SEP 1 2024 | One Thing: The Purpose of the Church S1E1 | No Longer Children

Sea Change Church · SEP 1 2024 | One Thing: The Purpose of the Church - S1E1: No Longer Children
Ephesians 4:11-16
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

You have been doing Here at our church On the corner And all the work That you are doing In the hearts Of the people Who attend here I want to pray For more of that Lord we want To receive you We want to do Your work So please guide Our hearts Guide our steps And take today's offering Use it to expand Your kingdom In your name we pray Amen The book of Ephesians Chapter 4 Verses 11 through 16 And he gave the apostles The prophets The evangelists The shepherds And teachers To equip 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 Rather Speaking the truth In love We are to grow up In every way Into him Who is the head Into Christ From whom the whole body Joined and held together By every joint With which it is equipped When each part Is working properly Makes the body grow So that it builds itself up In love This is the word Of the Lord Good morning Welcome to church today If you have your Bibles Open up to the epistle To the Ephesians A letter to the Ephesians Chapter 4 11 through 16 We are moving into Another type Of biblical genre We try to preach Through the whole Council of God's word Every year So we have The proverbial Wisdom literature That we do in January Followed by the Old Testament narrative And history and story We do the gospels We did the gospel of John This year We went through the New Testament history In the book of Acts And we are going to get To some prophetic literature Here at the end of the year As we go into Christmas But right now We are in the epistles And we are looking About Paul Writing letters to churches And if you go to a church If you are a member of a church Part of a church These letters speak To us About how to not only Pastor a church If you are a leader How to be a worship leader Or a missionary But more importantly It teaches people Who are part of the body Of Christ Members of the church How to do that in a way That makes Christ visible To the planet That's what the church is We'll see that in a moment This entire message Series for the next six weeks Is on being the church It's called One thing The purpose of the church Let me start with saying That the one thing Is not you coming to church The one thing Is not the particular church The one thing Is not the giving The praying The serving Which we're really Going to focus on The one thing Is Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Is the one thing And you And myself Are the visible Representation Of Jesus To the rest of the world And if the church Is doing What Paul says Here in Ephesians And in other places In the scripture Then Jesus Is going to be visible And if they are not Doing that Then Jesus Is not going To be visible Paul in the letter To the Ephesians Really Let's them know That they're doing A good job At this in a way More so to the Philippians When he speaks To the Philippians In Philippians 4.15 He says No other church Would partner with me But you partnered with me When he writes To the Corinthians It's the opposite story He's like You're children I want to give you meat But you're children And in the Ephesians We kind of see Where they stand They're kind of In the middle A little bit But he gives this passage And so we're going to be In the book of Ephesians For the next six weeks Looking at that And I think the hope is One to strengthen Our church as a whole That you will be A part of a body That is making A visible presence Of Jesus Known throughout San Diego But more than that That your spiritual life Is actually Really benefited And blessed By what God is doing As you partner With others And so there we are I'm going to read Verse 11 and 12 We'll start with that And he gave to the apostle And he gave Circle gave The apostles The prophets The evangelists The shepherds The teachers To equip Circle equip The saints That's you For the work Of the ministry For the building up Of a great numbers Of people who come to church No Of the body of Jesus Christ That Jesus Christ Is being built up For this to happen We have to have people That are willing To give their lives away Like Jesus gave his life To us If you're a child Of the 80s Which unfortunately I am And I go back To that a lot I've been studying The 60s I actually watched Dr. No 007 last night I can get into Some like 60s Not like hippie 60s Like you know Like James Bond 60s I can get into that And 70s have some Their place 90s 2000s You know all that If you remember There was one movie That was supposed To sum up The 1980s In regard to greed It was called Wall Street And if you remember Wall Street You remember the character Which you're going to see Here on the screen His name was Gordon Gekko And Gordon Gekko Had some incredible If you haven't seen This movie It's really good At least it was Back then Actually I always say that I haven't seen that movie For 30 years So maybe it's not good I take it back Sometimes I tell people Hey go watch that movie I go watch it I'm like oh my gosh I couldn't I can't believe I said Go watch that movie It's horrible It's totally filthy I don't even remember It being that filthy He had a couple things That he said A couple quotes That are known One Money never sleeps Remember that one But the one he's most Known for is Greed is good Remember that one He said greed is good And when you think Of the 80s You think of greed The time of excess Right You know Girls on film Duran Duran You know All these different Things that are Happening I found a really Weird statistic Of the last Five decades The most Generous Decade In regard to Giving Were people Who lived In the 1980s They gave 2.7% Of everything That came in To some Organization Now this isn't Christians This is atheists This is everybody 2.7% That number Has continued To trend Down To where In 2023 We're at About 1.5 What I will say And you've probably Experienced this On your own That there is A dearth Of giving There is a Deficit Of giving Our lives Away to the Right things We are giving Our lives Away to all The wrong Things We give our Health to the Wrong things We give our Time to the Wrong things To the Distractions In our life We give our Emotions to the Wrong things We give our Bodies away Too easily To the wrong People To the wrong Things over And over again What Paul is Saying here In the book Of Ephesians Is there Are some Right things And to be A part of A community Where giving Is good And greed Is not good So that's What this Whole passage Is about This whole Sermon Series Is about What we Want to say Is The question That we're Going to Answer Is what Is the Purpose Of the Church And what Is your Place In it What's The purpose Of the Church And what Is your Place In it Moving From a Visitor Or a Casual Attender To somebody Who Paul Says in Philippians 4 15 Has become Partner In Philippians Paul uses The term Partner Three different Times To speak About the Kind of Believers That are Helping Advance The kingdom Of god In the First Century And changing The world And the Reason That we Are here Today Is because Of those Partners You'll see In your Notes The church Of christ The church Is what What is the Church I'm gonna give you a Definition for the church The church is christ's body Called and empowered To be his visible Presence On earth Called to be his Invisible Presence On earth He actually Uses the word When he speaks Up of The church In the first Four verses Of this Ephesians 4 Passage From 11 Till 15 Multiple times He uses The body Of christ He uses The fullness Of christ In verse 13 Over and over Again he says That when you Become part And partner With others Around you In the community You become The church You actually Become the body Of christ Now when i Grew up There was a Belief in the Church that i Went to That when you Took you know The body Of christ That that Actually became You know The communion That becomes The body Of christ And don't Want to go Over the Doctrine of Transubstantiation That they Called it But i Will tell you That whether You're in a Catholic church An episcopal Church A greek Orthodox church Presbyterian Reformed Go down The list They believe That when you Are a functioning Partner In a church Work on earth That you Are actually The fullness And the Visible Presence Of christ On earth That is Powerful That this Group right Here you Are that Right here This group You were to Look around This group Right here Is the Visible Presence Of christ On earth And that is What the Church Is called To be I want to Give you Three scriptures You can Follow that Up To talk About why The church Is seen As the Body Of christ It's Going to Be seen In ephesians 1 22 We'll Look at That later In First corinthians 12 27 You don't Have to Look them Up now And then In colossians 118 You can Look those Up Go to Verse 11 We're Going to Dive right Into the Passage With a Key word Verse 11 Says And he Gave I told You to Circle Gave The Apostles That's Overseers Regional Overseers The Prophets Those That Speak The Word Of God And What God Is Doing In The World The Evangelist The Shepherds The Teachers Says He Gave The Key word Today Is Gave It's Greek Word And The I'm Not Going To Kill You With The Pronunciation But The Meaning Of The Greek Word Is To Give Necessary Things That Greek Word When It Speaks About Christ As The Example Of Giving Is Saying He Gave The Church Things That It Needed Things That Were Necessary For Reasons We're Going To Look At What Those Reasons Are But He Gave And What Did He Give To The Church That Would Be Us When We Come To Church He Gave You Apostles Meaning He Gave People That People Who Speak The Word Of God But Who Also Will See What God Is Doing In The World And Be Able To Share That With Other People To Prophesy What God Is Currently Doing And Going To Do He Gave Evangelists Those And Many Of You Are Here Today Because Someone Got Into Your Way And Told You About Jesus He Gave Evangelists He Gave Shepherds Those That Care For The Flock He Gave Teachers Those That Teach Why And Then The Word There Is To Equip The Saints The Reason The Key Word Is Gave Is Because When We Model Our Giving To The Church In Our Time Our Treasure Our Talents What Are We Emulating You Were Emulating God Himself You See God When He Gave To Us The Number One Thing He Gave To Us And His Only Son He Didn't Give An Hour He Didn't You Know Find You Know Some Drachma And You Know He Did Pay His Tithe He Got Out Of A Fish's Mouth As You Remember It Jesus Did But When God Gave What Did He Give He Gave Jesus Christ He Gave His Only Son To Us And Then He Equipped The Church That You Might Be Built !

But Everything That We Do In Partnering With The Local Church That You Go To And I Believe That Every Single Person Should Be Part Of A Local Church It Should Be It Could Be Eight People On A Couch At Your House In A Home Church Like Saddleback Started It Can Be 40,000 People In The Philippines But Every Single One Of Those ! People Need To Be A Two Or More Gathered Christ Is Actually There And So When You Meet A Christian Says Well You Know I'm Just Watching On TV Doing My Spiritual Thing By Myself I Want To Say That You Are The Invisible Presence Of Christ On Earth And You Are Not In The Church The Church Is Where We Gather To Together And The Scripture Says Do Not Forsake Doing That Together Which You Haven't And So You Are Here Doing That We Model Our Giving After God's Heart For His Church Go To Verse 11 I'm Going To See What He Gave And Then We're Going To To Verse 13 The Purpose Of That Giving Verse 11 And He Gave The Apostles The Prophets The Evangelists The Shepherds And The Teachers For What Go To Verse !

The Measure Of The Stature Of The Fullness Of Christ That's That's A Good Like If God Has A To Do List Like He's Up On Monday Morning We're Not Going To Get Done In The Church This Week Right He's Just Working It Out Right If He Puts Those Four Things ! As He Gives The Purpose Of My Job Of The Teachers Like Pastor Jim And The Shepherds Of Jesus The Visible Body Of Jesus Through You Is Being Seen When You Leave This Place And You Walk Out To Volunteer As A Coach To Talk To A Friend To Be That Godly Witness As You Drive On The La Jolla Street Very Difficult Very Difficult As You Do Those Things You Are The Visible Presence Of God On Earth One To Attain The Unity And Knowledge Of The Faith Mature To The Measure And The Fullness Of Christ No Longer Easily Thrown Off Course Let's Look At The First Thing All Of These Things You Have To See Look Like They Only Happen When You Are Part Of A Local Church That Could Be In Jerusalem In The First Century Like I Said It Could Be In Minnesota It Could Be 5,000 People At An Arena Or 50,000 In Dallas When You Were Part Of That And You Were Functioning These Things Happen The First If You Go To Verse 13 Attaining Unity Of The Faith And Of The Knowledge Of The Son Of God Unity Is Power And When You Get A Group Of People Together Unified In What A Marriage Looks Like And What Our Doctrine Is On What We Believe About Mission On What We When You Unify A Group Of People Like That God's Dunamis Power Is Released Unity Brings Power And So The First Thing The Devil Wants To Do Is Disunify A Church He Wants Division He Wants Backbiting Wants People Upset Pastor Jim Always Says I'm Hard To Offend Because I Have Short Toes Meaning They're Hard To Step On And I'm Always Looking !

Toes In The Church You Want To Be Able To Have Short Accounts To Bring About Unity I Think The Unity You Experience As A Church Will Overflow Into Your Home If You Were The Body Of Christ What You Experience At Your Church The Blessing You Experience At Your Church As We Partner Together In These Things Will Overflow Into Your Individual Life You See What's Happening As Christ Does This Through His Teachers His Preachers His Apostles As He Does These Things He Brings Unity It Goes Into The Body And Then It Goes Into The Individual Members And You're Going To See This Scripture Ends On The Individual Part You Are A Part I Just Want To Affirm This To You Are A Part Of The Body Of Jesus The Actual Body !

And You're Only A Part When You Become A Part Of The Body Of Christ The Next One It Says As You Go On Unity Of Faith And Knowledge Of The Son Of God If There's Anything You Want Knowledge Of Of Of The Son Of God You Want To Know Who Jesus Is This Week The Lord Gave Me The Verse ! Be Still And Know That I ! And I Have So Good At That One Just Hustling Getting Stuff Done Making Flyers Working On A New Design Scheme For Whatever Be Still And Know That I Am God We Want To Teach You As Apostles As Teachers We Want To Equip You With The Knowledge Of The Son Of God So That You Will Have Unity Unity Leads To Peace And You Will Have !

Not Just Of The Scriptures Because We Don't Want To Love The Bible Of God More Than We Love God Of The Bible We Don't Want To Love The Bible Of God You Know Scripture You Have Your Favorite Version Of The Bible You Have Your Favorite Concordance You Know The Greek To Every Word But Your Life Is A Train Wreck Because You Have Not Known Him Even The Devil Jesus Said Even The Demons Know The Scripture And They Know It Better Than You We Want To Know Jesus Christ We Want To Know Him We Want To See Him Fulfilled We Want You To Sit With Him And To Sup With Him And To Know That He Is Your Father And That He Loves You Deeply I Listened To That Instagram Clip From Harry Preaching Last Week And He Said God Is A Pursuer And He Loves You And He Will Pursue You We Want You To Know That And So That Is What Is Happened That's Number Two The Other Is To Mature To The Measure Of The fullness Of Christ This Is So Important It Is A Lot Easier To Mature In A Group Than It Is By Yourself Why Because There's Rub There's Pushback There's Struggle There's Having To Get Along With People And It Says As These Things Happen You Develop Perseverance And You Have Maturity What Paul Says To The Corinthian Church He's Like You're A Bunch Of Children He Says I Can't I Want To Give You This Steak I Want To Give You Meat But You You Want To Be A Consumeristic Corinthian Church You Want To Go To The Pagan Festivals You Want All The Things That The World Has To Offer But I'm Calling You To Unplug From That Matrix I'm Calling You To Unplug And To Step Into Something Deeper So That You Might Mature Have You Ever Met A 67 !

Five Year Old Adolescent You Know We Glorify Youth And It's Great Youth Is Awesome For All Young People Here Love You We Do Not Be Despised Like He Says To Timothy Awesome We Love The Youth And The Energy I'm Regularly Asking The Young People Where Do You Think We Should Go What Should We Do I'm Taking Wisdom But I Don't Want To Remain Forever اذ the song by Rod Stewart. I want to grow in wisdom and let go of the former things that we might grow up in the church. If as adults we were striving for maturity and wisdom as much as we're trying to hold on to looking like we looked when we were 25, imagine what we'd look like as a nation.

It'd be a lot different. We'd have a wise nation, a knowledgeable nation. But we care about things oftentimes that are for young or for children. He says don't be a child. Step in because this will mature you and that's what he says in there. He says it right there, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we might no longer, verse 14, be children. Why is that important?

Because he goes on to say there that you are so easily thrown off course, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, human cunning, craftiness, deceitful schemes. You see how important it is to show up to a church when you have teachers who can teach the word of God, when you have evangelists that tell you who Jesus is, that you have shepherds that come alongside and say that might not be the right decision. Let me walk beside you in this to be a part of a community that does those things. Because then you are no longer tossed to and fro. If I have one more panicked person contact me about the election, like if God is in charge, he's been here before, he's done like 50,000 million of these since like 6,000 years ago, right? The word of God will make sure that you are not tossed to and fro by poll results. The word of God will teach you when a doctrine about human sexuality might seem right, but in the Proverbs it says there are things that seem right to a man, but in the end they what? Lead to death. Seems right, feels good, but pure doctrine will keep you on the straight and narrow, will keep a church on the straight and narrow, no matter what the world says. Because you will know if you're maturing in Christ that you'll be a little more stable and have a little more ballast. Back to another Jim. Usually when I speak about Jim, I give him two in one sermon. I'm going to hit it again. Jim says, says I love to be a keel. I love to be an outrigger.

You ever been to Hawaii? Outrigger. What does an outrigger do? It keeps things stable. Jim likes to be a keel, right? Some people are all sail. I love, that's another Jim, Jimism. He says you can't be all sail with no keel. That's what the church does. It gives you sail so you can move, but it gives you stability. When you show and you dive into the word of God like we are diving and consuming the word of God, it'll mature you and mature you in your faith. You get plugged in. In the 2000s there was another movie, and this movie was, I believe it was prophetic actually. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

My favorite actor of all time is in it, Keanu Reeves, and it is The Matrix. And if you remember The Matrix, The Matrix is awesome because as you remember he had this thing, I had a picture of this, but there was none that weren't like really gross, but he had this like plug in the back of his head, and they would just plug him in, and they could teach him Kung Fu, right? They'd plug him in. Well, he got pulled out of The Matrix, and then he goes into where he starts getting downloaded with like Kung Fu and how to like stop bullets. Probably not a better, you can get rid of that picture, probably not a better illustration of what happens when we're part of a functioning church giving our lives away that you start getting downloaded, and you start being equipped with things you've never experienced before. You start finding peace that you've never had before because you've been showing up in prayer, and you're beginning to turn things over to God. You begin to find courage because you've learned how to sit still, and your discipler has encouraged you to maybe meditate and be still before God, and you begin to be strengthened and mature in your life as you go forward. You actually unplug from The Matrix, but then all of a sudden you get downloaded, like it says in verse 12. Go to verse 12, and this is The Matrix right here, verse 12.

To equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. Let me just read that again. Why do you come here? Why are you apart? To equip you, the saints, for the work of the ministry for the building up of Christ. You're seeing a download there, and you're seeing an upload. I did a version of my own. This is the Adam version. It is a version of the Bible that you wouldn't want to keep all the time, but I kind of paraphrased it, and I said, here's the literal Greek. I went to the Greek, and I looked at verse 12, and I gave it a bit of a matrix spin, but I believe this is as close as I can get to the Greek. For the downloading into the holy ones, that's you. That's what it says.

For the downloading from heaven into the holy ones, which is you, for acts of service, so that they can upload into Christ's body on earth. That's the literal Greek, according to Adam. For the downloading, dropping into the matrix, into the holy ones, that's you, so that you can do acts of service, not just service unto yourself, acts of service, so that they can then upload those into Christ's body on earth. When you do that, when you take this teaching, when you read the Bible, when you come to one of the other Bible studies, when you serve, or whatever the thing is, you go on a mission trip, and God equips you and meets you there, and you pray with other people, or you have thanksgiving, all the things that you do, you go from being opaque and translucent, perhaps, too vibrant. If you ever do any graphic design, there's a fun little thing that you can like shadow things out and make them until they disappear, and then you can make them, you know, kind of opaque and translucent, you can make them strong again. When you're in the Word of God, when you are learning the Word of God, when you are being taught the Word of God, you become visible to the world. You become the visible presence of Christ in the world.

Let me argue something. One could argue that when the church is not functioning in this way, as the tangible and visible presence of Christ on earth, then Christ is no longer on the earth. Hear me out. You're like, no, he's always present. No, Jesus said, I'm going away, I'll come back later, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us he's not here, right? Told us that, very clear.

And I'm going to leave the visible presence of me here, which is you. You're plan B, by the way. Actually, you're not even plan B. You're plan A. Jesus is gone. When we are not functioning, when the church is getting caught up in these worldly doctrines, when the church has got caught up in consumerism, in just what I can get, that translucence keeps going to where we become invisible. And one could argue that when a church is like that, and that happens to the church, and that is happening to the church today, God is, it is less and less churches that are standing on sound doctrine, in my opinion, that if that were to happen, then Jesus is no longer present on earth. You can go back, you can dig through that in doctrine, if you would. Here's the practical takeaways that I want to give you, to be that presence and that tangible presence. One is to move in the church that you go to. Some of you might be visitors here, and you're at another church. Some of you have just come. We've had about 100 people join our church since Easter. Yeah, it's awesome, yeah. Which is interesting, because after Easter is your low season.

You usually drop about 20% during Easter, and we grew about 30% during Easter. So we're like, okay, God, what are we going to do with this? We have all these people, and this is why we're doing this series, because for us, we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to know what it means to be a partner in a church. And we love visitors. If you're a visitor, try the coffee cart. It's awesome.

Meet our people. Sit here, enjoy. Check it out for six to eight weeks. See if this is the place for you. But if you've been here two years, and you're still functioning like a visitor, let me say that it's possible you've become a consumer. And that's not healthy for you. It says at the end of this passage, to speak the truth in love, and I hopefully can say this in the most loving way, that if you were just coming to church and consuming and never using the model that Jesus, that he gave, where you're giving back and you're becoming part of that body, you've actually moved from visitor to consumer. And what Paul is calling for, and he says this to the Philippians, and he says this in Ephesians and through 1 Corinthians, is I'm looking for partners.

Partners that can change the world. And I tell you this because in your spirituality, the last thing you want is a spirituality that just gives you everything you want. You should be uncomfortable when you have to go to a volunteerism appointment at some place because you'd rather stay home and do something else, but it's like, gosh, I gotta put my shoes on because I said I'd be there. That's part of spirituality. There should be a time where you're like, hey, you know, I would rather buy this for myself, but there's a need here and I'm going to give in that need and I'm not going to get what I want. That's called maturing. Praying, sitting still, this is called maturing in the faith. Or else like Paul says, we're just going to have these churches that if real persecution comes, which we don't currently have here, but is all over the world, we will not exist. And the visible presence on earth will not exist. So that's the first thing, as I would just say, is we want to encourage you to move from visitor to partner. Make that decision.

Drea told you about that. We pray that you would consider that you would give and do that, that you would give financially to the local church. It doesn't have to be this one, but find a local church that you believe in enough. And then two, pray for your church and then serve. Amen? Amen. We are going to take the visible body of Christ right now in the communion. And if you would stand right now, and I would ask the communion shepherds to come forward.

Amen. We'll take the communion. You'll take it back to your seat, and then you'll hold it. You hold the communion, and then we will take it together because we want to do it as a unified body together. Let me pray, and then I'll invite you forward to take it and go back to your seats. Lord Jesus, we want to thank you, God, for your body that was broken for us, Jesus. And now we are your visible body on earth, Lord God. I pray, God, that you would bless this communion, that we'd have a moment to sit, God, to grow in you, to mature in you. And we bless you, Jesus. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please come forward and receive the communion.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You took my place, you showed me great, at the cross, where you died for me, and the cross, where you died for me, and the cross, my way, the cross, the cross, the cross, the cross, You took my place You showed me grace At the cross where you died for me And His glory appears Like the light from the sun Age to age He shines Oh, look to the skies Hear the angels cry Singing holy is the Lord You gave me hope You made me whole At the cross You took my place You showed me grace At the cross where you died for me And His glory appears Like the light from the sun Age to age He shines Oh, look to the sky Hear the angels cry Singing holy is the Lord Singing holy is the Lord Susten the day I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a I have a Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. The Lord Jesus on the night of his arrest took bread. And after giving thanks to God, he broke it. He gave it to his disciples saying, take, eat. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And let's take together. In the same way, he took the cup. Saying, this cup is the new covenant and it was sealed in my blood.

He says, it was shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Whatever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. And let's take it together. Amen. Gracious God, may we who have received this sacrament live in unity of your Holy Spirit. That we may show forth your gifts to all the world. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're going to say the Lord's prayer together before I bless you.

Would you stand, please? E, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to