SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND JESUS (Pt 2)
In this series of posts we have been unpacking Ephesians chapter 4 together and talking about the 5 major roles or spiritual gifts given to the church. Here it is again because it is such an important passage.
"7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it... 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 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." (ESV)
In our last post we talked about how God Himself fulfilled all of these roles. That's why the post was called the gifts and the giver, because the gifts show us what the giver is like and we begin to look like him and do what he does when we exercise those gifts. What is also equally important is that in Ephesians 4:7 it says that Jesus himself has given us these gifts! This is another main difference between this list of gifts and the lists of gifts given in Romans or Corinthians. Those are gifts of the Spirit, while these 5 gifts are said to be given directly to us from Jesus. Why is this so important? We see that
JESUS FULFILLED ALL 5 ROLES PERFECTLY
Neil Cole in his book Primal Fire did a great job of summarizing how Jesus showed us what each of these roles looked like as a perfect representative of his Father.
JESUS THE PERFECT APOSTLE: Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. HEBREWS 3:1
In the midst of His public life, Jesus was a busy man. He went from town to town, village to village, teaching, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every person He came across (Matthew 9:35). According to the historian Josephus, there were some three hundred cities or villages with populations of at least fifteen thousand in Judea, so the region as a whole had at least three million inhabitants. To put it in a modern context, this area had a larger population than every city in the United States except for New York and Los Angeles. The Bible tells us that Jesus healed every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. You can imagine how busy He was. Always on the move, always going to the next town and leaving changed lives in His wake. Jesus is the ultimate apostle...The role of the apostle is considered foundational to the advancement of the church, and Jesus is the Cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). Like Jesus, apostles are always looking to go to the next place. They start new things—and as Jesus is the creator of all that exists, you cannot be more apostolic than that. Jesus is the instigator of a global movement, His church. In every way, Jesus is the best example of what it means to be apostolic."
JESUS THE PERFECT PROPHET: The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee."Matthew 21:11
"A prophet is one who proclaims the message of God to a person or people. The Old Testament declared the coming of a prophet who would fulfill all that was foretold and also tell of more that is to come. Jesus is that prophet. As a prophet, Jesus spoke the truth without regard for the consequences. He had a cutting edge to His words that could heal or judge, depending on how it was received. Like many of the Old Testament prophets, Jesus condemned entire cities for their ungodly response (Matthew 11:20-21)... He knew exactly what people needed to hear in order to be healed and made whole... His passion for purity in the things of God was demonstrated both when He cleared the Temple of merchants and money changers (Luke 19:45-46)... He foretold the future, but He also spoke truth into the here and now...Jesus also spoke harsh truth to the religious leaders of His day. He saw hypocrisy, injustice, and greed and would not let any pass without a bold word. In every sense of the role, Jesus was a prophet."
JESUS THE PERFECT EVANGELIST: The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD.LUKE 4:18-21
An evangelist is one who has an overwhelming concern for those who are without salvation. Jesus was open and available to the ten lepers, though only one proved ready for more than physical healing. In His encounter with the rich young ruler, Jesus demonstrates how an evangelist uses spiritual intuition to see past a person’s words, actions, or personality to the underlying truth. While surrounded by children (and probably mothers), He took advantage of an opportunity to tell the people, in an effective and creative fashion, how to enter the Kingdom of God. He showed tenacity in reaching others against the advice and pressure of His peers when He healed Bartimaeus, the blind beggar on the side of the road. Jesus’ winsome and unpredictable personality took center stage when He called Zaccheus out of the tree and into the Kingdom of God. In all these ways, Jesus demonstrates a heightened evangelistic impulse that is spiritual in nature. He is the pinnacle of evangelistic gifting, and the best example for us to follow.
JESUS THE PERFECT SHEPHERD: I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. JOHN 10:11
"Always looking to strengthen people and draw out what is needed for their healing and growth, Jesus, the shepherd, touched the hearts of all He met. In the account of the woman caught in adultery, He cared about the ones with the stones as well as the one who was the target. He was able to defuse the problem without taking sides—by taking both sides! He didn’t attack one or the other. Jesus is the Great Shepherd (1 Peter 2:25; 5:4). He calls to the sheep, and they hear His voice and follow Him. He goes after the lost sheep and lovingly brings them back into the fold. He sees value in those who are deemed less valuable by others, and draws out their value for others to see. He forms an exceptional team and is sensitive to the unity on that team. He recognizes a wolf when it comes among the sheep and protects the flock from it. He even loved His enemies and prayed for those who persecuted Him. In the end, He laid down His life for His sheep. Jesus is the ultimate shepherd, the example to us all."
JESUS THE PERFECT TEACHER: You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. JOHN 13:13-15
At the start of Jesus’ ministry, He selected a few followers to teach and train in the new Kingdom life. He started with two sets of brothers: Simon and Andrew, and James and John. These and the other eight disciples lived with Jesus, followed His every move, and listened to His every word. They may not have understood His every word, but they heard it. Shortly afterward, with a multitude wanting to learn from Him, Jesus sat down on a hillside, taking the posture of a teacher in His day. The crowds, seeing that He was about to teach, gathered to hear what He had to say. In only a few minutes, Jesus presented a message so profound that people have been trying to understand it and apply it for two thousand years and have yet to plumb its depths. We often refer to it as the Sermon on the Mount, but it could just as easily be called a Sermon for the Ages. As a teacher myself, I marvel at how Jesus was able to weave truth into such a concise message... But this sermon was not the complete expression of His teaching gift. He also mentored His disciples daily, both relationally and experientially. He trained them on the job, in a hands-on, real-time fashion...Jesus’ teaching left people with either a hunger for God’s Word or disdain for it. He taught in parables and used analogies that sometimes weeded out people who were not ready for the message. He often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” He didn’t feel the need to include everyone, and certainly would never compromise His message to incorporate more people.
The point of this post is not to articulate all the ways that Jesus showed us perfectly each role. There are two big ideas here.
JESUS IS THE PERFECT EARTHLY PICTURE OF WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE TO SERVE GOD. Jesus gives us a real practical picture of each role. He shows that each part is crucial to the mission of God. He was sent as an apostle and he went from town to town, city to city and started a movement. He spoke prophetically, and called people to holiness and to abundant life. He spoke up for the hurting and spoke out about sin. He was and evangelist who through his compelling life and words invited others into the kingdom of God. He was a shepherd who loved all and sought to bring people together and to bring out their best. He comforted and challenged. He was the ultimate teacher who both made God's will understandable, but also helped them apply it.
IF THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST, THEN TO DO THE WORK JESUS DID, WE MUST EACH FULFILL OUR ROLES EFFECTIVELY TOGETHER. Please do not take that last phrase lightly. The church is said to be the body of Christ. Just as Christ fulfilled all of these roles in order to honor the Father and to do the work he came to do, it meant fulfilling each of these roles. When Jesus ascended into heaven, his work is to continue. We are to do the work of Jesus the same way he did. For us to do that effectively, the church must use all 5 of these gifts. None of us can individually do them all, but Jesus never intended us to. He put us together so that we all could bring our own unique ability to fulfill our role with others who have different roles. Only together can we do the work of Jesus the way Jesus did it!
By this point, my hope is to illustrate that when we seek to learn to serve God, it's not simply about finding out what we're good at. It's about seeing the God himself acts in all of these ways, he then sent his son who perfectly fulfilled these roles and showed us how to serve like him. Finally, when we as the church embrace identifying our role and serve with others who fulfill different roles will be able to accomplish the mission of Jesus Christ that he has left for us here on earth.
Before we jump into each individual role, I have one more post that addresses the difference between natural gifts and spiritual gifts.
