You're the Body of Christ [Part 3]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. What the process of growth looks like is that you're growing into the headship of Jesus. What does this mean? It means that you're becoming more and more every, you're already positionally aligned in unity with Christ forever. But what's happening is your soul, everything about you, the way you think, all your understandings are becoming more and more aligned with the headship of Jesus Christ.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Ephesians as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org.

That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. The resurrection power of God, the very person of the Holy Spirit is within you, pulsating the life of God inside each and every one of us. I mean, this is so incredible. It's why I love church. I love church.

Look at the world out there that is denigrating church and thinks, you know, avoid church and hates all religious institutions and all that. Don't even understand the mystical, supernatural, glorious revelation of who we are as the body of Christ is the most beautiful thing imaginable. Wow. And it's worth protecting. It's worth protecting. It's worth protecting.

That's what Paul saying. Bear with one another in gentleness. Why? Because if you don't learn to bear with somebody, you're not going to ever have unity with them. Come on. Learn to bear with people, right?

You want to stay married? Learn to bear with your mate, you know? Okay. Yeah, right. I don't particularly like that particular thing. Yeah, but I bear, I bear with, I bear up under that. That's fine.

That's fine. You, you, you're going to stay in any kind of relationship. You'll learn to bear with one another.

Right? That's what he's saying. But he's also saying, he's saying, take pains to keep this unity. I feel strongly about this. There's always been something in me, you know? I mean, I can be very mild mannered, you know, and very presbyterian, but, but man, something threatens unity. I mean, this goes back deep with me. This goes back to a kid from a broken family and who knows the pain of when, when, when, when strife comes and all of that.

And so, man, I feel like, you know, as a shepherd, I don't want to be a protector of that. When I was, when I was just in high school, I've probably told this story years ago, but when I was in high school, I was, I was on tennis team and my senior year, the coach of the tennis team was also a basketball coach. And our basketball team was, was in the playoffs and, and, and went on to win the state championship.

So tennis overlapped with the basketball season. And so the coach couldn't be at the very first few couple weeks of practices. So he asked me if I would sort of be in charge. And he said, you know, I would sort of be in charge. He said, Alan, he said, how about you, you get, you get people divided up and who they practice with. And I even like for you to run some sprints with them and just make sure everybody's got tennis balls and, and you know, and I'll be checking in with you. And so I said, well, that'd be sure.

I'll be glad to do that coach. And, and so somewhere in about the third day of, of, of practice, uh, uh, one of, uh, one of our best players, he was just, he just was a bully. I mean, he just was, Hey, this had a worse attitude and I already didn't like the guy. And, um, and I was down on court number one and I looked down there on court number three and all I saw, I didn't, you know, this is my problem was I didn't see everything. I just saw the end result, but I saw this bully of a guy take a ball and just hit it as hard as he could, not during a point, just telling us after the point it as hard as he could in a little freshmen that I didn't know what was going on, but I'd had it. I had just absolutely had it.

I saw that. And I just, I ran down across three courts. I went down there and I got in this guy's about twice my size and I got in his face and I said, I've had it with you. I said, we don't need that kind of behavior on this team. I said, get out of here. You're off the team.

And this guy, what are you talking about? He went over and he picked up his rackets slumped off the court. And I walked back down the rest of the team's like, what have I done? And at night I was sitting there with my family having dinner and the phone rang and I answered the phone and he said, is this coach right? I said, yeah, is coach Brown? He said, yeah. He said, so how was practice today? I said, you heard, didn't you? He said, yeah. He said, you know, when I asked you to get people assigned to their courts and give them some tennis balls and maybe run some sprints, I wasn't inviting you to kick off one of our best players off the team. And I said, I'm sorry, coach.

I just, but I, I, I, uh, he did eventually get kicked off the team. But anyway, I've just said, there's always been something that's, I mean, I think Paul is like, Paul is like this, like the unity is so important, right? I always felt this way in our home.

I felt this way in our home. It's like, well, isn't lots of lots of room and freedom for you to try and fail. Lots of room for that.

Lots of room for uniqueness and creativity of who you are as an individual, as a child, lots of room for that. Lots and lots of grace, lots and lots of yeses. Yes. You want to try that? Yes, yes, yes, yes. But you introduce strife. You try to tear down another person in the family.

No. But then he goes on to speak about diversity. These next verses that he speaks of, oh, they're so exquisite. Verse seven, grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. Marcus Bart and his comment, commentary on this has retranslated this to say it this way, that the gift of the Messiah is the measure.

Cause I think what Paul is saying here is similar to what he says in Romans eight, verse 32, when he says, if God did not spare his only son, how much more will he give all good things to us? In other words, when he says, but his grace for seven was given to each of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. I think what Paul means is you want to understand the kind of grace that you've been given. You have been given grace that is in accord with the lavish nature of the gift of God to you in Christ Jesus.

In other words, since God gave you Christ to die for you in your place and to become the penalty in your place and to become the curse in your place, that you can count on this, that this God who's already given his all to you is going to bestow upon you wondrous gifts. The word grace is the word chorus. One of the most beautiful words in any ancient language chorus, which finds no real translation, except we just call it grace. And so the grace is, or the chorus Mata. So therefore every Christian is charismatic.

Every Christian has chorus and every Christian has chorus. Mata has gifts. God gives gifts. And these gifts are, are diverse, diverse as is the body of Christ. And every one of the gifts is essential. Paul says here, and in first Corinthians, like in the body, the hand can't say the foot. I don't need you.

That's ridiculous. Then the gifts are absolutely essential. And one of the things therefore that's really important is to have a growing understanding of your gifts and to ask the Lord for the stirring of those gifts and the increase of those gifts and to use your gifts because gifts, grace only makes sense as it is flowing. That's, that's what, that's the way God works with us. He gives, and he is delighted to do that. And all of life, all of life and all of joy in the end is more blessed as you give. I wish I had time to talk about this, but the fact of the matter is that when are people at their happiest when they're giving? Do you know the mother?

There have been studies showing when a mother simply nurses her baby, there's an actual, uh, uh, hormone response in the mother. She's happy. She there's, there is, there is, as you feed your baby, you're it.

You're overjoyed. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. How you see yourself determines how you live. In an 11 message series, Pastor Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling journey through the letter to the Ephesians. It'll flood your soul with good news and empower you to discover who you are in Christ. When you make your donation to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll not only send you the digital downloads of the entire transformational Ephesians series, but we'll also send you a printable copy of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries.

Now these are the final days. This offer is being made available to you this month. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. When you have a gift and you use your gift, you serve with that gift, you experience joy. Why? Because this is the way God made you. It's the way he made you. It's more blessed to give than it is received.

This is the way he made you. So what is being described here is a diversity within a unity and both are equally important. Tim Keller has a great illustration of the diversity of gifts. He said that when he first pastored, his first pastorate, he's a young man and he went as a pastor in his first week there. Of course, he had noticed that not far, literally almost across the street, there was a kind of a poor neighborhood. It was a trailer park community that was quite impoverished. And here he'd come to pastor's Presbyterian church.

It was so close by. And the first week that he was there, a man came by his office and said, Pastor Keller, welcome. And they sat down and talked. And he said, listen, they said, I'm going to tell you from my perspective, the problem with this church, the problem is that we've got right across the street, people that are lost and are going to hell without Jesus. And we don't have any evangelistic outreach and we're not doing anything about it.

And we're not sharing the gospel with them. And they're right across the street. And, and Keller said, okay, well, thank you.

Thank you. He said, literally, he said, next day, somebody dropped by his office and Patrick said, welcome. He said, let me tell you what the problem is at this church.

The problem is you see there's a trailer park across the street and there are elderly people there, and there are poor people there, and there are children that are hungry that are there. And this church is not doing anything to go over there by way of social outreach to them, providing food and ministries and caring for their needs. And I really believe if we would get over there and we would care for these people, then God's going to bless this church. And he said, okay, thank you very much. And he said, no lie.

He said the third day he was there. Another person came by and said, pastor said, I'm so glad you're here. He said, but you know what the problem is in this church? And by this time, 10 Keller's going, I don't know, but I'm sure it has to do with something about that trailer park across the street.

And the man said, it has to do with the fact that you see, you notice we've got this neighborhood across the street here. He said, and we've tried to do some evangelism and we've tried to do some social outreach, but it never works because we've never had any good organization to it. It's never been well-administrated. So everything we try just falls apart.

The problem of this church is that we're not implementing things by a wise implementation of an administrative body that's overseeing it. Now, what did that illustrate? Did it illustrate that one person was right and other people were wrong?

No. And what Keller realized, he said, they're all a little bit right. It's just that the first person that came in was an evangelist. The next person that came in was a person gifted with mercy and compassion. And the third person came in was a leader and an administrator. And you tend to look at the world through your gift.

So what you tend to see things. So what this means, oh, what this means is you got to have all three of those people in the same room. You got to have those three people who at first blush might feel like they just disagree with each other. You got to have them in unity in the spirit and the bond of peace, bearing with one another and looking to say, I have some blind spots because I have particular gifts and particular kind of calling. And I need to hear from you because I might have fervor to do the evangelism and not have any fervor for an organizational process to do. And you might have further for the organization. And it's going to be essential if we're going to implement our evangelism or our social outreach.

You see I'm saying so the unity is essential, but the diversity is essential. And Paul says he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers. I don't have time to talk about this much, except to say that this is not referring to apostles in the sense of apostle man, eyewitness of Christ Jesus who had authority to write scripture. But speaking of roles, there are gifts of God. Notice what he says is he gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers. This is God's gift to serve. And the point of having leaders in the body of Christ is not so that they do the ministry, but so that the body of Christ, every single member of which is gifted is equipped, released, supported, and enabled to do the things that God has called them to do. That's God's plan for the flourishing of the kingdom of God on earth. And all of this leads to maturity.

Because in the end, what Paul says everywhere in his writing is that though you may be extremely gifted, if you are extremely gifted, but you're not growing up in maturity of character, then you don't have anything. In other words, here's the process. Take pains to maintain the unity, which means that sometimes you gotta have difficult conversations. Sometimes you gotta bear with one another, even when you feel like you're in disagreement over something.

Sometimes you have to confront something in love, but you gotta be together if you're ever gonna get the value of the diversity. But the unity and the diversity of the body of Christ is all designed so that there's a process that you grow up and you're no longer like little children. And you're not tossed about by just the waves of the culture and little deceptions that come along.

And so it is that you grow up. Now, just to jump to something that's absolutely, I think, beautiful about this, is that when you get here to verse 13, until we attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, here again, I think Marcus Barthes' translation of this is so helpful. Because what he translates to say is verse 14, no longer, here's his translation, no longer are we to be babes tossed by waves and world about by every doctrinal gust and caught in the trickery of men who are experts in deceitful scheming. Rather, verse 15, by speaking the truth in love, we shall grow in every way toward him who is the head, the Messiah. He is at work.

He is at work fitting and joining the whole body together. He presides sustenance to it through every contact, according to the needs of each single part. He says earlier in this, that he argues, Marcus Barthes argues in verse 13, that the translation really should be till we all come to meet the unifying faith and knowledge of the Son of God, the perfect man, the perfection of the Messiah, who is the standard of manhood.

Why is this important? Because what I think Paul is not saying is that you need to grow into maturity of being the perfect man. Instead, what he's saying is that you are growing into the perfect man, Jesus Christ. What he's saying is that you are growing up what maturity looks like for those that are in the body of Christ, where there's unity and diversity, what the process of growth looks like is that you're growing into the headship of Jesus.

What does this mean? It means that you're becoming more and more, you're already positionally aligned in unity with Christ forever, but what's happening is your soul, everything about you, the way you think, all your understandings are becoming more and more aligned with the headship of Jesus Christ. In other words, growth as a Christian means if you're part of the body of Christ, that the life of Christ more freely flows in you, directing you every single step of the way. What it means is that you are growing into what God has designed you to be, and it's not something that's independent from Christ. It is together with Christ. It is joined with Christ, is growing into Christ, is growing up in Christ. It is therefore every gift in the body of Christ, even if it seems so rudimentary when joined in to the very headship of Christ is absolutely glorious. So you can't despise days of small beginnings, it is why you can't despise your gift if you think your gift is small.

God gave you that gift, and he is inviting you to be growing up in him. There was a mother, the story is told, who was wishing to encourage her young son and his progress at the piano, and so she years ago bought tickets for a performance by Ignacy Pareski, a great Polish concert pianist. And the night came, and they dimmed the lights in the concert hall, and the mother got caught up in a little conversation with a friend next to her and didn't realize her young son had slipped away. And for a moment she looked around frantically, and then everybody was sort of stunned because they realized that there at the great Steinway piano on stage was a little boy that was sitting down and he started playing with one finger, twinkle, twinkle, little star. And the great Ignacy Pareski entered the stage, and everybody was expecting to shoo the little boy away, but instead he stepped around behind him and whispered in his ear, don't stop, keep playing. And Pareski brought in his left hand and brought in a bass line.

He started playing with the twinkle, twinkle, and then his right hand with some amazing obbligato that started playing along with him while the boy just kept playing, and what happened was absolutely mesmerizing to all. Don't stop, keep playing, because you are growing up in Christ, Jesus, who is your head. He is the head, and you are the body of Christ, and that's the gospel. Alan Wright, and in today's teaching you're the body of Christ.

It's from the series on Ephesians, and Alan is in the studio and back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Now, these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860, or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. I'm thinking back to an earlier message where we talked about being an orphan and having that orphan mentality.

Maybe that's been someone listening right now and an issue going on. And now that you're a part of the family of God, there really is a great sense of family that's here. You're a part of the family. You are so connected that there's no other image that fits except to say you're part of the body.

I just want to encourage our listeners, just think about it. Just meditate upon that you are part of the body. You might have been rejected by a number of people in your life.

You might be going through a very difficult season right now where someone is turning away from you or someone is not accepting you. But here's who you are in Christ. You are part of the body of Jesus Christ. And as you meditate on it and you think on this, allow the Holy Spirit to remind you and show you that you have gifts to share. And in that sense, you're making an eternal difference even if you can't see it right now. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.