Maturity in Christ

(Ephesians 4:11-13)

This post extends the message of the last post where we looked at the five ministry gifts given by God to the church.

God gave gifts to the members of the church so that the church would grow and mature. Those who receive these gifts work together with God to bring about the growth of the church.

It is God who gives the growth, not just in numbers of members, but more importantly in the maturity of the individuals, and it is this aspect that we will look at today.

Equipped for Ministry

The primary purpose of the ministry gifts was to be used to minister. They were to be used to “…equip the saints for the work of ministry…” as verse 12 says in this section.

To equip someone means in essence to give them the tools to do a job.

If we think about a carpenter, plumber, electrician, boilermaker or any other occupation, we see that there are certain tools unique to their trade that they need to do the job properly.

A carpenter uses a claw hammer as an essential tool of his trade, whereas a boilermaker uses a ball peen hammer in his trade. Both hammers are useful in their respective trades, but they are much less useful if they were switched to the other trade. For instance, a carpenter would not be able to extract nails with a ball peen hammer because it does not have the claw necessary to pull out nails.

In the same way, the church must be equipped with the right tools to ensure they can do the job of ministry effectively.

God has defined the correct ministry tools and given them as gifts to the church so that the church has the right equipment to “build the spiritual house of God.” The five ministry gifts He gave were: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

So once the ministers have received the tools/gifts of their respective part of ministry, what do they do? WHy are they gifted in this way by God?

Building the House of God

The second half of verse 12 in Ephesians 4 tells us that the purpose of these ministry gifts given by God is for, “…building up the body of Christ.”

Now this building up is not just about making disciples, but it is also about growing those disciples. If you recall the Great Commission as defined in Matthew 28, it says this:

“19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20)

As we see in the Great Commission, there were three instructions the Lord Gave. They were:

1. Make disciples
2. Baptise them
3. Teach them all that Jesus taught

The ministry gifts cover all aspects of the Great Commission, but especially the third point: teaching the disciples.

The first two points for any person coming to Christ occur once. They become a disciple and are then baptised only once.

But the third part, which is to learn the teachings of Christ is where the ministry gifts are particularly important. It is in this section that the church, and more importantly the individuals in the church are being built up.

A church can show tremendous growth of members, and many do, but unless the members are built up as individuals they remain immature as Christians and will be open to all manner of false teachings, lies and the attacks of the devil and those who belong to him. The individuals will suffer unnecessarily if they are not taught the fulness of the gospel and the teachings of the New Covenant that will lead them into maturity in Jesus Christ.

The ministry gifts have a goal that they are meant to achieve. And because these gifts come from God, there is no reason why they cannot achieve the goal He established, which is seen in verse 13 of this section of Ephesians 4.

Maturity

The goal of the ministry gifts is to build up the people in the church of God to the place of maturity in Jesus Christ. The scripture defines it this way.

“12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 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 fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13)

We have already considered the words of verse 12, but in verse 13 we see the goals of the ministry gifts given by God to the church.

First, the ministry gifts are meant to bring all of the members of the church to a “unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.”

With all of the divisions, sects, denominations and small groups within the broad Christian church today, can anyone possibly believe that there is a “…unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God?”

There is no unity of the faith in the modern church because the doctrine of the true church has been polluted by the teachings of man and the lies of the devil.

That does not mean it is impossible to find the truth. The truth can be found if you will look for it yourself. And it is important that you look for it yourself because there is so much false teaching in the modern church that the truth has been disguised and is almost hidden from view. The Lord promised, “Seek and you will find,” in the Sermon on the Mount. This is a promise. So the truth can be found.

But this fact of disunity in the broad church begs the question: Why?

The simple explanation is that there is a problem with the dispensing of the ministry gifts.

Man has tried to take over the giving of the ministry gifts that are gifts from God. Man has created bible schools, bible colleges and theological universities to hand out diplomas and degrees to those who study under their tutelage. They then appoint these men to roles as apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors and teacher.

It is men appointing other men to ministry, and that is not how God meant it to work.

God gives the gifts of ministry to people HE chooses. A doctorate, degree or diploma is meaningless to God. He is interested in those who have the will, desire capability and capacity to do His ministry from a right heart and right attitude. God looks at the hearts of men to choose His ministers, whereas men look at the scores on tests and exams to appoint ministers and pastors.

So if the appointment of ministers has gone wrong, then it is no wonder that the “unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God” have swung so far away from the original intention of God.

Even the knowledge of the Son of God has changed. We see people put up artistic impressions of Jesus, most of which show a kind and benign person with long, flowing hair, which is clearly not the way Jesus looked when He was on earth.

To begin with, did Jesus have long hair? Almost certainly He did not because as Paul wrote:

“Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him” (1 Corinthians 11:14)

So if it is degrading for a man to have long hair, would Jesus have His hair long? And if those who promote this image of Christ can’t even get something as simple as that right, what else have they got wrong?

Consider also the so-called Holy Days, such as Christmas and Easter. When we look into the origins of these, there is no biblical basis for either of these days, especially Christmas. The origins of these come from pagan forms of worship and almost all of the symbols of these are pagan, including the dates on which they are held. And even Easter which commemorates the death of our Lord is usually at the wrong date.

Jesus died at the time of the Jewish Passover, but the dates usually selected for Easter are not the same as the Passover. Easter Sunday is calculated as being the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox (the vernal equinox is typically March 21st). The Passover is always held on the 15th day of the month of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar. The fifteenth day of Nisan typically falls on the night of the full moon after the vernal equinox. However, due to the need for “leap months” in the Jewish calendar falling after the vernal equinox, the 15th day of Nisan that begins the Passover week can fall on the second full moon after the vernal equinox, as happened in 2016.

So given these two different methods of calculating the Passover and Easter, it can be easily seen that Easter does not usually fall at the time that Jesus actually died. And yet these dates and days of worship are held in high regard amongst many of the modern churches to the point that to speak out against them is sacrosanct. To do so is to be called un-Christian or even to be speaking heresy.

Purpose of the Ministry Gifts

The purpose of the ministry gifts is to overcome all of these things because the aim is that men would be chosen by God, not other men, to lead the church through the ministry gifts. By so doing, God would be in control of the message and the teachings so that the goal of the ministry gifts would be met.

The ultimate aim of these ministry gifts in the church was to bring us to the fulness of maturity on Jesus Christ, and the fulness of maturity means to walk as Christ walked. The aim is perfection so that we would speak, think and act in exactly the same way as Jesus did in all situations. That is what the scripture says in verse 13.

“…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 fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13)

The aim as can be seen here is “mature manhood.” And the goal to be achieved is for those who are mature to be, “…to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” And that stature is perfection.

It is not possible to be perfected in Jesus Christ unless we follow Him according to the processes He laid down for us. The work of the ministry gifts is to teach the church what those processes are and how they apply to day to day life.

But as we see, the churches have become splintered and have lost the knowledge of the truth because they did not follow the ways of the Lord. They chose to go their own way following the paths of men and being deceived by the devil to move away from the truth of the Lord into false teaching and false worship.

But God still has His ministers, appointed by Him and not any bible school, college or university, and to whom He gives the gifts of ministry. Those people are around, but they may not be easy to locate. They do not come with a great fanfare as some others do but they quietly work in their congregations helping the people of the Lord to find the way.

The way is there to be found, and it can and will be found if we follow Jesus. After all, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) Seek Jesus diligently and you will find the way. Read and study the bible and you will find the truth. The Lord wants His people to know and to understand and when you seek, He will bring along the teachers to teach you, for He has also said, “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him.” (John 12:26).

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