the kitchen!  We need help everywhere.