Joining Jesus in Changing Lives | Live for Jesus (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Integrating faith into daily life is essential for becoming a contributing member of the body of Christ, supporting one another like family. Jesus asks, “Do you trust me with your life?” As our master and Disciple-Maker, He guides us to grow in Christian maturity, living less for self and more for Him and others. Jesus is the ultimate disciple-maker, using us to make disciples. We strive to be more like Jesus by keeping Him as our Disciple-Maker and trusting His Spirit to work through us in discipline others. 

Transcript

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a recurring theme among our church family. See if you can figure it out. One member called me to tell me how insignificant her life feels. Another member talked with me about his ideas for how our church should do ministry planning. Yet another vented to me about how complicated their family life is right now. These may seem like isolated thoughts, but can you see the thread holding them together? It’s the thread we’ll be following into Ephesians 4 today. What is it? One word: Discipleship. Not a word that gets auto-filled when we text, right? But this is what living for Jesus is all about, a life of endless significance within a church family with intentional simplicity. So let’s talk discipleship.

First off, what is it? What do you think of when you hear the word “discipleship?” Maybe studying the Bible? Being refined by Jesus? Maybe sharing Jesus as you live your life of faith? Paul gives us a discipleship definition in Ephesians 4. Discipleship = Your Jesus-given life of serving, building, and maturing. The first part is crucial to understand if we’re going to live as disciples of Jesus. It’s the grace of knowing that our lives are entirely Jesus-given, but do we always remember that?

In the Disney movie “The Emperor’s New Groove,” Kronk says to Izma, “It doesn’t always have to be about you.” But we like it to be, don’t we?! This is where discipleship runs head-on into our core struggle, our quest for “me-ship.” “Me-ship” = the self-driven life Satan proposes to us of being served, tearing down, and remaining immature. Paul knows this which is why right after Ephesians chapters 1-3 where he beautifully details the grace we have in Jesus, he instantly goes after the “me-ship” life as he starts his next focus: How God’s grace changes your life to become other-centric, especially considering your family in Christ. This shift in perspective is as radical as you can imagine. It goes against the grain of our culture, it goes against the grain of our sinful nature. How so?

We tend to look at the gifts God has given us as things we own, and therefore, we can use them as we see fit. In our sin, we often fail to pray, “Lord, use me however you’d like!” and instead we ask, “Lord, can’t you make things more convenient for me?” Notice the underlying thought. It’s the self-driven essence of sin: We want to take God’s place. And what’s one of the sad side-effects of the self-driven, me-ship life? We lose significance. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous Lutheran pastor who experienced the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, captures what discipleship is all about, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Jesus is the only significance. Besides Jesus, nothing has any significance. He alone matters.” If you’re looking for significance in life, Jesus is the only one who can give such a life to you! When you see the significant serving-love Jesus has for you, you see that the Jesus-given significant life revolves around serving, which again is countercultural to our natural selves.

We as a society in general, and as individuals, would much prefer to be served than to serve, right? And sadly this can bleed over into how we act toward our church family. When “me-ship” takes hold in our hearts, church can become me-centric. What thoughts naturally come up? Here’s a few: “The sermons just never seem to reach me,” “the music is too old for me,” “the songs have no depth for me,” “our kids’ programs don’t accommodate my situation”, or “that member constantly gets under my skin.” Do you see the commonality? It’s that looming fog of the sit-and-get culture we’re in. We often look to a pastor or church to satisfy us, or we’ll drop our “subscription,” or try to find a place that suits our needs, but that’s not discipleship, which means we’ll never grow. This is why we have membership at our church. Membership not in the sense that I should receive these benefits by being here, but the opposite. Membership says, “I am committed to this family here, I’m going to set myself aside and strive to keep Jesus as the focus. I’m going to take ownership of discipling others according to the truth of God’s Word.” It’s being other-focused and it’s recognizing your Jesus-given gifts are designed for service. The reality is when we look to be served, we also are quick to tear down.

After all, who doesn’t love a good put-down today? The memes online, the critical X (formerly called Twitter) posts, the satiric YouTube videos. We nitpick, we cut down, why? Because the primary focus of “me-ship” is to build up self, but what happens when you tear down everything? You’ll find yourself alone. God designed us for far more and built into his concept of discipleship a community of believers. A community in which he calls us to be community builders, not just a social group, not just a Christian club, but a community of Christian truth-fighters striving for maturity. Because the final hallmark of the “me-ship” life is utter immaturity.

We live in a time of “kiddification,” coined by Neil Postman in his book “The Disappearance of Childhood.” We hear about how people are maturing much later in life, why is that? Well, if life is all about you finding your “authentic self”  aka a self-driven life that means you’re told not to listen to anyone else. You figure it out! How immature we are! We are all babies just like Paul talks about in Ephesians 4, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” Notice how even Paul calls himself a baby! Why does he use that picture? Because babies are by nature immature. Babies are self-absorbed, always needing attention, right? In our sin, we often find ourselves in a similar mindset which also why we shouldn’t be surprised by immaturity in our church. I’ve heard it many times, “I didn’t realize that could happen in a church!” With the usual follow-up, “Pastor, you should do something about that.” Do you see the immaturity in that? Instead of saying, “Wow, here’s an opportunity I have to disciple a member and bring them closer to Jesus!” we tear down and expect someone else to fix the problem. Author Greg Finke captures this well when he writes, “Somehow…a myth has grown up around discipling. We have come to believe that discipling is so complex, so scholarly, so beyond the ability of simple Christians that only biblical scholars and spiritual superheroes should attempt it.” This is how Satan loves to stall faith growth within the church so that we live a “me-ship” existence: a self-driven life of being served, tearing down, and immaturity. Doesn’t sound like a significant life, right? Now, we are ready to take in the infinite wonder of the life of discipleship Jesus has for you.

Remember your life of discipleship is Jesus-given. In Ephesians 4:7, Paul tells us, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. The God who served you with his very life has given you your gifts. When you think to yourself, “My gifts are nothing,” know that they are amazing because of the blow-your-mind grace of God! Jesus himself gave you your gifts! How incredible is that! Your life is not just sort of significant, it is packed with timeless meaning, because all that you are and have has been given to you by Jesus. None of you is random, none of you is chance, you are no walking coincidence, you were planned by the very God who put you into his story for his universe. One of my Seminary professors put it like this, “I may have decided upon and prepared myself for a certain career. I may have chosen the community in which I live, and moved there. I may have selected my marriage partner, courted her, and married her. But God was at work behind the scenes in every life decision I've ever made. The result is that I woke this morning in a certain time and place, shaved, dressed, and went out into a world uniquely my own - and that was God's doing, not mine. I am where I am today because God has put me here and, ultimately, for no other reason.” How freeing this is! Every day we get to live for Jesus who considers us so significant he served us by dying on the cross. Every morning we wake up, we have a Savior who saves us from ourselves, who is so invested in us that he wants to grow us, to give us maturity through the gospel so we can know real knowledge and wisdom. What grace is this that in his plan to build his church, he has chosen you, given you the specific gifts he has, to accomplish not just your purpose, but his! 

And it’s from that viewpoint of grace, that we begin to see how living for Jesus, being disciple-makers, is the greatest life one can live. When you live motivated and empowered solely by the grace of God, everything you do is given Savior-significance, you’re doing it for him, and you do so not because you’re afraid you won’t be enough, but because you already know what he’s going to tell you when you see him and brings us to complete maturity, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” We live for Jesus not because we fear him but because we love him. We see this so powerfully in Matthew 25. Jesus paints the scene of the Last Day when he’ll come back for us. In this most epic of moments, it’s as if Jesus looks at you through the text, his penetrating eyes who can see every microcell of who you are. Then, the smile bursts across his face and he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” And you think “really?” and reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” His reply nearly bursts your heart with joy, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Everything we do, we get to do for Jesus.

And when you live remembering how Jesus sees you and the gifts, situations, boundaries, and relationships he’s given you, you begin to see why the life of discipleship is so amazing and you naturally by grace want more and more of your brothers and sisters to cherish and grow in this way of life. Do you know what that makes you? A disciple-maker! Obviously the life of discipleship applies to every relationship we have, but I want to focus on a life calling that Paul focuses on in Ephesians 4 and I’m guessing you don’t always think about this calling on a daily basis: Being a member of our church, but before I do that…I want to talk about what Paul is saying to me as your pastor here in Ephesians 4. In verses 11-12, Paul writes, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” The word translated “equip” (καταρτισμὸν) has a picture behind it. The word picture is a doctor setting a broken bone back in place. In other words, as your pastor, the Lord calls me to be a doctor of souls, looking at the parts of our church family, our body of believers, and to see what’s hurting and how to heal it with the Word of God. That’s the metaphor Paul is using here. This translates then to all of us. We as members hurt when one of us hurts. Just like in your body when something hurts, it affects your entire self. My pastoral role then is to identify what hurts and properly apply God’s truth to remedy that, but notice the “why” behind that. My role is not to give you what you need to have a pain-free life of ease and luxury, but I do what I do by God’s grace so you can serve! Not just for your own gain, but so our whole church family can be built up! Now what does that look like exactly?

It starts with remembering that nothing in your life is accidental, and then asking the Lord to give you intentionality and joy to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s looking at your gifts and boldly asking, “How can I jump in?” “How can I speak and show the truth in love to a member who needs me?” “Maybe I could join a Connect Group or Ministry Service Team?” Again, this is a joy thing! Being a member of our church allows you to use your gifts to build up God’s people. That’s amazing! That’s the life of disciple, we love making more disciples. Can you see what Paul is envisioning? Can you see the future we long for as a church? Imagine parents discipling their children not only to be churchgoers on Sunday, but to be Jesus-followers on Monday. Imagine Christian friends connecting in community not only to study God’s Word, but to help disciple each other to live out that Word so more and more can know the truth. Imagine lifelong members of our churches discipling young believers to seek the kingdom in their daily lives. Imagine people heading out of church refreshed and ready to spend another week discipling their families, their fellow church members, and their friends. That’s the vision Jesus has put before us. Being a disciple-maker gives us a refreshingly simple life, a Jesus-given life of serving, building, and maturing. Amen.