2) The necessity of office-bearers.

Transcription

1 Ephesians 4:11-12 Dear children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, and guests, this morning a number of brothers are to be ordained as elders and deacons in the congregation. They will be ordained to office, as we call it. Office, why is it that we have offices? What are office-bearers? What is the nature of their labour? It is fitting, this morning, to pay some attention to the place of office bearers in the structure of our church. The Holy Spirit had the apostle Paul indicate that the church has received gifts from the Lord Jesus Christ. These gifts consist, among others, of apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds & teachers. Those four different types of people are office-bearers, and our text makes clear that office-bearers are a gift to the congregation. I realize the NIV says that Christ gave some to be apostles etc., making it sound as if Christ gave something to people that makes them apostles. But the verb to be is not in the original Greek. That s why you won t find it back in the new NIV or in the ESV. The Greek says that the Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, etc. Office-bearers are a gift of Christ to the church. This immediately alerts us to the fact that the office in the church is not an invention of man but an institution of Christ. Not an invention of man but an institution of Christ. The question is not just Why are there office bearers in the Church? The question is more loaded: Why has Christ given us office-bearers in the church? Why is the Lord Jesus Christ giving the church brs. Schutte, Togeretz, Vandeburgt, and VanLaar as elders and brs. Beukema and Hellewell as deacons? The answer is found in Ephesians 4:12. To prepare God s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. Other versions use the more graphic translation to equip God s people. For those who like heading out into the backcountry, the expression to fit out comes to mind. Office-bearers are given to be outfitters, they are to equip the saints of God for works of service. That being so, we listen this morning to the Word of God with this theme: Christ gives His congregation office-bearers in order to equip them. We will consider: (1) The activity of office-bearers illustrated; (2) Officebearers are necessary; and (3) Office-bearers and the congregation. 1. First the activity of office-bearers illustrated. I ve got two types of illustrations in mind. The first is an illustration of imagery, a parable, one might say. The second is an illustration of reality, the office-bearers as they were active in Ephesus in the first century. The parable illustration is that of a garden. Imagine for a moment the church as a garden, and all the people as plants in that garden. The office-bearer would then be the gardener. The church as a garden. What does a garden look like? Boys and girls, when I say garden what do you picture in your mind? Is it your backyard at home? Is it Minter Gardens out in Rosedale, or the Friendship Garden here in Abbotsford? Is it a vegie patch? Flower beds? Is it small, just one bed, or huge, like a forest? If you think about it, a Provincial Park or a National Park is in fact a huge garden with park-rangers as the gardeners. Maybe when I say garden you have a mixture of things in mind. Like the grounds at the DeRoche Christian Retreat, formal garden beds, informal beds, an orchard that s kind of gone wild, a swamp that is slightly tamed, and an untamed mountainside. Not every garden is the same. For not every gardener is the same. To illustrate what office-bearers do, we turn to the image of three gardens. Garden number 1 is an extremely formal garden with little soil and lots of stones. It s the front yard of a house just built, the front yard is completely paved, and there are some planters on the stones. There s a bit of

2 potting mix in the planters, and some store bought violets. Every evening the gardener comes outside, admires the violets, and picks away the most miniscule weed. Garden number 1 is a planter set on stone pavement. Garden number 2 is the very opposite. It s a garden that has been allowed to go wild. Dandelions, buttercups and moss in the lawn. Horsetails throughout the flower beds. Some reeds as well. There s ivy and blackberry and morning glory all through the hedge. The owner of the garden figures that s how it should be. Let nature takes its course. Garden number 2 is a garden gone wild. There are two big differences between gardens 1 and 2, between the planter on the pavement and the garden gone wild. The first looks beautiful but also artificial. Without the gardener, there d be no life. The second looks ugly, there s only green weeds and no flowers, but it s real. There s an abundance of life, but it s not very productive. There is also a third garden in this illustration. The third garden is a rehabilitated piece of land. Picture a quarry converted back to forest. Or maybe Fishtrap Creek in west Abbotsford where the Discovery Trail begins. These are parks or gardens that are closely tended. It s allowed to grow naturally, but waterways are kept clear and weeds are kept under control. In this type of garden there is both beauty and real life. Beauty, because the vigour of nettles and blackberries is curbed to allow other plants to flourish. Life, because the plants can develop as their nature determines. Now a graphic illustration such as this is nice. I can well imagine you ve been picturing what a sterile church controlled by office bearers looks like and what a neglected church looks like. Maybe you ve even found yourself thinking of some church names. A church that s very strict in its exercise of discipline, or the opposite, very lax. A church where nothing happens, or a church with lots of programs so that no one even knows what s all there. And the third garden, that of a controlled growth, sounds appealing. The church as a garden, it s a good image. But a question one should always ask is: does the image fit the situation? From a sociological point of view depicting the office-bearer like a ranger in a nature park may be a good. But is it true to Scripture? After all, the office is not an invention of man but an institution of God! Christ gives the office-bearers! This is where Ephesians 4:11-12 is instructive. Verse 11 lists a number of office-bearers given by Christ to the congregation. And verse 12 tells us He gives them in order that God s people the original here reads holy ones, or saints might be prepared, equipped, fitted out for works of service. To prepare, to equip, to fit out, that does indeed go well with the illustration of a ranger in a nature park. And so the analogy is a good one. Let us go to the second illustration, let us see how the office-bearers were active in the Ephesus church. That will show us how the third garden works. The wonderful thing about the church of Ephesus is that we know a lot about it. That s because information about this church is found in no less than four different places in the New Testament. The first is, of course, the letter to the Ephesians. The second is the book of Acts. We read the account of how Paul said farewell to the elders of Ephesus. The third is found in the book of Revelation. The first of the seven churches mentioned is the church of Ephesus. The Lord Jesus Himself wrote the Ephesus Church a letter, which gives us an impression of how things were in that church. And the fourth, it s the two letters written by Paul to Timothy. The instructions Timothy received for organizing church life were to be implemented first of all in Ephesus. Let s review what we learn from all these sources about church life in Ephesus, especially as it relates to office bearers. Paul had spent much time in Ephesus, the fourth largest city of the Roman Empire. There had been much resistance to the Gospel there from society in general. There had also been troubles with officebearers in Ephesus. There had been a point in time where Timothy had to be given very clear instructions on what type of people could be appointed to office. Not everyone is suited to serve. Prior to the sermon we read

3 Paul s farewell address to the elders of Ephesus. He pointed the elders to their great responsibility: they have been appointed shepherds of a flock bought with the precious blood of Christ. They need to take good care of the flock, for wolves will come. They will even arise from their own midst: there will be office bearers who will turn out to be wolves! Years, maybe decades, later the Lord Jesus Christ had the apostle John write an evaluation of church life in Ephesus and sent it to them as a word of encouragement and admonition. Worth noting from the letter in Revelation is that Ephesus was originally a church known for its first love, its zeal, and its fervour in remaining faithful to the teachings of Christ. It had been a model church with active office-bearers doing much good work. It was then reprimanded for having lost this zeal, this first love. Ephesus has become an example of what a dead orthodox church looks like: a church perfectionist in doctrine but not living the faith. Now it s when Ephesus was such a model church that Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians. Scholars figure it was probably a year or two after the speech found in Acts 20. Paul considered it necessary to write to Ephesus, as an issue had popped up that was threatening to divide the church. It was the issue of local church unity. There were basically two types of Christians in Ephesus: those of Jewish origin and those of Greek origin. And the two were not getting on all that well, that s the impression one gets when reading Ephesians 2. Unity and harmony is strongly emphasized in Ephesians 4. The church is one, Paul wrote, for God is one, the Christ is one, the Spirit is one. But such unity does not mean uniformity. Each receives his or her own gifts from Christ. And one other gift of Christ is that of office-bearers to the church to equip the saints in using their gifts for works of service. Ephesus was an established congregation with capable and experienced office-bearers both elders and deacons given the first letter Paul wrote to Timothy a living church that was full of zeal. Compare it maybe to a garden that has been fertilized and watered well. Everything is growing and if the gardener doesn t intervene, some plants will drown out others. Ephesus needed office-bearers to protect and maintain the bond of peace that existed in the Spirit. The body of Christ is to be built up, not torn down. It is built up by service, so we learn from verse 12. Service that s not just the ministry of caring for the poor but it includes all manner of service: if you ll allow me some anachronisms: accompanying the singing during worship services, leading the youth, being on the kitchen or library committee, mowing the lawns around the building, cooking a meal for Cyrus Centre, volunteering for VBS. And it is the office-bearers who equip the saints of God for such works of service. They create the environment in which it all happens. Thus office-bearers are a vital link in the chain of church life. In verse 16 they are referred to as ligaments that hold the body together. Bringing the two illustrations together: office bearers are like park gardeners, making sure that the plants in the park grow well, that they are full of life and productive. The church can t be without them. That brings us to our second thought. 2) The necessity of office-bearers. That office-bearers are necessary requires little proof. The very fact that they are Christ s gift to the church indicates that they are necessary. You can t have a church without office-bearers because Christ gives officebearers to the church and the church is His. But more can be said about the necessity of office-bearers. It relates to their task. Verse 12: they are to prepare, to equip, to fit out the saints, the people of God. This suggests that the works of service that require doing, are not to be done by the office-bearers, but by the people. Boys and girls, when a gardener grows strawberries, they grow on the plants he is taking care of. They don t grow on the gardener himself. The purpose of it all is that the saints will do works of service. Actually, the word works is in the singular, hence many translations speak of the work of service. Or use the more technical term, ministry that has

4 become more popular today. Saints are equipped for the work of ministry. At bottom the task of human beings is to serve each other, to help each other, to care about and for each other, to love each other and be loyal to each other. That s expressed through acts of service, through the work of ministry. Christians are to be a hand and a foot to each other. Now that ministry is not an end in itself. We learn from verse 12 that this service, this ministry, has a purpose too. The purpose of the works of ministry is that the body of Christ may be built up. The body of Christ. Boys and girls, do you know what the body of Christ is? The body of Christ is the church. The church is to be built up. The church as the garden of God is to grow in beauty, in maturity, and in size. In the church, growth points to numerical growth: outreach and new generations in the covenant. It means growing in the battle against sin, growing in holiness. It means growing in knowledge, in appreciating what it means to be in Christ, to be forgiven, to be renewed. So, in short, office-bearers are necessary to equip God s people for the work that needs doing by God s people in the church so that the church may flourish. May flourish, there s the image of the garden again. Now Paul gives us more to think about. Thus far I ve been speaking about office-bearers. In our day and age we immediately think ministers, elders, deacons. But we don t find that list in verse 11. There we read about apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd-and-teachers. Apostles: these were the eyewitnesses to the work of the Christ, men who could tell the Gospel first-hand. They are literally those sent out. Prophets were people whom the Holy Spirit used to bring direct messages to the church of God. This was needed in a time when there was as yet no written record of the teachings of Jesus. Evangelists were people who, under the oversight of the apostles, brought the Gospel. Shepherd-and-teachers were individuals who served in the midst of the congregation. The expression shepherd and teacher is one, pointing out two sides to the task of this office-bearer. He would shepherd the people, provide pastoral oversight, and teach the people, instruct them in knowledge of God s Word. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd-and-teachers. We can see today s minister in the list he d be the evangelist or the shepherd-and-teacher. But where are the elders and deacons? They would have to be in there somewhere. For Ephesus was a large congregation. It would have had elders and deacons (cf. 1Timothy 3). We can make sense of this if we understand that shepherd-and-teacher is not just the minister, but a general reference to all the local office-bearers. Elders and deacons qualify as shepherd-and-teachers too. Now what s worth noting is that all these office-bearers apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherdteachers are given by Christ to equip the saints. And all of them do so, as messengers bringing the Word of God. It is the Word of God that ties all four together. As messengers they are not individuals who stand between God and God s people. That s the position of Christ. He is the only mediator. No, office-bearers are people who stand next to God s people, pointing and guiding them in the right direction with the Word of God in hand. The office-bearer is an advisor, a wise advisor who speaks, not with his own authority and bringing his own opinions, but with the authority and wisdom of God. 3) We come to our last thought: the office-bearers and the congregation. Paul refers to the church, the congregation as the body of Christ. This is not the first time he has used this image in his letter. Already in chapter 1 he spoke of Christ as the head of the church, which is His body. Christ is

5 the head. The head is important to a body. You can manage to live without a hand but not a head. The head guides the body. The head takes in, the body executes. That s how it is for Christ and the church too. Where do the office-bearers fit into this image? For that we need to go beyond our text to verse 16. There Paul describes the office-bearers as supporting ligaments. Actually, we re not completely sure what Paul had in mind here. Paul is referring to something in the human body that is found everywhere and ties it together. Some scholars figure it s the blood-system, others figure it s ligaments, yet others figure it s the nerve system. Now we also need to remember that Paul s understanding of how the human body worked was very different from ours. So pressing the image is not appropriate. The word supporting and the expression joined and held together tells us what Paul had in mind. The human body is connected and held together by whatever Paul was thinking of. Supporting, joining, holding together, that s the function of office-bearers in the church. Earlier in Ephesians 4 Paul had exhorted the Ephesians to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. That s what office-bearers do: keep it all together and have the congregation grow to maturity and function as a mature church. Thus it will be clear that we are not leave things to the office-bearers. It s not a case of, We have a minister, he can take care of all the outreach. Or We have deacons, they can take care of those needy people. Or We have elders, they can admonish that brother for drunkenness, that sister for gossiping. Strawberries grow on strawberry plants, not on the gardener. The gardener tends the garden so that the plants may flourish and produce and the garden looks great. The office-bearer equips the people of God so that they may do the work of ministry and the church is built up. Office-bearers oversee the whole, they provide structure, order, and guidance, ensuring peace and unity. But the congregation as a whole pulls together to do the work. Now images and illustrations are great for making a point. But they tend to have a downside to them too. I just said strawberries don t grow on gardeners, they grow on the plants. The problem is, office-bearers are not just gardeners. They are also part of the garden. They too are plants. And so office-bearers will equip each other to the work of ministry as well. The office-bearer is not clergy as distinct from the laity. We are all people of God who are all called to the work of ministry. And in that work, office-bearers are to lead. In many places we hear the apostolic injunction to God s people to follow the example set by the office-bearers and to office-bearers to be examples to the flock. It will be clear, office-bearers are also to do the work of ministry. And as they do so, they will equip the saints to do their work of ministry as well. Christ gives His congregation office-bearers in order to equip them. Office-bearers are Christ s gift to the church. He does not leave the church alone, and that encourages us. He has staff on the ground to help the church along. Brothers office bearers, do your work well. In all your activity as office-bearers ask yourself how you are equipping the saints for the work of ministry to further the building up of the body of Christ. Congregation, receive the men who are about to be ordained, and all the others who are already ordained, receive them as gifts of Christ. Look to them to see Christ. We are called to have respect for the office-bearers, to pray for them, so that they may do their task of equipping all of us, God s people, for the work of ministry, so that the church as a whole may grow. Enable them to do their work that so that there may be harmony and unity, that there will be peace. And above all, that the Kingdom of God is furthered, the honour of God s Name increased. Amen.