PT-1 "Equipping" (Eph. 4:12)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2019 1:27 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 “Equipping”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                             Reference:  Eph. 4:12

 

            Message of the verse:  “12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD as we looked at the introduction to what John MacArthur entitles “Building the Body of Christ” which covers Ephesians 4:12-16, that we would be looking at three different main point and that there would be different sub-points under these three main points.  We begin today with the main point entitled “The Progression of God’s Pattern,” and will be looking at the first comments on the sub-point “Equipping.”  MacArthur writes “In the simplest possible terms Paul here sets forth God’s progressive plan for His church:  equipping to service to building up.”  Here you have the three sub-points that we will be looking at under this first main point.

 

            In our last SD’s before looking directly at the explanation of the pastor-teacher we looked at the fact that Christ was the One who gave gifts to the church, and mentioned that the first gift that He gave was the apostles along with the prophets who worked along with the apostles.  We also mentioned that once those apostles and prophets died that this gift would not be replaced by anyone under that same category of gifts.  In other words there are no more apostles or prophets alive today and have not been since the last one, the apostle John died in the late 90’s AD.  The apostles were the ones that Jesus Christ taught as they walked with Him after He chose them at the beginning of His ministry, and He chose them to actually build the church.  Really there is no need to mention that Judas was not a believer and therefore had nothing to do with the building of the church since he killed himself right after the crucifixion of Christ.  One of the duties of these Apostles and prophets was to begin different church plants, and then once these churches were established they went into the church to choose leaders called as we looked at in our last SD’s Elders, Pastor-teachers, Bishops, and even deacons to aid the pastor-teachers.  This is how the church was to continue to grow as the Apostles began the churches with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and then chose spiritual leaders to take over the work, and then they would do the same thing as like in the case of the Antioch church, send out missionaries to continue to plant and grow churches so that they could do the same. 

 

            Last week at the church that I attend our Pastor was not preaching and so we had another man who is a Pastor but works at a mission agency preach, and what he talked about has a lot to do with what we are learning here in this section of Ephesians 4:12-16.  He began his sermon by reading from the gospel of Matthew 9:35-10:2 and then later on brought in a few verses from the 4^th chapter of John.  He entitled his message “Just Ask” and I will talk about this title in a moment.  One of the things that he talked about was the “Moravian Church,” and he asked if anyone had ever heard of this church.  Only a few had, and I was not one of them.  He went into the history of this church and later stated that there would probably be no one in attendance in our service today had it not been for the Moravian church.  This church was persecuted very early on and had to move to what is now modern day Germany.   Early on in the church’s history they began to choose 24 men and 24 women to pray around the clock that the Lord of the Harvest would send out laborers.  This went on for one hundred years, and God answered their prayers in a wonderful way.  You see when we look at this passage from Matthew and then John we see something that I had not seen before, and that is we are to “Just Ask,” just ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the fields that, as Jesus stated, were white with harvest. 

 

            I will include a website here in order for anyone who wants to read about the history of the Moravian Church https://www.moravian.org/2018/07/a-brief-history-of-the-moravian-church/

 

            When we just ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers He will do that as seen in this history of this wonderful church.

 

            We will continue looking at Ephesians 4:12 in our next SD.

 

Scripture that goes along with our quotation from yesterday:  Psalm 139:10 “Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.”

 

3/30/2019 2:07 PM