Text: Ephesians 4:1-16
Focus: Lighting a candle
Function: To remind the Church to keep focused on Christ instead of arguing.
Form: Topical Bible Study
Intro:
This passage ends with the statement that it is Paul’s goal to keep the congregations from being tossed about by doctrinal fads so that the Christian Church can be unified and effective. He wants people focused on Jesus.
So, (SHOW) The passage starts out with the appeal to unity, focused on the fact that Jesus is one.
The Spiritual warfare in this passage is about how Satan distracts us from our unity in Jesus Christ.
He tells us that the Lord equips the Church to do its spiritual warfare.
Verse 8: (SHOW) The psalmist tells about this, for he says that when Christ returned triumphantly to heaven after his resurrection and victory over Satan, he gave generous gifts to men.
Paul is referring to the actual spiritual battle that Jesus was involved in. He died on the cross and went down into Hades and led out a whole host of captives. Colossians 2:14 and 15 talk about the same thing, that after Jesus died on the cross, he went down into Hell itself and disarmed the Satanic powers in order to set us free from sin and its threat to keep us from God.
And then, for those of us left on earth, He gave Spiritual gifts to us.
(SHOW) Spiritual gifts are part of the weapons that we use for spiritual warfare.
They are broken up into two categories:
Gifts for everyone, and gifts of people for the good of the Church.
Everyone has a job to do, everyone has a task, everyone is called to be engaged in this battle.
But then, in order to make it work better, He gives gifts of people to the Church. They are Apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor/teacher.
Their job is to equip and nurture the Church. Their job is to build the Church by bringing in new people to the Kingdom. Their job is to help the church understand. And their job is to administrate the Church.
Apostles were the leaders who organized the Churches and call the prophets, evangelists and pastor/teachers into their positions.
Evangelists are gifted at bringing people to Jesus. Prophets speak to the issues of the day on behalf of the Church and help encourage the church to stay focused. When the Church loses its focus, they call her back.
Pastor/teachers help the body of Christ understand the mysteries. That is why the preaching is central in our Churches. But they also care for the people. The term pastor comes from the idea of pasture, they are here to nurture and feed the flock.
The job of all those people that God gave to the Church is to keep her focused and in unity.
Christian unity happens when we quit being tossed back and forth by ideas.
Satan knows how to distract that church. He gets the church fighting about doctrine so that we miss the important things.
We are here to shine a light in the darkness, not curse it.
So, the Devil wants to keep us arguing here on this planet, as long as we are doing that, we are not focusing on Christ.
If we are arguing, we are not forgiving.
Let me open the connection, then between forgiveness and spiritual warfare:
(SHOW) 2 Corinthians 2:10-11 When you forgive anyone, I do too. And whatever I have forgiven (to the extent that this affected me too) has been by Christ's authority, and for your good. A further reason for forgiveness is to keep from being outsmarted by Satan, for we know what he is trying to do.
In the King James it says, “we are not ignorant of his devices…” In the NASB it says: “we are not ignorant of his schemes…” In the NRSV it says: “We are not ignorant of his designs” in The Message it says: “we are not oblivious to his sly ways.”
We want to keep from being outsmarted by Satan.
Look again at the reference, Brother Paul says: “I am glad you forgave this man who offended you; I will too, if I don’t then I will be playing right into Satan’s hand. I will fall into his scheme.”
Here are two of the things the Bible says Satan does: 1). He is the destroyer. He destroys through lies and stirring up strife. 2).He is the one who accuses the saints.
When we walk in unforgiveness, or when we are accusing another person, we are playing right into Satan’s hand.
So, the apostle, the leader of the whole Church said: “I am using my Christian authority to forgive this man.”
Those are mysterious words. Look at (SHOW) John 20:22-23: Then he breathed on them and told them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven."
This authority he is talking about is genuine and real. It is real spiritual power. And the abuse of that power, our lack of forgiveness, is one of Satan’s common schemes.
I told everyone that I was doing a series on Spiritual warfare out of Ephesians.
Someone asked me, “when are you going to tell us how to confront the devil? How do we discern demonic activity? Can you give us instruction in knowing when we should rebuke the Devil or just pray? When is it time for prayer and fasting?”
There aren’t formulas, tricks or special prayers for Spiritual warfare.
Paul said that part of the fight is overcoming ignorance about the Devil’s schemes.
The Devil: He sows confusion. He sows strife among good-hearted people. He accuses imperfect people of their imperfections and tries to destroy their hope through shame. He stirs up righteous anger against people.
Think about it this way. How did Satan convince the mob that only one week before Jesus’ crucifixion was shouting out: “Hosanna! Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord?”
Satan killed Jesus through righteous indignation. You know the story. Jesus was a healer. That was part of His job. So they put a man before Him who needed healing on the Sabbath day. Jesus healed him and then they stirred up the crowd against Him because He had such “poor regard for the Mosaic law.”
Satan’s scheme worked, and this man/God, Jesus, who was wildly popular on one day, was hated by the same group just one week later.
So how do we prevent falling into that problem?
Verse 14 of our text helps us understand what a good, loving, experienced, kind and gentle pastor and leader is supposed to do: Keep people from being tossed around by winds of doctrine.
Here is why:
(SHOW) If we want to be effective in Spiritual warfare, then we need to fight the battles the Lord wants us to fight, not the battles that are made popular by the cultural wars going on around us.
You see, throughout history, unscrupulous people have sought to get others riled up about some sort of cause in order to gain power, wealth or influence.
I love the Music Man musical. He gets the town riled up to action by contrasting the difference between the game of billiards and the game of pool. TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY!
If we want to be effective in spiritual warfare, then let us keep the main thing the main thing.
Look at this scripture verse: (SHOW) Proverbs 18:17 The first speech in a court case is always convincing— until the cross-examination starts!
One of my favorite pieces of English Literature is the Play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare:
• Brutus and his friends murder Caesar and they give a speech to justify their actions. The crowd is all in favor of what they have done.
• And then Julius Caesar’s friend stands up at his funeral and changes the emotional tide of the mob. You have probably heard the opening of the speech: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears!”
• And the speech is actually quite humorous as he uses satire to ridicule Brutus’ motives. He keeps repeating the phrase: “Brutus says Caesar was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man.”
• About the 4th time he says: “And Brutus is an honorable man” after telling of something dishonorable that Brutus did, the crowd begins to get it and they are swayed back into condemning Brutus for murdering Caesar.
I remember studying that speech in High School and coming to the conclusion that sometimes, a mob mentality can easily be manipulated, or as our passage of scripture says: “tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine.”
So, the passage says, a healthy pastor, a truly spiritual leader will never exploit the emotions of the crowd, but will gently guide them into the truth, keeping them focused on Jesus Christ.
Satan sometimes abides in that passion, in that anger.
(SHOW) A healthy church will keep the main thing the main thing.
It is interesting, Paul refers to the schemes (plural) of Satan. The obvious one is unforgiveness and so-called “righteous indignation.”
But another scheme comes out as well. And that scheme is getting distracted from the main thing by minor things.
That distraction was tearing their church apart. They were offended by someone’s sin.
Now, to be fair the issue that they were forgiving this man for was pretty serious. I think it was more serious than Jesus healing on the Sabbath. We can read about it 1 Corinthian 5. Paul had taught the Corinthian Church that we were free from the law except to Love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.
Freedom meant just that and all of a sudden it became an “anything goes” mentality. That mentality resulted in a man sleeping with his father’s wife. Not only was it adultery, it was incest! And Paul is indignant about that. He tells them even the worse pagan cults know that it is wrong. So, he tells the church to discipline the man by stopping to pray him.
Now here is an interesting thing about spiritual warfare. When they stopped praying for him, he was physically vulnerable to the Devil with the hope that his body would die before he lost his salvation.
Their goal was to save the man’s soul. Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
Now instead of dying, the man repents from his sin; he comes back to Christ and asks the church to receive him back. And the whole passage there in 2 Corinthians is the Church going out of their way to let the man know he is forgiven.
So, part of our spiritual warfare is praying for the protection of God upon one another.
Joining a church means that we are in that covenant to care for each other.
Look, the whole goal of the Church discipline was not to feel good about how good they were or how they took a stand for God. The goal of the discipline was for the welfare of the man. It was to preserve his soul for eternity.
Paul wants them to keep the main thing the main thing.
Now, all of that leads to something I want to talk about personally.
I want to spend some family time as a Church together discussing a sad dilemma that threatens to tear our denomination apart.
At Annual Conference, they voted to question whether or not we would still be governed by our paper on human sexuality.
Our paper on human sexuality states “Covenantal relationships between homosexual persons is an additional lifestyle option but, in the church's search for a Christian understanding of human sexuality, this alternative is not acceptable.”
My experience is that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. We need Jesus to save us. Our freedom comes in our relationship to Christ. Repentance is a work of the Holy Spirit.
The fact that we are fighting over this issue means we have already fallen victim to the schemes of Satan.
We have lost sight of the main thing and people have gotten all upset about different winds of doctrine.
The debate going on over homosexuality is a cultural argument, when we get involved; we are being caught up in winds of doctrine.
Moral issues throughout the ages have been cyclical. Police used to stand guard over the steam vents in Times Square, New York City to stop men from ogling women’s ankles when the heat from the draft lifted their dresses up.
Moral behavior goes in cycles. It always has and to focus on this issue drains our energy from preaching the good news.
The main thing isn’t sexuality. The main thing is the atonement. Did Jesus die on the cross to save us from sin, or did He die to make an example to us about living sacrificially for others?
Well, it was both, but some would say it was just the later. He was merely giving us an example.
I went to the microphone at Conference with a speech about “let’s stop fighting and get back to the main thing.”
One man told me: “Phil, I really appreciated your speech at the microphone.”
He said, “I appreciated your speech, but you have to understand that I believe that there is no such thing as sin.”
Now we are at the main thing. This now deals with an issue worth discussing. That statement deals with Jesus work on the cross which is the main thing.
Jesus worked both for God and for Man.
When Jesus worked on behalf of God, He did show us an example of self-sacrifice and love. That man and I agree on that point.
But Jesus also worked on behalf of man. And when He did that, He became the sacrifice, the substitution for our sins and purchased for us the privilege of being restored to a relationship with God.
To deny that truth is to deny the main thing.
But we are all human. We are all susceptible to the danger of being tossed about by whatever philosophical, theological or religious fad is currently shaping the mindset of people.
God is calling us to keep the main thing the main thing and focus on the person and work of Christ.
So, this battle is heating up, and unfortunately, I am in the middle of it.
Now don’t be upset with me. I am not going to pick one side or another in this battle over sexuality. Don’t be upset, but pray for me.
There are people who will accuse me of things with those clichés that are intended to distract people from the main thing, the clichés that incite people to different winds of doctrine. Things like: “He’s sittin’ on the fence.” Or: “The man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”
Listen, neither of those clichés is found in the bible. What is found in the bible is “you are neither hot nor cold, so because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out.”
I am going to be hot about the main thing.
I am afraid that I will make enemies of both sides. But I am going remind the church of Jesus’ mission, to seek and save the lost.
I don’t want us caught up in the winds of doctrine that are shaping the passions of our culture. They are being used by political powers to gain influence. I want us to keep the unity of the faith by keeping our minds focused on Jesus.
Pray that I can be effective in this on a congregational level, a district level and a national level because many people are looking to me for leadership.
(SHOW) I want to remind them, and you of my trial sermon here. We are not called to curse the darkness, but to light a candle.
And believe me, it is spiritual warfare. Satan’s scheme is to distract us from preaching Jesus. If the Church is going to survive, we need to keep on loving, forgiving and lifting up Jesus!
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