Well, if you have a copy of God's Word, please open it up to Ephesians chapter 4. And I was asked to address something appropriate for the occasion, and this is a special occasion. The ordination of someone into an office in the church is very important in the life of the church. And so we're going to look, not in great detail, at everything having to do with this passage, but we are going to talk about a few pertinent things from Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 16. So, hear the word of the Lord from Ephesians chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. The prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. A couple of months ago when we first had Brother Mike George nominated as a deacon and when we addressed the subject of the basics of biblical church government, one of the things I thought was lacking as I look back on that was how we spent time talking about elders, we spent time talking about deacons, and we spent time talking about the qualifications for those offices, and I thought that it might could leave this impression that the most important thing in the church are elders and deacons, and that nobody else really matters that much. And so one of the things I want to address this morning is what does it mean to be a faithful member of Christ's church? I don't want to have this impression of the church of Christ that every part doing its share comes down to a very, very small percentage of the actual members of Christ's church, the elders and the deacons. That's not Christ's church. That's part of Christ's church. But everyone who is a part of Christ's church is part of Christ's church. And so I want to talk this morning about Christ's church. and about what it means to be a faithful member. And so we're going to look at five marks of faithful membership. And I do want to remind you that we have addressed these issues a couple of months ago, and we did say that Christ was the head of the church, and that everyone in the church submits ultimately to Christ, but that under Christ, the chief shepherd, there are elders, and the task of the elders is primarily to deal with the spiritual needs in the church, and that the task of the deacons are to deal primarily with the temporal needs of the church. But let's talk about five marks of faithful membership. What about the 95% of everyone else in the church that matters, that's so crucial to making the advancement of the gospel happen in the world? So we're going to look at five of these, and I want to remind you before we begin that Paul is in prison as he's writing this. And he's writing this to the church at Ephesus, and so this is not something that is just a side issue. Paul believes that the church is very important. He is from prison writing this letter as he has been persecuted for the advancement of the gospel. And he sends this to Ephesus and he wants them to know while he is in prison, look, everything that you do as a member of Christ's church is very important. And how you carry out your responsibilities are very important. So let's look at these five marks. The first mark is the mark of commitment. Commitment. Now, one of the things that union with Christ involves is commitment to Christ. And I think this is an obvious thing, but I think we don't oftentimes think about the implications of what this means. Union with Christ means commitment to Christ, and commitment to Christ means commitment to that which Christ was committed. I know that's a mouthful. But Christ was committed to his church such that he gave his life for her. He shed his blood and died for the church. And if the church is important to Christ, and commitment to the church is important to Christ, then it ought to be important to us as well. And one of the things that we see from verse 7, look at verse 7. Paul says, but to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. That means that when Christ ascended into heaven and he baptized his church with his spirit and he sent his spirit, each one of us who have the spirit of God, everyone who is a true believer in Christ has gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit from heaven through Christ. And that means that each one of us are important. And now sometimes we think that, well, you know, Pastor Mike or Ray or Mr. Jimmy do these things, and Mr. Mike, George, and Chester do these certain things because they're called to these certain offices, but I'm not very important. Maybe I'm just like, you know, the big toe in the body of Christ or something like that. And if you think that a big toe is not important, I will pay to have your big toe removed so that you can see how important a big toe is. Just try walking without a big toe sometime. Now, I'm not being facetious when I say that. I do want you to remember that Paul has told us in 1 Corinthians, remember the importance of every part of the body of Christ. if we were to lose our right arm, or if we were to lose our big toe, or if we were to lose a foot or something like that. All of those things matter to us. All of those things matter in our bodies. And that's one of the main images that Paul uses is the body of Christ and the importance of everyone in the body of Christ doing their share. So the first mark is commitment. The second mark of faithful membership is unity. Now there is one body, as we're told here in verse, ooh, where is it? One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Verse 4, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. There is one body of Christ universally. It's what we historically call the Church Catholic or the Church Universal. That's simply what the word Catholic means. The people of God all over the world. And we do recognize that there is one body of Christ, but this is expressed in individual congregations throughout the New Testament. And what this means is that with the body of believers that we have chosen to unite ourselves in membership with through our local congregation, this means that we need to live life together. It means that we're going to be rubbing shoulders together. That means that unity in the body of Christ doesn't just mean showing up on Sunday mornings. It means that we must know each other. We must care about each other. We need to be spending time with one another. And so I want to ask you this question, and I want you to pose this question to yourself. How well do you know the people in this church? Now, this is one of the things I do appreciate about church life here is that we know each other fairly well, fairly well, but how often do you have people over to your home, people from this church, so that you can know them, so that you know what's really going on in their lives, so that you know what their struggles are? How many of you know what the struggles are of the one sitting next to you or the one in front of you or behind you? And sometimes I think we take for granted the fact that we're a unified group, but I think if we were honest, we could say, yes, we could all know each other more deeply, to help each other, to pray for others more earnestly, to know what's really going on in each other's lives. And part of unity has to do with forgiveness. Look back at verse two. He says that we're called to lowliness and gentleness. And then he says, long suffering and bearing with one another in love. And then he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. It really three ways. I think here he's saying kind of the same thing. Long suffering, which means suffering for a long time. bearing with one another in love, and then he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. These are all ways of saying it takes effort, it takes work to maintain unity and peace. The word endeavoring there in verse 3, the first word of verse 3, means that it involves work, it involves effort, it involves forgiveness. And one of the things we ought to be striving towards is forgiving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Now I know to this point we've not dealt with a lot of tremendous hurt and heartache among the members, although there's been some along the way. But we need to know that if there's a group of any more than one sinner in a room, and probably just one, There's going to be heartache at some point and there's going to be someone sin against another. And so we need to anticipate things like this happening because we're all sinners and we're all going to sin against one another. And so we need to have in our minds this posture of forgiveness that when someone sins against me, I'm not going to bear a grudge against them. but I'm going to be long-suffering. I'm going to put up with my brothers and sisters in love. Some of us are easier to get along with than others, and we're going to forgive, and we're going to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So the second mark is unity. The third mark is found in verse 12. Paul says, for the equipping of saints. Well, let me back up to verse 11. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of saints for the work of ministry. The third mark is work. Now, people come to me, and they ask me if ever I meet someone new, they say, what do you do for work? Where do you work? And I'll say, well, I work for the church. I work for Reformation Bible Church. And sometimes in our discussions among ourselves, everyone says, well, you work for the church, or Pastor Mike works for the church. And that's true. But if you notice, what verse 12 says is that it's not the ministers, and it's not those who have been gifted with leadership, who are called to do all of the work in the church. And this is one of the most glorious things, I think, about spiritual gifts and about work in the life of the church, is that the leaders are to equip the people so that the people of the church can do the great work of ministry. I'm sorry. It's not supposed to be just pastors, it's not just supposed to be deacons or pastors' wives, or deacons' wives that do the work. It is the responsibility of the whole body of Christ to participate in the work of the church. One of the things I was delighted to see in the bulletin was the ladies talking about how they could do anything. In Philippians 4.3, Paul praises some of the women who labored with him in the gospel. We don't know exactly what they did, he doesn't go into detail about that, but it's a wonderful thing that he praises the women for the great work that they were doing in helping advance the gospel in their community. Philippians 4.16, he talks about the Macedonian church's generosity to give for his ministry. In Acts 8, 4, we see that all of the Christians go out evangelizing everywhere. So there are a number of ways. Sometimes it has to do with ladies helping in this way, proclaiming the gospel to their neighbors, inviting people to church, praying for your brothers and sisters in church, helping others in Christ. But being a faithful member of a church involves work. It's not just showing up on Sunday morning, it's rubbing shoulders, it's getting your hands dirty, it's moving your feet and working with your hands. Fourth Mark, also found in verse 12. He talks about equipping the saints for the work of ministry. Fourth Mark, ministry. Now, these have overlap, but I do want to point out some distinction between just work and actual ministry. The reason I set these different, because I want to highlight what ministry actually is. Ministry means service. Service means being a servant. It means equipping the saints for the work of service, being servants to others, being slaves to others. And sometimes it means needing to do the jobs that no one else wants to do. One of the things I hear often when we talk about doing work in the church or helping in the church is we say, well, do those things that you are called to do and do those things where you are gifted in doing these things. Well, that's ordinarily true. But there are some jobs that nobody wants to do. There are some things that nobody's going to get really excited about, you know, changing the church sign, you know, or sweeping the floors or setting up the chairs or things like that. Some of those things, there aren't particular gifts and calling. There are just things that just need to get done. And sometimes we don't want to do those things. Sometimes we think we're better than those jobs. And I was reading recently a great Christian author named Wayne Mack. I would highly recommend anything written by Wayne Mack. And one of the things he says is he was answering the question, why don't we want to do these little jobs? And here's what he says. He says, a proud person may become discouraged and bored by menial tasks because he thinks he deserves to be doing something greater. I think what Mack is getting at here is sometimes we're too prideful to do these things. It's not that we're not able, it's not that we don't have the time, it's simply that we don't want to or we think that we're called to higher things or greater things. But remember that Christ said, whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever desires to be greatest of all shall be slave of all. Think about Christ, the Lord of glory, who gave us this great example by coming to earth and took the form of a servant, as Philippians 2 says, and what did he do with his disciples? He washed their feet. He did the most disgusting and debasing task that you could do in the first century, this work of the slave, which was to wash His disciples' feet, just after that, going to the cross to give His very life for them. What an example of humility! of showing us that the call to service or the call, ultimately, to slavery is not a bad thing. And remember, when you serve your brothers and sisters in Christ, you're not just serving them, you're serving Christ when you serve your brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus said, inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me. And so ministry or service, or we might even say slavery, is a mark of faithful membership in Christ's church. And then fifthly, one that might make us a little nervous, growth. Church growth. Now, why are we nervous when we hear church growth? Well, sometimes, some of you may be nervous when you talk about church growth. I know I am because when I was in college, if you know anything about the church growth movement, what is commonly called the church growth movement, one of the One of the main thrusts of this movement was to try and get the churches to be as big as they possibly can in as short amount of time as possible. And it had nothing to do with building Christ's kingdom. So if you get nervous when I say growth or church growth, I understand. I'm not talking about bypassing the scriptures and building our own kingdom. I'm talking about what Paul does in verse 16. So look back at verse 16. He's talking about Christ and he says that, from Christ, the whole body, joined in it together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, this is key here to growth, every part doing its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So we can't totally say we're against growth. I mean, it's right here in verse 16 of Ephesians 4. So what is Paul talking about then? Well, two things. I think there are two aspects to this growth. I think it's partly internal and it's partly external. I think the internal part that he's mentioning here has to do with our personal sanctification. I think that the church grows in depth, the church grows in strength when we grow in holiness. When we're committed to studying the scriptures, and not just studying the scriptures, not just knowing the scriptures, but to walking in obedience to the scriptures. One of the things we talk about often is memorizing Scripture, and I want you to try and avoid just memorizing Scripture. We don't just memorize Scripture. David says, I have hidden Thy Word in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee. The purpose is not just to know what the Bible says. The aim is to do what God says in the Scriptures. If I were to tell my children, I want you to go clean up your room. And then my child comes back 30 minutes later and they says, Daddy, I remembered exactly what you told me. You said, go clean up my room. And I would say, great job, great job. Now let's go look at your room. And they said, well, I didn't do it. But I spent a lot of time making sure that I had that verse memorized exactly how you said it. Well, this is the problem we have sometimes when we're talking about internal growth. Yes, we do want to memorize Scripture. I'm not telling you don't listen to God, don't put His Word in your heart. What I am telling you is to make sure that your goal is to walk in obedience to the Scriptures, to glorify and enjoy God. And this leads to external growth. Talking about external growth means advancing the gospel, advancing the kingdom of God through the proclamation of the gospel. Let me ask you another question for self-reflection. How many people have you shared the gospel with recently? How many people that you know, that don't know Christ, have you maybe invited to church? Or maybe from work, how many of you had a conversation about the things of the Lord? You see, we're talking about growth of the church, but we're not talking about just Reformation Bible Church. Now, we do want you to share the gospel with those that need Christ, and they need to be brought into the life of the church. But this is about those who do not know Christ not going to hell. And part of it has to do with them being brought into the church so that God can get the glory that God deserves out of them. God deserves to be worshipped. God deserves to be loved and honored. And when we go out and share the gospel, it's not just about that person. It's about God getting the glory that He deserves. So ask yourself, are you faithful in growth, both in internal and in external? We've talked about five marks of membership. And we've covered quite a bit of ground. And there are a lot of areas that we could go when we talk about this. But if you're anything like me, one of the things that I struggle with when I look at certain things like this is I feel a little bit overwhelmed. Because I don't just see usually just one area where I need work. I see about, if there are five, I usually see six or seven areas that I need work in. And I can be a little bit overwhelmed. And I can even be a little bit discouraged sometimes when I think about stuff like this. Well, I haven't been as committed as I should have been to certain people at some times. You know, I don't always want to do some of the jobs that need to be done sometimes on Sunday morning. You know, I don't know everyone as well as I should have. And maybe we could do better in these areas. Well, let me give you three very practical things that you can do. The first is to trust in Jesus. Don't try and work yourself to the bone. If you see areas of failure, if you see lack of commitment, if you see lack of faithfulness, I'm not telling you, nor is the Lord telling you, work yourself to the bone so that you can do that which is right. The first thing that you need to do is look to Christ and remember that He is faithful. that He is the One who won your salvation. He is the One who lived the perfect life and was the perfect member of His covenant, where we fail. So the first thing you must do is to look to Jesus for forgiveness and look to Him for salvation. And the second thing, though, is to pray for help. Tell your father that you know that you're weak in these areas. And tell him you know that you don't live up to his standards. And ask him for help. Ask him to show you some very practical things that you can do to grow in these areas. and study through the Scriptures. These are ways that we grow in Christ. Go through the Scriptures. Find these areas that we're talking about. But remember that faithfulness is one of the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5. Faithfulness to Christ's church is faithfulness to Christ. So pray for help. Trust in Christ. Pray for help. And then lastly, pick one thing. Pick one area where you think you might be weak and spend some time working on that, whether it's commitment, whether it's service, or work, or growth, whatever it is, internal, external, whatever you think. Just pick one and spend some time meditating on that, going through the Scriptures, working on that area, and then you will find yourself growing towards being a faithful member of Christ's church. Amen? Amen, let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you are faithful where we are not, and we thank you that you have won for us a precious treasure and that you have won for yourself a precious treasure, that we get all of Christ and that Christ gets all of his people. Lord, be with us now as we receive the grace that comes from you, as we visibly and physically participate in the Church of Christ through the Lord's Supper. Help us to grow to be more faithful to your church as you have been faithful to us. In Christ's name, amen.