attend to their needs, and encourage and strengthen and empower the people close to them to make true and real your promises and your word. Father, teach us this day, because we're like little children. We really need your help and your wisdom. We bless you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, I've got a two-fold job. And my first job is to teach you the book of Ephesians. So that is an overriding concern for me. And you'll see what my second job is in just a minute when we get into the specific lesson for today. But because of my second job, you're going to see a lot more teachers. in this class. And because of that, I'm going to have to do review occasionally to make sure everybody grasps it. Because when we finish the book, I want Lindsay to be able to say, well, this is what the book of Ephesians is about. And so let me just start by saying this. We'll pick Stephen. When Ashley got married to Stephen, her last name became Cox. And when she has, which they already have, Courtney, is it? Courtney. When Courtney grows up, they're gonna say, who are you, Courtney? She says, well, I'm Cox. Because that's who she is. The book of Ephesians starts out, the first 14 verses, with who we are. And the last name of who we are kind of determines who you are. In this case, he says who you are is, first of all, you were chosen, and then you were adopted by God, and then you were redeemed, and then you were enlightened, and then you were enriched, and you were sealed. That's who you are. That's your family. And when somebody asks you who you are, well, that's who I am. From that point right there all the way to the end of chapter three talks about basically who you are and then what you get from who you are. So it's your family name and, how shall I say, your brothers and cousins. There are three things you get. That's the last half of chapter one when he says he prays and he prays because they recognize you don't understand who you are. Because of that, he says, I want you to know three things. I want you to know what is the hope of your calling, what are the riches of glory of your inheritance, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward you who believe. So I want you to know your calling, your inheritance, and your power. So, and then your calling, he'll tell you that's all of chapter two, your inheritance is all of chapter three, and your power is the end of chapter one. That's all of chapter one. Excuse me, that's the first half of the book. Now, pass out. Everybody should have one of these to look at. Anybody not have one of these? We've got a couple extras up here if you want them, raise your hand. Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, what was Ruth's last name? I forgot. Missionary in China. She came up with an outline for the book of Ephesians. And her outline was sit, walk, stand. Real simple and easy. Sit was who you are and what you get. That's your family name and your cousins, who you are and what you get. That's the set. Walk is what we're starting to do now. And that is what you do with who you are and what you get. Now, God has blessed Aaron Castle. And he says, Aaron, this is who you are. Castle is your last name. If you forget it, your dad will tell you. And you've got six things that make up who you are. And then you're going to get three things. You're going to get a calling. You're going to get an inheritance. You're going to get power to do it. And so he starts now in chapter four, and you've got five walks. Walk in integrity, walk in truth, walk in love, walk in light, walk in wisdom. And we'll have different teachers. And that's the reason that I'm reviewing this, because I want you to understand that it has a unity to the whole book. The author has one thing in mind when he sketches it, and I want Sahar to be able to repeat that and to teach it to Francisco. Backwards, sorry about that. When you finish, the last part is the stand, and that's the defense. Now turn the page. And you see my outline. Hers is much simpler and easier to remember, sit, walk, stand. Mine is the revelation, the administration, and the defense. Same three breakdowns. The revelation, chapter one, two, and three. The administration, four, five, and first half of six. The defense, last half of six. And you can see the administration is darkened because that's where we are. Now Matt kicked us off with that two weeks ago. Now turn the page. And you should be looking at this. Everybody with me? Chris Blue, are you with me on page three? Super. Page three, walk in integrity. And underneath it, there's three things he wants you to do. Preserve unity, recognize diversity, and exercise giftedness. Matt shared with us the need to preserve unity. This whole thing God has designed, he says, how am I going to picture this so they'll understand it and grasp it? He says, it's like a body. Robert, hold up your hand. Now, other hand. Now, I want you to shake your head back and forth. And guess what? All of those things must happen. And if this hand says to this hand, I'm not going to do what you tell me to do. then he's got problems with his body. If Lindsey cannot control her feet, watch, I have a problem with that sometimes, now. If Lindsey can't control her feet, she's got problems. The body is a unity and it functions as a unity. And if there's not unity in the body, you got problems. We got problems in River City. For those of you that have seen the musical film, and that's probably too old for you guys. Never heard of River City. Okay. So, unity. Command. Preserve unity. Secondly, diversity. Recognize diversity. Now turn the sheet. When he said diversity, he said, look, I recognize that everybody in here is one. You're one body, but there are many parts to that body. And so he says, recognize diversity. Now he's listed, and I've got four places they're listed. Come right in and find a chair. There's four right here. You can lay down and sleep. If you can stay awake. OK, the four places that you can go and look, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, 1 Peter 4, Ephesians 4, 11, all have listings. of where the spiritual gifts are. And just like I've got one nose and two ears, I've got two eyes and two feet, I've got ten fingers like all of you do, everybody has these different parts to their body. I want unity, but I want you to recognize diversity. And we will look for the next two weeks starting today at the emphasis on diversity, diversity, diversity. You don't got diversity of gift, then you got real problems. So are you with me so far? You understand he's going. So he said, look, this is who you are. This is what you get. I want you to employ them in such a way that the body will grow up. It grows as an entity. It grows naturally. All Kyoto has to do is feed it, and guess what? It grows. She doesn't make it grow. She says, now, slap him, he don't grow. She just feeds it, and it grows. And you will grow naturally, so long as you feed yourself. and get a little exercise, you'll grow naturally. You feed yourself by the book, and you grow wisely if you feed yourself well. All right, next page. Now we'll go to the long sheet. The three things we learn, we have to Maintain unity we have to exercise diversity and the third thing we said and I didn't emphasize that enough was exercise giftedness He says you've got to exercise the gifts If Derek doesn't bend his elbow three times a day he will lose weight He's got to eat and part of that is the exercise of the elbow. That's just a gift and An elbow is a gift, just like a vertebrae, your back is a gift, and your nose is a gift. All those are different gifts that are working in harmony. Now, this is the exercise of those gifts. And he starts in, Sean, read chapter 4, verses 11 through 16. Now, we're going to take this week and next week to cover this. But we're going to do the first part of it today, 11 through 16 of 4, Ephesians chapter 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. And this long sheet, as he reads it, look on the long sheet and you can follow it on your long sheet as he reads it. And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him, Okay, that's a very, very complex paragraph. And it'd be really hard to read if you just had to read it like that. But if you break it down grammatically so that you see it in its correct sections, the title for this is God's Program for Bodybuilding, or God's Gymnasium, if you want to just shorten it. This is how God plans on Paul building up. And by the way, your family is your family name. So let's give Balanji His dad had 10 brothers, okay? And Jordan had 10 brothers. She was the only sister. Paul had one sister. So between them, they had 21 cousins, right? His father, her mother, 10, 10, cousins, cousins, cousins. They're all, because both of those are Balenges, they're all going to be Balenges. Forty Balenges. So when you say, well who are you? I'm a Balenge. That should say something. In fact, Paul's dad says, act like a Balenge, buddy. That's who you are. He wants us to act who we are. And the cousin's the same way. If his dad does it right, we all act the same way. That's where you get the unity. Act who you are. I can remember that came out very clearly when John Kennedy was president, and he used to tell little John, John, you're a Kennedy, buddy. Because Kennedy meant something. And a believer should mean something. Just when Robert says, hey, I'm a believer in Jesus, oh, you're one of those. That means, and everybody who's joined that is part of that family. Now, that's the cousin, but you have your only individual family, and that's you and your wife and your three kids. That's your little unique family. But you have the big family, and that's all the believers. So we got all the believers, and then we got all the believers in this church, and then the different churches. And that's where you get the big body. He's talking about here, how you develop your individual body and the big body. So he starts out and he says, now some were apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. When was this written? What year, roughly? 65 AD. 65 AD is a good guess. Early, early. This is just, the church started, Jesus was crucified in 33, The Holy Spirit came and the church was born in like 35, something like that. So this is 65, this is 30 years, just getting started. And when it gets started, because they didn't have all the scripture then, they had apostles and prophets. And those guys wrote the scripture, and when a prophet spoke, he spoke scripture. What he spoke was what God wanted. But those two gifts have passed away. So those were temporary gifts, and then apostles and evangelists, excuse me, teachers and evangelists, are permanent gifts. And when somebody comes along and says to you today, say, I'm an apostle. You know they're either a believer and they've been taught wrong, or they are really, really way far out if they think they're an apostle. As Sean shared last week, somebody says, I'm El Shaddai. Well, buddy, then walk on water. I mean, if you can't walk on water, you just are not there. So those two are two permanent gifts and two temporary gifts. Now notice the permanent gift of evangelists, and again, now notice how I put pastor-teacher. That's a joint word, and the pastor-teacher is one person with dual gift. He is a pastor teacher. So he pastors, he shepherds, and he also teaches. Are you with me so far? All this is talking about, this is how we walk out who you are. So everybody in this room, by the way, everybody in this room has a gift. Jack Ward has a gift. And guess what? He contributes it to the body. And without Jack Ward's contribution to the body, we're in trouble. We will be diminished to the extent that he does not exercise his gift in our presence. And I hope to so vividly illustrate that point next week that Keyarda will say, well, tell me what my gift is because I really want to exercise my gift. Because we need you and we need your gift. everybody. Now, up here on the board, I said, he's given us the pastor-teacher, and he has given us the evangelist. And then he says, for the equipping of the saints, unto the work of service, unto the building up the body of Christ. This little word right here, cross, is where we get our preposition for. Ace is unto and unto. Huge, huge difference between those two. Very, very important you make that distinction. And here's the reason why. He is given, the pastor teacher is given his gift for the equipping of the saints. Now, Chase mentioned that last week. I want to take a minute and just expand on that word. Let me give you three other places that same word is used. So turn in your Bibles to Matthew 4.21. The word is katartismon. In the Greek, which I've written up here, katartismon. And what does it mean? Because this is what the pastor teacher's job is. It means to equip. And it's a good translation. So how do you equip? What does the equipper do? Who has Matthew 4.21? Read it, Blake. Stop. So Jesus is out fishing for men, and he sees two guys in the boat, and they were mending their nets. So if you fish with a net, and your net has got a break in it somewhere, the fish are going to swim through the break. And the way you do it, you take another piece of twine, and you tie it on two ends of the pieces that are broken, and you mend the net. And so the pastor teacher's job is to mend the body. So he's got two people that aren't talking to one another. His job is to say, now, Ben, your problem is you and Trey are vying for the same position, and Trey calls you. Well, I don't want to say that out loud. And so you guys aren't talking. And I'll tell you, no, that's not what you should be doing. He's your brother, and I'm in the process of mending the net. My wife is one of the best net menders that you can get, because I've seen her take people who were destined for divorce and destruction and mend the net and put it back together. So that's one of the ministries of the pastor-teacher. The second one is Hebrews 10.5. Turn to Hebrews 10.5. Somebody read it when you get there. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, sacrifice and offering you have not decided. The body you have prepared for me. Okay, so this is, the author of Hebrews is quoting from the Old Testament, and in the quote he says, when he came into the world, who's he talking about there? Right, he's talking about Jesus. When the father sent the son into the world, what did he do? What did he do in terms of the body? He what? He prepared a body. He prepared a body. And so Scott is going to go out in the midst. He's in the military. And next week, he's going to go on base. And the first officer he sees is going to say, hi, how are you? We're so glad to have you here. What can I do to help you around? No, that ain't the way it is. And some of the people on base are going to call you names. Did you know that? And they're not going to be fun names. And they're going to yell at you until you get your act together. And how am I supposed to respond to that? How am I supposed to take my name, which Jesus has given me, and act like who he is on base under all that kind of pressure? That's my job as a teacher. I am to prepare him for what goes on in this coming week. So that when he comes out and he slams it on his finger, what does he say? Praise God. Right? Yeah, that's what you say. When you're sitting in the grocery store, I mean you're sitting in the parking lot, and all of a sudden your car shakes, and you realize they just backed into you, and you jump out and say, praise the Lord! If you've been prepared, you recognize God knew about this all along. He is maybe preparing somebody for you to share Jesus with. So be nice, because you're going to talk to them about Jesus. Who cares about the dead in the car? It's only a car! It's simple. They've got an eternal soul. I learned to look at life from a different perspective because I sat in the class and somebody told me, I'm preparing you this week for what happens. Now, Kai is going to cry at 2 o'clock, at 4 o'clock, at 6 o'clock, and it's never p.m. It's always a.m. And that means that Keyarta is going to kick Blake out of bed. No, Blake can't feed him. So he says, get out of bed, Keyarta, and feed Kai. He's keeping me awake. And I am preparing both Keyarta and Blake for how to respond when little Kai screams, more, more. That's what the pastor-teacher does. Flip over lastly to Galatians 6.1. Again, same use of the word karatismon. Somebody read it. even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a person." Whoa! Restore. Catertismon. The pastors teach your job is to restore. That means to set the bone. It's a medical term used in the medical field to set bones. The bone is broken, set the bone. Interestingly enough, flip over to 2 Corinthians 2.7, and I'll show you the result of Paul setting the bone. 2 Corinthians 2.7. Read it, somebody. So this is the guy that was actually sleeping with his father's wife. So probably the father's divorced, got a young wife. The son's got eyes. It stunk. It was so rancid in the depth of the depravity. And Paul said, kick him out of the church. But he said, after they had exercised the discipline, he repented. And then he says, and read it again. So, he becomes so sorrowful that he walks away from the faith? You don't want to do that. You want to discipline him, but you want to restore him. The purpose is restoration. Does that make sense? So when this is practiced correctly, when he equips the saints, then guess what happens? The saints do the work of the service. So the problem is not so much for me, it's for me saying to Kyle, this is what I want you to do. When Kyle goes on base and he sees Derek having a fist fight with somebody else, he says, Derek, Derek, don't do that. You're not showing Jesus right. And so, when you begin ministering to each other, then that is what, that shows the effectiveness. So, what I'm telling you is, if I can get up here and sing and dance so that you say, wow, wow, look at him sing, look at him dance, this is great, I'm gonna come back, that didn't squat. When I can teach you to sing and dance so that people stand around and look at you and listen to what you say, then that means I did well. That's what it's about. That's what it's after. And our problem is, we tend to lift me up. Now, I'll be honest with you. I feel really good when Sam says to Taylor, says, man, he's really good. He's great. Guess I am. Baloney. When he says to her, you know what? I'm equipped this week. I can do battle for Jesus. And I'm going to go out and win somebody on this base. And he didn't even mention me. That's when God says, you did a good job, Bill. If all I can get you to do is clap, then I'm doing a lousy job. And that's the truth. But when I get you to go out and do what God told me to tell you to do, and you do it well, and the impact is they do the work of service, they build up the body of Christ. I don't build up the body of Christ. The equipping of the saints, the saints build up the body of Christ. So last week, I believe it was Jack, brought a visitor. Is that right? Guess what was happening? He was encouraging somebody to come, stick their straw in the trough and drink. And that's how you build up the body of Christ. You go out and you get somebody, you bring him in. I didn't do it, he did it. I didn't even ask him. He did it because he recognized that's what I'm supposed to do as a part of the body of Christ. Prosthesis. Very, very important that you recognize that this guy's job is to equip This guy's job and this guy's job is the work of the ministry. So, it gives me more pleasure to hear how Sean Gordon wanders into a gym with a bunch of sweaty, stinky, smelling gym rats and shares Jesus, I get so much more pleasure out of that than I do me sharing Jesus with somebody. Because God has given me the opportunity to influence Him. And I recognize because of my influence on Him, He is out doing this, and this, and this. And see our problem is I just really enjoy being up front. I enjoy having you clap. And let's build a bigger church so more people can come and clap for me. That's called the attraction model. And it is not the biblical model. The biblical model is that angel goes out and does the work of the ministry. That Chris Blue shares with the guys that are working for him. And this guy sits down and tells him how, man, my wife wrecked my car, I don't know how we're gonna eat. And Chris takes two hours out of a valuable day. It may cost him a job, but he recognizes this guy has an eternal soul. And my responsibility is to spend time where God has put me, out in the marketplace. So this week, If you want to encourage me and you want to make God excited, you do the work of the ministry, and I'll be so excited. And we'll come back and talk about the rest of this passage next week. So, Matt, post a word of prayer, please, sir. Father, we're so thankful. We're blessed. We praise you for that. Blessing the opportunity to be here, the opportunity to Amen. That would be awesome. I'm glad to have you back. What are you? I don't know how far you can plan out June 3rd. Anything going on June 3rd? June 3rd? I don't know. I have no idea. I know it's far out, but that's when I get promoted. Oh, I know. So I wanted to invite you. I'd love to be there. Yeah, yeah. What are you going to do? So, first of all, EA. Thank you. Yeah.