I would like to speak for a few minutes on Ephesians chapter 4 verse 7 to 16 Ephesians 4, 7 to 16 I do invite your attention to this if ever there is a passage of scripture neglected by modern believers and the churches today this must be high on the list most churches, most believers grab three words out of this passage and they run with those three words and that's about the sum total of attention they pay to the passage and it's a travesty, it's tragic and what Paul is doing here in Ephesians 4 he has laid out in the first three chapters glorious doctrine from eternity past God has determined to save his elect and form one glorious body of all believers in Christ. Christ came into the world, lived and died, earning the salvation of all these elect, meriting their salvation, shedding his blood, bringing everlasting salvation to his people. And the Holy Spirit comes into the world to work in the elect and bring them to faith and repentance, trusting Christ, and pouring grace into them, forming Christ in them, joining them together in one glorious body, house or temple, for God. The preface to this extended section, chapters 4, 5, and 6 is in the first verse of chapter 4. As a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling, of all this calling that you have received. And in this particular passage here, 7 to 16, the Apostle is moving on to the local assemblies, the local churches, the local gatherings the local meetings of God's people and these local assemblies, these local gatherings, these local churches are meant to reflect this glorious doctrine, this glorious truth, this glorious one body in Christ. Now look what the Apostle teaches us here, look how he opens this section to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it we are one but he says verse 7 God Christ has given grace to each one of us he's apportioned grace to each one of us now of course each one of us he's talking to believers What I say in this short address, my friend, is to believers, if you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are not trusting in Him, whatever else you are, you're outside of this. But if you are in Christ, you may be a very new believer, a very weak believer, but you're still being spoken to by the Apostle here, because he says to each one of us, each one of us, to every believer, grace has been given and this is not grace for salvation because we are saved because we are believers this is grace for service this is grace for sanctification this is all sorts of grace especially for works of service here especially for mutual fellowship i've called this passage the whole body ministry or all body ministry the concept here is of a body as in 1 corinthians where every is playing his or her part in fulfilling the functions of that body and the gift that Christ has given is to each and every individual believer he ascended on high it says in the verses that follow verses 8 and 9 and 10 and it was he having risen into glory poured out his spirit and the spirit amongst his many other works works in every Christian grace as Christ apportioned it, to fulfill the particular ministry to which Christ has called each one of us. You get the same in Romans 12, you get the same in the Apostle Peter, you get it throughout the New Testament. The picture is of every member, every Christian, active and working for Christ in this fellowship, in this mutual body. Now I say the modern church, the modern believer, pays scant attention to this. There's far more here than I'm going to say now and if I may I would like to recommend you the two books I've written on this subject. They will go into all the details of the things that I can't explain here. The two books are The Priesthood of All Believers and The Pastor, Does He Exist? Let me be brief now and give what I see here in this passage. Here we are talking about the local assembly then, the gathering of believers together, where two or three are gathered together, the local church, the local assembly. What's going on here? Well Christ wants and is maturing by His Spirit, developing this body, like a body of a child growing, developing, putting on weight and strength, growing in health and maturity and experience and so on, So the body of Christ is meant to grow and be alive and vigorous and developing and full of health and maturity. How is that going to happen? Well he gave gifts to his people. Verse 11, he gave some to be extraordinary officers. evangelists. I won't go into the details now, but we have apostles today. I've got one in front of me now, Ephesians. It's written by Paul. I have Paul with me now. I have his writings, apostolic writings. Here they are. But we're talking about the everyday, what we have today in the churches. And he's given gifts Grace to every believer. Now, some are gifted, verse 11, to be pastors and teachers. I won't give the reasons now, but you should put hyphens between those words. I'm speaking of one gift, the ability to rule, to shepherd, to govern, to teach, to instruct, to nurture, to feed, to edify God's people. As I say, these are the three words that most believers run away with. Pastors and teachers, and that's the end of the story. No, that's just one gift. It's a precious gift. It's a vital gift. We need men over us in the Lord who will shepherd us and teach us and rule us. But most churches think that's the sum total really of church life. Everybody else virtually, there might be a board around him, but the truth is this one man really does all the work and we're just spectators and he feeds us, he teaches us, he rules us and governs us and that's the end of it. We are there to soak up what he says and that's about as far as it goes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Look at what he says in verse 12. What is the gift? What is the responsibility of this gift? What is the responsibility of these teaching elders, these rulers, these shepherds of the flock? What is their duty? It is to prepare God's people for works of service. They are meant to teach us so that we can teach each other, so we can feed ourselves, so we can preach to each other. Oh, you say, well, I'm a woman and I can preach. I'm not talking about public preaching and teaching. I'm not talking about pulpit work. I'm talking about sharing the gospel with one another, mutually conferring with one another, comforting one another, instructing one another, praying with one another, sharing the gospel, sharing Christ with each other, believing together, hoping together, trusting together, trying to spread the gospel together. The list is endless, my friend. So this is that these teachers are to instruct us and feed us so that we can instruct and feed ourselves and others. I hope these little talks will show you how I read my Bible. It's only one of the ways I read my Bible. Perhaps it might help you to read your Bible. Preach these little sermons to yourself. Nobody else needs to hear them, but preach them to yourself. But why shouldn't others hear them? Can't you go and talk to another friend, another believer, and share with them the gospel? What Christ is saying to you, what Christ is doing for you, what you've seen of Christ. This is what the apostle means here. What will this do? It will build each other up. We shall build each other up this way. We shall strengthen one another. We shall increase our unity. We shall be sharing with one another. And we shall be becoming more and more like Christ until we reach unity, verse 13, all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. What happens if we don't do this? We stay weak, immature, ignorant, helpless. I think that's pretty well a description of much modern church life. Paul gives illustrations. If we don't do this, he says, we shall be infants. If you have a baby and you don't give it good milk and then solid food and take it on and help it to grow, what happens? He stays an infant. Paul mixes up his figures here. He's so taken up with his subject, his figures move from being a baby, being tossed about on the waves, being blown about on the waves, but it doesn't matter, we get the picture. If we don't take part like this, if we just go to the assemblies and just listen to one man and we come away just soaking up what he said and we never share and give out to others, We should be infants. We should be prone to every disease. We should be prone to false doctrine. We should be like cork on the waves, just blown about by the tide and the winds. Unstable, immature, ignorant. Again, I say, I'm afraid it's largely descriptive of many believers today, because we are not sharing in this. We're looking to the hierarchy, the one man and his board around him, and all the rest of us are just spectators. You may call them presbyters, but as John Milton said, the new presbytery, he said, is but all priests, Romish priests, writ large. And of course, as I've explained in the books that I've mentioned, I explain there that All this came from Rome, not from the Bible, this hierarchy, this clergy business dominating the church. There are rulers and teachers in the church, but they are meant to teach themselves, if I may put it this way, out of a job, because they're meant to be training us and maturing us so that we can teach each other and ourselves and feed each other. And indeed, the elders need comfort and instruction and sharing and fellowship from us as much as we need from them. If we do this, verse 15, if we speak the truth in love, we grow, we develop, we grow up into the head which is Christ. You see, it's all that Christ is, all the way through. The doctrine is being worked out, the first three chapters, the doctrine is being worked out here in this practical demonstration of mutual all-body fellowship. He pulled pictures like a body with joints and sinews and ligaments all growing together, glands and all the hormones working together. It's a lovely picture of the church. All of us pulling together, all active, all working. No passengers. I eat food. but when it gets digested into the system all the chemicals and the hormones and the enzymes wherever it is whatever it is wherever they're needed they run around the system and so the organs and the body develops and fulfills its function I get energy and power and life if I just left my arm sitting in a sling and did nothing with it for days it'd be paralyzed and become useless oh we don't want that kind of picture of the church my friend we want a living vital body as I was preparing this, well as I was preaching this just now I don't know, it's not that I prepared but as I was preaching this the phone went so I had to do it again and it was a friend of mine and what did he tell me? about a passage he found in the Old Testament about where Moses was praying when Joshua was fighting Amalek Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms and when the arms were held up So, Joshua triumphed in the valley with Amalek. The picture, we were talking about it on the phone, and the picture is complete. Joshua's doing the fighting at that moment. Moses doing the prayers, if you like, and Aaron and her are holding his hands up. The picture is lovely. We're all sharing in this, my friend. If I've said anything which is helpful to you, take it and work it out. Talk it out. Think it out. Use it. put it to practical use within the fellowship and the sharing you have with other believers locally. This man has sent an email out telling others about this mutual sharing and fellowship. And so it spreads on and on, my friend. This is the picture that Paul gives us here of the all-body ministry. Remember believer? Woman? Lady? Young believer? O believer, you have your part in this. To each of us, Christ has given grace, and we have a part to play. If you are an elder, are you teaching the people to look after themselves and to look after you? Or are you making them dependent and spoon-feeding them? Learn from this passage, my brother and sister. Learn from it. It is for us, whatever station, whatever gift, whatever place Christ has put us in, we are here to serve one another by love and so represent Christ to the world. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples and that you go to chapel and listen to one man speaking and never do anything about it. God deliver us from that. help us to fulfill that text of Christ by this shall all men know that you are my disciples and you have love one for another may that love be practical may it be in word and deed and may it be all nurtured and fed by the instructions we get and by the way we share with each other in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ remember unbeliever none of this is true don't for you don't try to work this out for yourself you're outside of all this You have your family, you have your principles, you have your end. We could talk about that another day. But this is the purpose and the end of the believer. It is to the glory of God in Christ, and it's mutual fellowship. It all stems from the doctrine laid out in the first three chapters, and it will all end in everlasting glory. Let me just read the passage. Believer, it's true of you. Make it true of you. It is true of you. Live it out. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says, when he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. What does he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the earth, lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. It was He 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 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 fullness of Christ. 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, speaking the truth in love, 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.