THE MINISTER'S WORK
Ephesians 4:12-14
Message begins at approx. the 40 min mark.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Ephesians 4:11-14
I believe I have mentioned before how easily conversations I have with strangers can become awkward. One minute we are having a nice chat about things we may have in common. But inevitably they will pop the question: What do you do?
I know that if I say, “I’m a pastor,” things will get awkward. Usually, they will become embarrassed about certain words that they may have said and begin to apologize. Or they will respond by saying that they have an uncle that is a pastor. For some reason people think that I need to know about their uncle.
It’s happened so often that I’ve tried thinking of other ways to answer that question. Perhaps if I say that I am a “life coach” that will sound more intriguing. Or maybe I could go the provocative route and say, “I tell people how they can live forever.”
I think I have had more success since I became a biblical counselor. People don’t seem to be quite as turned off by that one.
But despite how uneasy things can become, it is a good question: What do I do? It would be interesting if that question were probed more specifically. I know that when I meet another pastor and he tells me that he is a leader in the church, that makes me curious. I want to ask, “okay, what does that entail? You say you are a pastor, but what exactly does that mean? What do you do?”
It occurs to me that many people who are church going folks don’t really know the answer to that question. What does their pastor really do? Well, he only works one day a week, that’s what he does. Maybe he will stand up and talk for a bit. He will show up at weddings and funerals. And I think he does something during the week. But other than that, I’m not really sure what he does.
Well, that may be somewhat true. That may be accurate to some degree. But as we see from out text today, it is not a sufficient explanation. Paul was concerned that the Ephesians understand that God had given the church these teachers. The pastors were sent into the churches in order to carry out a particular job. And Paul thinks that it is of the highest importance that we understand the ins and outs of the pastoral ministry.
And in this passage he takes a little space to clarify the minister’s job. The verses before us tell us what he does, how long he is supposed to do it, and what it is he is at long last seeking to accomplish in his work. To put it another way, Paul clarifies the essence of the pastoral ministry, the extent of his work, and its ultimate end.
Of course, we know that a minister of the gospel’s basic job description is to preach and teach. But if you look in verse 12 you see that Paul spells it out a little more thoroughly. And in this verse Paul lays down the essential core of what a minister of the gospel does.
I. The Essence of his Work [12]
The essence of his work is "for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for building up the body of Christ."
Now, you may notice how I read that verse. I have a little disagreement with the ESV and some of the other versions. I prefer the KJV at this point. The KJV inserts commas which I believe better get at the intent of what Paul is communicating. They do this because each of these phrases is a prepositional phrase. So they highlight the parallelism of the prepositions.
The ESV reads it with an infinitive with prepositional phrases. The gifts were given “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” And it sounds like the pastors and other officers are to help those who are not officers be equipped to do the work of the ministry. And so, what happens is that you have a very democratic view of church work. They would say that this verse means that everyone is participate in the ministry of the church and serve.
And many preachers will then use this verse to show that you should be on a committee of some sort in the church. Or, if committee work is not your gig, then you should be leading a Bible study or taking a shift in the nursery taking care of the children.
While that is very convenient for getting people to volunteer in some capacity, I do not think that is the intent of the verse.
I prefer to read this verse like this: That these gifts were given for the equipping the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for building up the body of Christ. In other words, I believe that the original language is such that there should be a comma placed after equipping the saints, and the work of the ministry is defining the minister’s job.
To put it another way, the ones who should be doing the work of ministry are (primarily) those who are ministers.
But all that aside, I want you to think of the minister’s job like this: He is an orthopedic doctor, he is a waiter, and he is a construction worker. Those three images sum up what Paul says here in verse 12 about the minister’s job.
First of all, you should think of the minister as a spiritual orthopedic doctor. Why do I say that? Well, it is because of the word “equip” (or ‘perfect’ as it is in the KJV). This word was used in the ancient world in regards to the setting of bones. You know that when someone breaks their arm, the bones have to be realigned so that they can heal.
When my daughter was 6 years old, she broke her arm. And she held up her arm to show us her owie, and there was a large bump protruding from her skin. It was obvious that the bone had been severely broken and now was sticking up in a rather disgusting fashion. We rushed her to the emergency room and after a long time the orthopedic surgeon showed up and he said he had to set the bone. I, being the manly man that I was, excused myself because I knew I would not be able to stomach the whole process.
Sure enough, he put the bones back in alignment and she began the healing process.
That is the image that Paul uses here. And the idea is that sin causes the unity of the church to be fractured. When sin happens within the church, relationships get broken and the church is out of alignment.
And so the minister’s job is to preach and teach. And as he does so, it is understood that the people will become convicted that this particular thing that has happened was wrong. And there needs to be repentance and forgiveness. As the minister speaks the word of God, the congregation comes to understand that the relationships need to be restored and the saints must work together to see their unity brought back into alignment.
This is one of the reasons why the ministry of the Word is so vital and should not be neglected. God works in and through the proclamation of the Bible’s truth to bring about the kind of healing that a congregation may need.
So we should see the ministers of the church as orthopedic doctors. But we should also see them as waiters.
That’s what the next part of verse 12 says. Why did God give these gifts? Paul says it was for the work of the ministry. And the word “ministry” literally means to serve or to attend to.
When you go out to eat at a restaurant a waiter or waitress will come to your table to serve you. They will take your order and fill your drinks. He will bring you your food when it is ready and he will continually come back to check on you and make sure you have everything you need.
That’s what a servant does. And this is yet another picture to help us understand what a pastor-teacher is supposed to do. What is his function? What is he to do? He is a waiter who serves up the truth of God. His work is to take what God has prepared and bring it to you. He serves you by teaching you what you must believe and how you must live.
The third image Paul uses is that of a construction worker. He says that the ministers were given ‘for building up the body of Christ.’ I was going to say that you should think of him as a body builder, but that might give you a wrong image.
The word Paul uses here comes from the world of construction and architecture. We’ve all seen a house under construction. The foundation is set, the walls are framed, the roof is put on. So this image speaks to helping the church become stronger. He helps build them up into the people are supposed to be.
That might mean that you need encouragement. Maybe you are feeling down and need to find the consolation that the Lord would have for you. You can be built up by the Scriptures in that way.
Or maybe you are weak. Maybe the church is out of alignment because you haven’t learned how to master certain spiritual principles.
A while back I had to counsel a couple. The wife was fed up with her husband. She’d been putting up with him for 10 or so years. And he was a moper. He moped about his job. He moped about his failure as a father. He moped about mope how people treated him. She couldn’t stand it anymore. And guess what, he moped about that too.
Their marriage was out of alignment. And what he needed was some solid edification: He needed to be taught how to have a better outlook on life. He needed to begin delighting in God’s providence. He needed to begin thanking God for all the blessings he had received. He needed to understand that a cheerful attitude was something that he was called to put on.
That’s what a minister does. He’s involved in the construction business. He takes the Word of God and he brings it to bear on people’s lives. Over time, the church beings to look like a church.
He’s building up the body of Christ. He’s serving God by bringing His word to bear on people’s lives, and he’s equipping them by bringing them into proper alignment. All of this is defining the essence of a minister’s job.
But now that you understand what he does, maybe we can talk about how long he is to do it. Have you ever thought about that? How much do we really need these guys? Can we not only have them retire, but can we retire the whole kit and caboodle? Does there ever come a point that we do not need these ministers? And could we be rid of them?
Or is there a certain level that we can reach that we can say, “These gifts that Jesus gave were for a certain time, but I’ve advanced beyond that point.” Maybe they are like training wheels on a bicycle. Once we get some mastery of the basics, we can rip those things off and ride without them.
Well, as you look at verse 13 Paul gives the answer to that question, and it is a definitive yes. There does come a point where we don’t need them. The only problem is that you probably won’t get to it in this life.
II. The extent of their work [13]
And when you look at verse 13, you see that it says that these gifts are needed until we attain something. Actually, there are three things that he mentions that we need to attain: The first thing is unity, the second thing is maturity, and the third thing is similarity.
He says we need to attain “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Look at the first thing Paul says there.
We need these gifts until we attain the unity of the faith. So we can say, we can get rid of pastors and teachers when we get to the point that our beliefs completely coalesce.
Now let me ask you this: How long do you think it will be until Tara and I are completely on the same page doctrinally? It’s probably going to be a long time. A very long time. So I am going to keep on teaching until she agrees with me. That’s what I call job security.
Actually, there will come a point where we are all united in our faith and knowledge of Christ. When we get to heaven, we’ll all roll our eyes at all the fool-hearty things we believed back here on earth. But until then, we keep searching the Scriptures and listening to it expounded from the pulpit.
The second thing Paul mentions is mature manhood.
We are in constant need of pastors and teachers because we are spiritually immature. Paul compares us to children who are in an infantile state. He’s reminding us that no matter how long we have walked with Christ, there are still many decisions which we make that are lacking wisdom and discretion which comes with proper growth.
And that is why we need to keep coming back to the Bible. That is why we need to submit ourselves to the Word each Lord’s Day and give our attention to it.
So there is unity, maturity, and there is also similarity. Paul says that we need to come to the point where we attain "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Some of you may be like us in that you have a wall in your house which shows the measurements of each of your children. And over the years you have all kinds of lines drawn on the wall due to having measured each of the children. But one thing is for certain, you see these little ones growing. And each of them is gaining some degree of stature. Some of you may have even find yourself at some point looking up to your children because they’ve grown so much.
This is something of what Paul is talking about at the end of verse 13. Each of us is growing. Each of us is making progress in our holiness and becoming more and more like Christ. But we recognize that we have a long way to go until we have the same measure of holiness that he does.
Again, there will come a day when we are perfected. When we go to be with the Lord or when Jesus comes back again, we will find ourselves fully sanctified. And at that point we won’t need these pastors and teachers anymore. I’ll find myself out of a job. I’ll likely become a Wal Mart greeter or be the person who fills the donut tray at the Holiday Inn.
But the point that Paul is making is that we should not overestimate ourselves. We should not think that we have ever arrived. We are always going to stand in need of God’s correction. I’m deeply ignorant, even after having walked with Christ for 30 or so years. And I still need to have ministers speaking into my life.
And you see how foolish it is for some people to say that they do not need the church or some pastor telling them what to do. They can get by just fine on their own. Well, I don’t doubt that personal study of Scripture is very beneficial. But it is my belief, based on what the Lord says here, that there is a certain importance placed on the ministry of the gospel.
That is only made that much more clear in verse 14. In verse 14 Paul tells us of the goal or the end to which a minister aims
III. The end (goal) of his work [14]
He says that these gifts of ministry are given “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
You might say, “Yes, I get it. I am supposed to become more mature. I am to be seeking to become like Christ. But what exactly does that mean?” And Paul says here that your objective is essentially to get rid of worldly or humanistic thinking. Progress in the Christian life is measured by how much your thinking accords with what God has revealed in the bible.
You see, our problem is that we don’t think God’s thoughts after him. We are easily influenced by the culture around us and we are often seduced into thinking that certain actions are okay when they are not.
Paul likens our state to that of a child bobbing in the ocean on one of those inflatable tubes. You know how it is trying to swim with one of those things. It is not easy to make any real progress. But it is even more difficult when the waves are throwing you around. You can hardly make any progress and oftentimes you are drifting away from where you are supposed to be.
Our goal is to keep that from happening. We need to be so discerning and so grounded in the truth that no matter what waves of foolish, unbiblical thinking come along we are not misdirected.
It is interesting that Paul uses language here in verse 14 that is very much like the language of Genesis 3. In Genesis 3 we read about how the serpent, who is the incarnation of Satan, was more crafty than any of the other animals in the garden. And he comes to Adam and Eve and uses deceitful schemes and cunning to trick Adam and Eve into thinking that God is unkind to them and that eating the forbidden fruit would be much better.
And Paul’s saying that the same tactics are being used today to wage war upon the people of God. This world is constantly feeding us lies; lies about God and lies about how we ought to live. And we need to be seeking to make sure that doesn’t happen. We need stability in the truth of God’s word and we need to be able to discern what messages are lies and which are not.
But how do we get to that point? How can we ensure that we are not going to be bobbing about at the whims of the world around us?
Well, by now you know how Paul would answer. One of the chief ways we prevent ourselves from being deceived and going astray is through the regular ministry of the Word of God. When we have faithful men faithfully proclaiming the truth of God in our ears on a regular basis, we gain a grounding that will make us steadfast in His ways.
Conclusion
Well, I hope that one day in the long off future you will come by the Holiday Inn and share a donut with me. I hope that we can reminisce about the good old days when we used to worship together.
But I also hope that this church will always understand the importance of the pulpit ministry and how it has a significant role to play in each of our lives. As Paul has shown, there is a uniqueness to the official preaching and teaching which is done each Lord's Day by those who have been rightly equipped and called to this ministry. There is something about it that transcends the regular, personal study of Scripture (no matter how important that is in and of itself).
God speaks during these moments. He moves in a supernatural way to provide us with the necessary instruction to advance our corporate union. He brings a special blessing which bolsters our personal righteousness and solidifies our standing together. We are rightly aligned and advanced in our spiritual walk so that we conform more and more like Christ.
And may it always be so. May this pulpit endure til that day when Christ comes again.
I know that if I say, “I’m a pastor,” things will get awkward. Usually, they will become embarrassed about certain words that they may have said and begin to apologize. Or they will respond by saying that they have an uncle that is a pastor. For some reason people think that I need to know about their uncle.
It’s happened so often that I’ve tried thinking of other ways to answer that question. Perhaps if I say that I am a “life coach” that will sound more intriguing. Or maybe I could go the provocative route and say, “I tell people how they can live forever.”
I think I have had more success since I became a biblical counselor. People don’t seem to be quite as turned off by that one.
But despite how uneasy things can become, it is a good question: What do I do? It would be interesting if that question were probed more specifically. I know that when I meet another pastor and he tells me that he is a leader in the church, that makes me curious. I want to ask, “okay, what does that entail? You say you are a pastor, but what exactly does that mean? What do you do?”
It occurs to me that many people who are church going folks don’t really know the answer to that question. What does their pastor really do? Well, he only works one day a week, that’s what he does. Maybe he will stand up and talk for a bit. He will show up at weddings and funerals. And I think he does something during the week. But other than that, I’m not really sure what he does.
Well, that may be somewhat true. That may be accurate to some degree. But as we see from out text today, it is not a sufficient explanation. Paul was concerned that the Ephesians understand that God had given the church these teachers. The pastors were sent into the churches in order to carry out a particular job. And Paul thinks that it is of the highest importance that we understand the ins and outs of the pastoral ministry.
And in this passage he takes a little space to clarify the minister’s job. The verses before us tell us what he does, how long he is supposed to do it, and what it is he is at long last seeking to accomplish in his work. To put it another way, Paul clarifies the essence of the pastoral ministry, the extent of his work, and its ultimate end.
Of course, we know that a minister of the gospel’s basic job description is to preach and teach. But if you look in verse 12 you see that Paul spells it out a little more thoroughly. And in this verse Paul lays down the essential core of what a minister of the gospel does.
I. The Essence of his Work [12]
The essence of his work is "for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for building up the body of Christ."
Now, you may notice how I read that verse. I have a little disagreement with the ESV and some of the other versions. I prefer the KJV at this point. The KJV inserts commas which I believe better get at the intent of what Paul is communicating. They do this because each of these phrases is a prepositional phrase. So they highlight the parallelism of the prepositions.
The ESV reads it with an infinitive with prepositional phrases. The gifts were given “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” And it sounds like the pastors and other officers are to help those who are not officers be equipped to do the work of the ministry. And so, what happens is that you have a very democratic view of church work. They would say that this verse means that everyone is participate in the ministry of the church and serve.
And many preachers will then use this verse to show that you should be on a committee of some sort in the church. Or, if committee work is not your gig, then you should be leading a Bible study or taking a shift in the nursery taking care of the children.
While that is very convenient for getting people to volunteer in some capacity, I do not think that is the intent of the verse.
I prefer to read this verse like this: That these gifts were given for the equipping the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for building up the body of Christ. In other words, I believe that the original language is such that there should be a comma placed after equipping the saints, and the work of the ministry is defining the minister’s job.
To put it another way, the ones who should be doing the work of ministry are (primarily) those who are ministers.
But all that aside, I want you to think of the minister’s job like this: He is an orthopedic doctor, he is a waiter, and he is a construction worker. Those three images sum up what Paul says here in verse 12 about the minister’s job.
First of all, you should think of the minister as a spiritual orthopedic doctor. Why do I say that? Well, it is because of the word “equip” (or ‘perfect’ as it is in the KJV). This word was used in the ancient world in regards to the setting of bones. You know that when someone breaks their arm, the bones have to be realigned so that they can heal.
When my daughter was 6 years old, she broke her arm. And she held up her arm to show us her owie, and there was a large bump protruding from her skin. It was obvious that the bone had been severely broken and now was sticking up in a rather disgusting fashion. We rushed her to the emergency room and after a long time the orthopedic surgeon showed up and he said he had to set the bone. I, being the manly man that I was, excused myself because I knew I would not be able to stomach the whole process.
Sure enough, he put the bones back in alignment and she began the healing process.
That is the image that Paul uses here. And the idea is that sin causes the unity of the church to be fractured. When sin happens within the church, relationships get broken and the church is out of alignment.
And so the minister’s job is to preach and teach. And as he does so, it is understood that the people will become convicted that this particular thing that has happened was wrong. And there needs to be repentance and forgiveness. As the minister speaks the word of God, the congregation comes to understand that the relationships need to be restored and the saints must work together to see their unity brought back into alignment.
This is one of the reasons why the ministry of the Word is so vital and should not be neglected. God works in and through the proclamation of the Bible’s truth to bring about the kind of healing that a congregation may need.
So we should see the ministers of the church as orthopedic doctors. But we should also see them as waiters.
That’s what the next part of verse 12 says. Why did God give these gifts? Paul says it was for the work of the ministry. And the word “ministry” literally means to serve or to attend to.
When you go out to eat at a restaurant a waiter or waitress will come to your table to serve you. They will take your order and fill your drinks. He will bring you your food when it is ready and he will continually come back to check on you and make sure you have everything you need.
That’s what a servant does. And this is yet another picture to help us understand what a pastor-teacher is supposed to do. What is his function? What is he to do? He is a waiter who serves up the truth of God. His work is to take what God has prepared and bring it to you. He serves you by teaching you what you must believe and how you must live.
The third image Paul uses is that of a construction worker. He says that the ministers were given ‘for building up the body of Christ.’ I was going to say that you should think of him as a body builder, but that might give you a wrong image.
The word Paul uses here comes from the world of construction and architecture. We’ve all seen a house under construction. The foundation is set, the walls are framed, the roof is put on. So this image speaks to helping the church become stronger. He helps build them up into the people are supposed to be.
That might mean that you need encouragement. Maybe you are feeling down and need to find the consolation that the Lord would have for you. You can be built up by the Scriptures in that way.
Or maybe you are weak. Maybe the church is out of alignment because you haven’t learned how to master certain spiritual principles.
A while back I had to counsel a couple. The wife was fed up with her husband. She’d been putting up with him for 10 or so years. And he was a moper. He moped about his job. He moped about his failure as a father. He moped about mope how people treated him. She couldn’t stand it anymore. And guess what, he moped about that too.
Their marriage was out of alignment. And what he needed was some solid edification: He needed to be taught how to have a better outlook on life. He needed to begin delighting in God’s providence. He needed to begin thanking God for all the blessings he had received. He needed to understand that a cheerful attitude was something that he was called to put on.
That’s what a minister does. He’s involved in the construction business. He takes the Word of God and he brings it to bear on people’s lives. Over time, the church beings to look like a church.
He’s building up the body of Christ. He’s serving God by bringing His word to bear on people’s lives, and he’s equipping them by bringing them into proper alignment. All of this is defining the essence of a minister’s job.
But now that you understand what he does, maybe we can talk about how long he is to do it. Have you ever thought about that? How much do we really need these guys? Can we not only have them retire, but can we retire the whole kit and caboodle? Does there ever come a point that we do not need these ministers? And could we be rid of them?
Or is there a certain level that we can reach that we can say, “These gifts that Jesus gave were for a certain time, but I’ve advanced beyond that point.” Maybe they are like training wheels on a bicycle. Once we get some mastery of the basics, we can rip those things off and ride without them.
Well, as you look at verse 13 Paul gives the answer to that question, and it is a definitive yes. There does come a point where we don’t need them. The only problem is that you probably won’t get to it in this life.
II. The extent of their work [13]
And when you look at verse 13, you see that it says that these gifts are needed until we attain something. Actually, there are three things that he mentions that we need to attain: The first thing is unity, the second thing is maturity, and the third thing is similarity.
He says we need to attain “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Look at the first thing Paul says there.
We need these gifts until we attain the unity of the faith. So we can say, we can get rid of pastors and teachers when we get to the point that our beliefs completely coalesce.
Now let me ask you this: How long do you think it will be until Tara and I are completely on the same page doctrinally? It’s probably going to be a long time. A very long time. So I am going to keep on teaching until she agrees with me. That’s what I call job security.
Actually, there will come a point where we are all united in our faith and knowledge of Christ. When we get to heaven, we’ll all roll our eyes at all the fool-hearty things we believed back here on earth. But until then, we keep searching the Scriptures and listening to it expounded from the pulpit.
The second thing Paul mentions is mature manhood.
We are in constant need of pastors and teachers because we are spiritually immature. Paul compares us to children who are in an infantile state. He’s reminding us that no matter how long we have walked with Christ, there are still many decisions which we make that are lacking wisdom and discretion which comes with proper growth.
And that is why we need to keep coming back to the Bible. That is why we need to submit ourselves to the Word each Lord’s Day and give our attention to it.
So there is unity, maturity, and there is also similarity. Paul says that we need to come to the point where we attain "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Some of you may be like us in that you have a wall in your house which shows the measurements of each of your children. And over the years you have all kinds of lines drawn on the wall due to having measured each of the children. But one thing is for certain, you see these little ones growing. And each of them is gaining some degree of stature. Some of you may have even find yourself at some point looking up to your children because they’ve grown so much.
This is something of what Paul is talking about at the end of verse 13. Each of us is growing. Each of us is making progress in our holiness and becoming more and more like Christ. But we recognize that we have a long way to go until we have the same measure of holiness that he does.
Again, there will come a day when we are perfected. When we go to be with the Lord or when Jesus comes back again, we will find ourselves fully sanctified. And at that point we won’t need these pastors and teachers anymore. I’ll find myself out of a job. I’ll likely become a Wal Mart greeter or be the person who fills the donut tray at the Holiday Inn.
But the point that Paul is making is that we should not overestimate ourselves. We should not think that we have ever arrived. We are always going to stand in need of God’s correction. I’m deeply ignorant, even after having walked with Christ for 30 or so years. And I still need to have ministers speaking into my life.
And you see how foolish it is for some people to say that they do not need the church or some pastor telling them what to do. They can get by just fine on their own. Well, I don’t doubt that personal study of Scripture is very beneficial. But it is my belief, based on what the Lord says here, that there is a certain importance placed on the ministry of the gospel.
That is only made that much more clear in verse 14. In verse 14 Paul tells us of the goal or the end to which a minister aims
III. The end (goal) of his work [14]
He says that these gifts of ministry are given “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
You might say, “Yes, I get it. I am supposed to become more mature. I am to be seeking to become like Christ. But what exactly does that mean?” And Paul says here that your objective is essentially to get rid of worldly or humanistic thinking. Progress in the Christian life is measured by how much your thinking accords with what God has revealed in the bible.
You see, our problem is that we don’t think God’s thoughts after him. We are easily influenced by the culture around us and we are often seduced into thinking that certain actions are okay when they are not.
Paul likens our state to that of a child bobbing in the ocean on one of those inflatable tubes. You know how it is trying to swim with one of those things. It is not easy to make any real progress. But it is even more difficult when the waves are throwing you around. You can hardly make any progress and oftentimes you are drifting away from where you are supposed to be.
Our goal is to keep that from happening. We need to be so discerning and so grounded in the truth that no matter what waves of foolish, unbiblical thinking come along we are not misdirected.
It is interesting that Paul uses language here in verse 14 that is very much like the language of Genesis 3. In Genesis 3 we read about how the serpent, who is the incarnation of Satan, was more crafty than any of the other animals in the garden. And he comes to Adam and Eve and uses deceitful schemes and cunning to trick Adam and Eve into thinking that God is unkind to them and that eating the forbidden fruit would be much better.
And Paul’s saying that the same tactics are being used today to wage war upon the people of God. This world is constantly feeding us lies; lies about God and lies about how we ought to live. And we need to be seeking to make sure that doesn’t happen. We need stability in the truth of God’s word and we need to be able to discern what messages are lies and which are not.
But how do we get to that point? How can we ensure that we are not going to be bobbing about at the whims of the world around us?
Well, by now you know how Paul would answer. One of the chief ways we prevent ourselves from being deceived and going astray is through the regular ministry of the Word of God. When we have faithful men faithfully proclaiming the truth of God in our ears on a regular basis, we gain a grounding that will make us steadfast in His ways.
Conclusion
Well, I hope that one day in the long off future you will come by the Holiday Inn and share a donut with me. I hope that we can reminisce about the good old days when we used to worship together.
But I also hope that this church will always understand the importance of the pulpit ministry and how it has a significant role to play in each of our lives. As Paul has shown, there is a uniqueness to the official preaching and teaching which is done each Lord's Day by those who have been rightly equipped and called to this ministry. There is something about it that transcends the regular, personal study of Scripture (no matter how important that is in and of itself).
God speaks during these moments. He moves in a supernatural way to provide us with the necessary instruction to advance our corporate union. He brings a special blessing which bolsters our personal righteousness and solidifies our standing together. We are rightly aligned and advanced in our spiritual walk so that we conform more and more like Christ.
And may it always be so. May this pulpit endure til that day when Christ comes again.