Title: To Build Up the Body of Christ
Contents
Ephesians 4:7-16
to build up the body of Christ
Grandpa Choi Won-gyun, the main character of the movie 'War Nangsori', which recorded the highest audience of 2.9 million in independent film history, refuses to use agricultural machinery such as tillers, shifters, and tractors, even though he is over 80 years old. . Hearing from the veterinarian that a 'career cow' can only live for about a year, Grandpa looks for a "dog cow" at the cattle market to buy a cow. “Are there any cattle?” “The beating cow? Not these days.” Even if you ask other people, you will only get an answer of “No!”. A ‘beaking cow’ is a ‘sweeping cow’ that can be plowed. In the old days, ‘Silso’ did all the farming work, but now it’s not easy to see ‘Silso’ because machines do it. So these days, it is almost exclusively ‘feeding cows’ that are raised to eat.
A cow can be a ‘beaking cow’ or a ‘feeding cow’ depending on the convenience of people, but a person can become a ‘bearing cow’ or a ‘feeding cow’ according to their own decisions. After this worship service today, our church holds an election to elect four ordained deacons and four priests through a congregational meeting. The officers are the workers of the church. The reason for selecting officers is to select workers. Today’s workers can become “feeding cows,” waiting for the day when the workers are fattened up like “feeding cows,” or they can become “sweeping cows” who work hard.
1. Jesus established the body of Christ, the church, on this earth.
Read verse 15 of the text. “But speaking the truth in love, you may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ.” Amen.
Jesus went to Caesarea Philippi with his disciples. An American missionary preached at a church in Pyongyang, saying, “Jesus went to Caesarea Philippi with his disciples.” After the sermon was over, a member of the church approached the missionary and said, “Missionary, if Jesus liked Caygo meat, would he have gone all the way to Philippi to buy Cai? Let's go eat Gaigogi, too." In the Pyeongan-do dialect, 'gai' is 'dog'. So, the phrase “he went to Caesarea Philippi” was understood as “he went to Philippi to buy a dog.”
Caesarea Philippi is a small town located southwest of Mount Hermon, 40 km north of the Sea of Galilee. Herod Philip II expanded the city and changed it to Caesarea Philippi, after the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus and Philippi after his own name. Most of the inhabitants of this place were Gentiles who worshiped idols. Jesus answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In the land of these idol worshipers, Jesus answered, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. and the powers of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The Greek word translated “church” here is “ekklesia”. It first appears in the Bible in Matthew 16:18. The Greek word ‘ekklesia’ refers to a congregation or community convened by a call of a messenger. However, in the New Testament, this ‘ekklesia’ came to mean ‘a community gathered by hearing and responding to the voice of the Lord’. ‘Ekklesia’ is not a community based on blood ties or delay, nor is it an association organized to achieve any human purpose. ‘Ethlesia’ is a community of salvation gathered by the ‘call of the Lord’. That is why the church is called the ‘body of Christ’, ‘the family of God’, ‘the people of God’, and the ‘community of the saved’. That's right. The church is the body of Christ united with Jesus Christ in response to God's call.
The resurrected Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit as he ascended into heaven. And as Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost. After the disciples experienced the Holy Spirit, they understood their community as the ‘body of Christ’. The church was established in history by the ascension of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the churches in each country and region, namely Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, the United States and Korea, and all the individual churches in Seoul and Chuncheon are all the same body with Jesus Christ as the head.
That is why verse 15 says, “In everything he will grow up, which is the head, which is Christ.” Every Christian should have Jesus Christ, the head of the church, as the goal of growth and the measure of growth. Jesus came to this earth to establish His body and His family, the Church. He was crucified to build the church. He sent the Holy Spirit to build the church. So, the church is in the heart of Jesus.
Who wouldn't want to live a life of faith in a well-equipped, loving, and well-equipped church? So, you will find a good church, an ideal church. But the ideal church never exists on this earth. However, there are churches that are trying to create an ideal church. The members of our Chuncheon Northern Church are also working hard to create an ideal church. Our church is not an ideal church, but it is a church that works together to become an ideal church. Because it is the body of Jesus, it is a church that strives to achieve the dream of Jesus. The church is the only institution that will make the dream of Jesus Christ come true. The church, the branch of heaven, is the body of Christ.
2. Jesus raised up workers to serve his body, the church.
Read verse 11 of the text. “He made some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.” Amen.
God has sent us an errand. “Running” is a term that refers to “doing something for someone else or by receiving a request.” The word 'errand' is a combination of the words 'sim' and 'call'. 'sim' is an old word for 'power' and 'call' means 'to do', which means 'to make another person work'. is a transformed word. 'Strength' is changed to 'work', and 'work' is changed to 'errand'.
God sent different errands to different people. We are all God's messengers. It's a worker. According to the ‘Korean Occupational Dictionary’, there are 12,306 jobs in Korea. An increasingly segmented and quirky profession is emerging Jobs such as a potter who carried a full load of pottery in a fork or truck, a chimney sweep with a gong, and a bus guide who shouted “Olai” disappeared, and futures traders, foreign exchange dealers, stockbrokers, webmasters, programmers, system consultants, and marketing Jobs like researcher and telemarketer have only recently emerged. Teenagers these days are very envious of jobs such as celebrities, professional athletes, and professional gamers.
It is Jesus who chose me. It is Jesus who saved me. It is Jesus who entrusted me with the mission. Just as Paul was not called to be great, perfect, or qualified, neither am I qualified to be called or assigned to an office. It's not that you've been given the ability to do something. It's just that he was considered faithful. The word 'considering' is a Greek word for 'considering' or 'thinking'.
3. Third, there is a purpose for which Jesus raised up workers.
Read verse 12 of the text. “This is to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ.” Amen.
The word 'this' refers to receiving what is described in verse 11, and it refers to the establishment of church workers. In other words, it means 'to set up workers'. Here Paul speaks of the three purposes for which the Lord raised up the workers of the church.
1) First, He raises workers to perfect the saints
The word ‘make perfect’ is the Greek word ‘cataltismos’, which is derived from the word ‘cataltizo’, which means ‘to make’, ‘repair’, ‘to fix’, and means ‘to prepare’. Those who do not have faith see God through us Christians who first believed. Therefore, if we live in the right faith, they see the living God through us, but if we do not show the right life of faith, they do not see God. Therefore, the worker must be an example of the believers and lead other believers into the right faith. We must prepare them to stand before the Lord on the last day.
In order to prepare them, we must set an example of worship life. We must set an example of a godly life. We must set the example of evangelism, giving, and serving. You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. We must abstain from fornication, uncleanness, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, envy, anger, strife, divisions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, and debauchery. love