Nutrition - Ephesians 4:11-16

Our study of the book of Ephesians has brought us now to chapter 4. And you'll recall that Ephesians 4, 5 and 6 are the practical, personal section of this letter. In Ephesians 1, 2 and 3, Paul has outlined Bible doctrine. And he tells us in Ephesians 1, 2 and 3 what God has done for us. Now in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6, he outlines for us Christian duty, what we must do in return for what God has done for us. In Ephesians 1, 2 and 3 we have the revelation of Christ; in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6, the obligation of the Christian.

Now the key word of this second section is the word walk. Several times in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6, Paul talks about the Christian walk. The Christian life is compared to a walk. It begins with one step, a simple step of faith, trusting Christ as your savior. And then you walk with the Lord, as the songwriter puts it, when we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory he sheds on our way. While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. The Christian walk is trusting Him and obeying Him.

Now Paul outlines in these three chapters the four-fold walk of the Christian. In Ephesians 4:1-16, we should walk in unity. He tells us here about the one body, and the one spirit, and the fact that we're called together in one hope of our calling. Walk in unity. In Ephesians 4:17-5:17, walk in purity. There in 4:17 Paul says that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, but walk in holiness, walk in purity. In Ephesians 5:18-6:9, he talks about walking in harmony. This is the Christian home, husbands and wives and children, and servants and their masters. Finally walk in victory, Ephesians 6:10 through the end of the book, victory over the world and the flesh and the devil.

Now we've been looking at this first section, Ephesians 4:1-16, where Paul talks about walking in unity. We have seen the grounds of our unity, in that we are called together in one body, one spirit, one hope of our calling. Paul is talking here about the church, which is the body of Christ. We've pointed out many times in these studies that we must make a difference between churches and the church. All of God's people collectively in the mind and the heart of God make up the body of Christ. This body of Christ is growing. Every time someone is saved, a new member is added to the body of Christ. And the body of Christ is one body.

Now there are many local churches and there are many different denominations that make up local churches. But in the eyes and the mind of God, there is but one church, the church to which Christ is the head. The church made up of all believers, regardless of what local churches they may be in, the church which makes up all believers who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into this one body.

Now Paul is talking here about unity. And he tells us in Ephesians 4:11, that the Lord Jesus Christ has given certain gifts and certain gifted people to His church. And He gave some apostles, now the word apostle means a sent one. The apostles are the missionaries, the ones who go out to establish new works for the Lord. He gave some apostles and some prophets, these were the preachers in the New Testament church, and some evangelists, these are those who go out to win souls.

I was chatting with a man recently who said that a lady had said to him that she did not believe in evangelism. This is foolish. Not to believe in evangelism means that you do not believe in the gospel. And the Lord Jesus Christ has given to His church, missionaries and preachers and evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.

Now pastor and teacher go together. The word pastor means shepherd. The local church is looked upon as a flock. Paul, when he talked to the Ephesian elders there in Acts 20, said, "Take heed to yourselves and to the flock, over which the Lord hath made you overseers to feed the flock of God." The pastor of the local church is the shepherd of a flock. And he is to lead the sheep and he is to feed the sheep. His responsibility is to protect them and direct them, to give them the nutrition of the word of God, to care for them. And the sheep have the responsibility of reproducing and of being very practically at work in the ministry of the Lord. Now if you belong to a local church, if you're one of God's sheep, then that local church is a flock. And your pastor is the shepherd. And the responsibility of the sheep is to follow the shepherd and to love the shepherd and obey the word of God which he preaches.

Now pastor and teacher go together. The pastor shepherds the flock by teaching the word of God. There's a difference between preaching and teaching. We need both. There are times when as a pastor I must declare the word of God. There are other times when I must teach it in a very down-to-earth, simple way. I believe the great need in our churches today is for teaching the word of God. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." And the pastor's responsibility is to teach the word of God to the other people of the flock, and they in turn teach it to others, so that the word of God is being conveyed from one generation to another.

Now the result of all of this is given in Ephesians 4:12. The pastor and the teacher and the evangelist, the prophet, the apostles, minister the word of God, says Ephesians 4:12, for the perfecting of the saints. The word perfecting here means maturing, growing up. As people come to church and hear the word of God, they grow. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2, "As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." The last thing Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:18 was, "and grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Growing Christians.

I've had people say, "Well, I can be a good Christian and not go to church." You can be a good Christian. But you could be a better Christian, and the best Christians do go to church. It's possible to be an ordinary everyday kind of a Christian, stay home from church, but you'll not grow. I feel something is wrong with a sheep that doesn't want to stay with the flock. Whenever a sheep wanders away from the flock, he gets in trouble. Yes, maybe you can be a good Christian and not go to church, but you'll be a better Christian, yes, you'll be the best Christian possible if you'll go to the house of God and listen to the word of God and grow.

For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ. Now Paul has two things in view here. The pastor and the teacher, one man to two offices, two responsibilities. The pastor, teacher, feeds the flock. And he sets the example in Christian service. The saints in turn perform the work of the ministry. And as they do this, the body of Christ grows. It grows numerically, it grows spiritually.

People today seem to have a strange idea that there's something wrong with numbers. I want to remind you as you read the book of Acts, that the Holy Spirit of God in the book of Acts counted numbers. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Now last year we had 200 in church and this year we have 250. I think it's good for us to know where we've been and where we're going." Whether there's life, there's growth. If a child comes into the world and doesn't grow, they take him to the doctor, there's something wrong. If a church doesn't grow, you better go to the doctor, there's something wrong. A church is supposed to grow.

And if the pastor is doing his job in teaching the word of God, feeding the people, and the people are doing their job, the work of the ministry, winning souls, praying for one another, visiting, giving, then the church is going to grow. It's going to become more and more like Jesus Christ. And the saints individually will become more and more like Jesus Christ.

The sad thing is today that we compare ourselves with ourselves, or we compare ourselves with one another. And we say, "Well, I'm just as good a Christian as he is, and he's a Sunday school teacher. Oh, I'm a better Christian than she is, and she's an officer in the church." Paul says in Ephesians 4:13, that the measure of our spiritual growth is not some other Christian, it's Jesus Christ. We're becoming more like Him.

Someone has said that God so loves His Son that He wants to populate heaven with multitudes of people just like Him. Over in Romans 8, the Apostle Paul says that one day we shall be conformed to the image of His Son. In 1 John 3, John says to us, "We shall be like Him." For we shall see Him as He is. Now don't wait until Jesus Christ returns to become like Him, start becoming like Him now. As you feed on the nutritious word of God, as you eat the bread and drink the milk and feed on the meat of the word of God, you will grow and become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can always tell a man from a child, because a man has stability. As you watch a young child learning how to walk, you see him wobbling and tottering. If you see a grown man wobbling and unable to stand, you think there's something wrong with him. Perhaps he's ill. Perhaps he's drunk. Now Paul is saying in Ephesians 4:14, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. You see Ephesians 4:14 indicates to us that there are certain forces at work against the church. There are these dangerous winds of doctrine, false doctrine.

When Paul was talking to the Ephesian elders back in Acts 20, he warned them about this. Acts 20:29, says Paul, "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." In 1 John 4, the apostle says, "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: for many false prophets are gone out into the world." I recommend that you read 2 Peter 2. Where Peter warns about false teachers.

Now there are in the world today, people who take the Bible and twist it, and they turn loose these winds of doctrine. And unless you have been rooted and grounded in the word of God, unless you are growing in your Christian life, these winds will blow you over. Some Christians are like tumbleweeds, whichever way the wind blows, that's the direction they go. Some Christians are like reeds, they bend to and fro. But there are some Christians who are like mighty trees, rooted and grounded, and they can't be blown over. You remember when Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist to the Jewish multitude, he said, "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken in the wind?" John the Baptist was no reed shaken in the wind. He stood firmly on the word of God. We need Christians today who have grown up in the word of God. Not babies.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3, he said, "I could not write unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ." Our churches are full of spiritual babies who have never grown up. Now Christians are supposed to be childlike, but not childish. Paul says when I became a man, I put away childish things. And there are some Christians in our churches who have to have their toys, and they have to have their pampering, and they have to have attention, and if they don't get what they want, they pick up their rattle and they go someplace else. They've never grown up.

And Paul tells us here that Christians who are growing in the word of God will not be tossed to and fro. They won't run from church to church. They won't believe every false teaching that comes along. They'll test it by the word of God. Now children believe anything. They can't sleep at night because they read something in a book that frightens them. Adults know better. The shadows that frighten a child in his bedroom never frighten an adult. The noises that a child hears that stir him and bother him, these don't bother an adult. Some Christians need to grow up and put away childish things, get rid of their toys and their fears. And the only way to grow is to feed on the word of God.

Paul is telling us here that the only way a church can grow, and the only way a Christian can grow, is through nutrition. A church does not grow by addition, it grows by nutrition. From the inside out. As the people grow in the word, they touch the lives of other people, and then the church grows collectively. Are you being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine? Are men able to use their sleight of hand tricks, their schemes to delude you? Then you'd better open your Bible and start growing.

Ephesians 4:15 says, "but speaking the truth in love." We may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head. Now Paul says, speak the truth in love. The truth, the word of God is truth. Jesus said in John 17, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." It's good to have the truth, but Paul says hold the truth in love. Don't use the truth as a battering ram. Hold the truth in love. Now some people have love and don't have the truth. That's not Christian love. It may be sentiment, it may be emotion. Christian love is based on Christian truth. Some Christians have the truth but they don't have any love. The Pharisees had truth, they had no love. Holding the truth in love, we grow up into the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it says in Ephesians 4:16 that all the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Every part of the human body makes a contribution to the strength and the health of the body, and so should every part of the spiritual body. You may not be a pastor or a missionary or a deacon or a trustee or a Sunday school teacher, but you have a contribution to make to your local church, spiritually. According to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body. And so the church grows.

To sum it up in one simple sentence: as the Christian grows spiritually, the church will grow stronger and more numerically. Are you a growing Christian? Are you able to make a spiritual contribution to the ministry of your local church? Is your part of the body healthy and strong because you're growing in the word of God? I trust that it is, and it will be. If you'll study the word of God, if you'll pray, and if you'll grow in the Lord.

Shall we pray? Our Father, we ask now in Jesus' name that thou wilt help us to be growing Christians, feeding on the word of God, letting the Holy Spirit of God minister to us through the word. Bless all who have heard today, and may our churches be stronger and better because our lives are more like Christ. For we pray in His name and for His sake. Amen.