It was a praying church. All of them prayed. There was not Wednesday night prayer meeting. There were no prayer warriors. The whole meeting was prayer and the prayer room was the only room. They were all together all the time and in prayer.

The church was of one mind. They were first-rate examples of Paul’s command to the Corinthians, “Be of one mind.” They were held together by a single purpose and a fellowship that overcame their differences. Rich and poor, skeptics and believers, men and women, dreamers and dogmatics, were all in one accord. They cared about and valued the same things.

The church gathered together frequently. Their attendance was not just out of loyalty or responsibility but necessity. Many of them had no other community. They had left everything. Some, like the disciples, had left their livings completely and were supported by the church.

The church had the benefit of the purest form of theological training, sound doctrine and Biblical interpretation. There were no heresies or denominations. They could still remember all the words of Jesus as he spoke them.

The church was well-organized. They had an active personnel committee who immediately filled a vacancy. They had members like Barnabas who made sure they had adequate financial support. They had no liabilities, nothing tied up in real estate or debt retirement. Management and member turnover was low.

Yet, like the rich young ruler, it lacked one thing. That one thing was the power of the Holy Spirit.

What then is the nature of the church with the power of the Holy Spirit? It is to be witnesses (martyrs) to the death and resurrection of Jesus. How does it do that? How does it witness to the world? How does it become something more than a volunteer organization or a means of personal realization or self-development?

For that, we turn to Ephesians 4:1-16:

1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

4-6 You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

7-13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is,

He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

14-16 No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

Let’s focus on 11-16: Prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ (the church) may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

2.  The role of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is well-defined. It is to prepare.

Prepare: katartizo = perfecting.

One of the few places it is used in the NT. In Classical Greek it is used of refitting a ship or setting a bone.

In Matthew 4:21 it is used for James and John mending their nets.

In 1 Peter 5:10 he says “…the God of all grace…will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

In Hebrews 13:21 the writer says “may …the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will.”

There is no such thing as the exclusive goal of personal spiritual growth. There is no preparation for merely being good. The preparation is for accomplishing something as part of a larger group. Preparation is for a purpose. God is not interested in our simply being sinless or being an exquisite display of spiritual perfection.

A ship is fitted for sailing – not for the harbor.
A bone is mended for walking – not simply being straight.
A net is mended for fishing – not to hang on a restaurant wall.

So church and Sunday School are designed to be a shipyard and not a place to tie up.

It is a field hospital and not a rest home or assisted living.

It is a service department and not a show room.

Each requires a different process because it has a different purpose and different design.

But they are different in other ways:

Mending nets is constant – after every use.
Refitting a ship is periodic between long stretches of service
Resetting a bone is normally once in a lifetime.

So the teacher has to be aware of how different people are to be prepared for service. For some it is sitting around stitching and talking. For others it is taking people out of regular service and putting them in dry-dock. For a few it is the emergency room.

But for everyone it is the process of being prepared – mended, refitted, reset. That, of course, assumes that people do not come to the church already perfect because they don’t. They come with dings, chips, barnacles, tears, holes and breaks and fractures…but that is where we start with each other – not from scratch.

3.  So…we refit people. What kind of people?

There are several different Greek words for people and it’s important that we understand what Paul means here.

There is “demos” from which we get democracy or demographics. It means the general populace. It’s the word Luke uses to describe the audience to which Herod spoke prior to his death. “They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not a man.” It is a collection of people in a public space. It is the crowd at a sporting event or a rock concert.

There is “ethnos” which is used to mean people of a particular nation or origin – like Gentiles or Americans or French.

There is “laos” which we have used to mean non-clergy/non-professional or lay people. Luke uses it in the announcement of the angels in Luke 2:10 to describe those who will hear the good news. It originally meant the population at large but has become a word used to describe non-professionals of all kinds. “Can you put that in layman’s terms?”

There is “ochlos” which Matthew uses to describe a large crowd (and sometimes a mob) that followed Jesus wherever he went.

Finally, there is “hagios” which Paul uses over 80 times (and here in this passage) to describe a particular kind of people – not just a crowd or ethnic group or a collection or a demographic set. It means saints or people set apart for a purpose. It is people who are prepared and set apart for something – not just a general descriptive term for people. We don’t have time to look at that this morning but it is important and we’ll look at it another time. It is people who are being prepared to rule in the new creation one day.

The church is designed to take people in need of mending, repair and refitting and turn them into another kind of people – saints with a purpose. What is that purpose? How are we prepared for that purpose?

4.  So…we refit a particular kind of people for what? For works of service. We learn to rule by serving – not by ruling.

First, it is works – not periodic acts. Works comes from the same phase used in Ephesians 2:10 to describe God’s workmanship: poema. It doesn’t mean we are God’s poem as some have said. It’s not about poetry. It is about our having been created not just to do isolated acts of service – like ringing the bell at Christmas or serving dinner to the homeless at Thanksgiving – as good as those things are. It means we have been designed by God to live a particular life of ongoing service.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul writes that we are God’s workmanship (poema), created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Not only that, but the good works for which we were created have already been prepared (peripateo) for us to do. Literally, we have been created to be visible illustrations of the invisible God in the world through doing good works that fit us. Those good works are to be so natural to use that we “wear a path” by walking around in them. We love doing them. The more we do them the more we like doing them. In other words, our unique design for serving has already been matched by our unique assignment of good works. Look at all the opportunities in the booklet published by GABC in Find Your Place in the Body.

It is not grudgingly doing nice things for people. It is discovering the life of service doing the things that fit us. The things we are energized by doing anyway. Often the things for which we have received spiritual gifts. That doesn’t mean service is just what we choose it to be but it does mean we are not called to do everything.

5.  So…we are created for works for which we have been created and have been created for us. What does it mean to do works of service?

By that, Paul uses the word “diakonia”. Of course, this is where we get our word deacon. You remember it first appears in the early church when there were disputes about favoritism and the details of food distribution. “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6)

However, Paul is not using this as a description of an official church position reserved for a few. He is saying we are all “deacons” either in the church or in the community. The church is to prepare everyone to be a deacon – not just a few. In fact, in some ways we have reversed the meaning of the word by making it an elected office of a governing body. We work our way up to being a deacon and sometimes from the perspective of the staff the deacons are an obstacle they must get through or around. Organizations with a corporate mentality tend to turn deacons into officers of the corporation. I suspect the church was intended to always be in start-up mode with the deacons being servants and waiters. However, as the church grows they can become more like board members and being a deacon becomes a mark of prestige and reward.

6.  So…we are created for works of service (not fame or power or prestige) in order to do what? In order that we might be knit together and grow to maturity. In other words, preparation for works of service has a greater purpose – not just service. God’s intent is that we become witnesses by being diverse and yet unified.

I’ve talked before about our visit to see the redwoods in California. When you step into the middle of the circle of redwoods you will typically see a stump. It is from that single stump that the whole circle of redwoods grow. That single stump is the source of the whole system so the trees are identical internally but shaped differently on the outside. They share the same DNA so there is unity with diversity. Not only that but they share the same root system. The trees grow up to 300 feet in height and can weigh one million pounds but their roots are only three to six feet deep. They are able to withstand storms because their root systems are literally knit together. Again, Paul says we will be knit together into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. We are not simply assembled together into the same place or congregated together. We are not a crowd at an event or an ethnic group. We are knit together so that we might together in all our diversity – not separately or all looking the same even though we share the same DNA – grow into maturity. Paul doesn’t refer to knowledge of the Son of God as more Bible study. It’s a different word. It’s “epignosis” which means more than the accumulation of knowledge. It means a change of being – literally becoming new creatures and witnesses for Christ in the world.

Finally, we are not being prepared simply for personal holiness. We are not being prepared simply for service or for knowledge. We are being knit together – joined and held together by every supporting ligament and built up in love – as a body to be a witness together of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We each have a part in that witness but without the rest of the body there is no witness. We have talked so much of personal witnessing that we have lost the sense of the witness of the whole body of Christ in the world. And that is the goal – to play a part in the work of the whole.