Today we are finishing our discussion about the church. The church is God’s idea. It is not something created by human beings, but it is a plan of God for His purposes.
I am reminded of 1 Timothy 3:15 that says, “but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” The job of the church, the quest of the church is to support and uplift and proclaim the truth of God. When we come to Ephesians 4, and we see the mechanism of how that works and how God planned that out. In Ephesians 4:11, it says, “And He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.” In other words, He gave the church these gifted individuals. He gifted them and set them apart and He has sent them out to do a work in the church of Christ. These gifted individuals are the spearhead of this task.
What happens? Why are they sent out? Ephesians 4:12 says, “for the equipping of the saints of the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” First, for the equipping of the saints. That is vital. Everything else that is said after that goes back to the point of equipping the saints. Equipping them causing them to be able and ready and adequate to do the things that God wants them to do. So, He sends these gifted individuals to do this equipping of the saints so that they can do the work of service. However, the service of the ministry of the church is not all to be done by the staff and paid pastors and so forth. The whole body of Christ is involved in the work of service in every conceivable way, through all the giftedness that God has given us, through all the opportunities that He affords us, He equips us through the teachers and trainers of our body of Christ to do the work of service so that we can be building up the body of Christ. The body is edified, built up, and it is strengthened to become what God intended it to be.
He moves on and talks about maturity in Ephesians 4:13, it says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” As we read this verse, we can summarize everything he says by saying that the Lord wants us to grow up. He wants us to be mature. He wants us to handle life in a way that exemplifies to Christ who is in us. The teaching of His word equips us to be that kind of person. We have the unity of the faith. We are all headed in the same direction. We are all trying to accomplish the same task. We have the fullness of the knowledge of the Son of God. We are marching together in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are growing up and maturing until we reach the fullness of Christ. Our end goal will not happen in this life, but it is our goal, and it is what we are aiming for: the fullness of Christ.
