Sermon 1581 - Ephesians 4:11-13 - 1st Message…..(Tue pm 10/7/97)

I. PERFECTING THE SAINTS

(Training Convention) There is a stairway of hearing, seeing, understanding with our Lover Heart, and doing with our will. We can hear, see, and even understand, but if we do not make a commitment with our will to do what is morally right, we will miss the New City.

At Jericho, Joshua and the Nation of Israel had a collective responsibility in connection with Achan’s sin of stealing the firstfruits that belonged to the LORD. This is why God let them be beaten at Ai.

God’s fourfold reason for giving Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers is revealed in Ephesians 4:11-13: I. Perfecting the Saints; II. Work of the Ministry; III. Edifying the Body of Christ; and IV. Unity of the Faith. This message focuses on the first point, the perfecting of the saints or the Holy ones. The perfecting of the saints is not the Gospel, and it is not just theoretical spiritual education. It is moral development or, in other words, doing what is morally right. Israel received the Moral Law before she had the Tabernacle and the Written Law. God gave the Moral Law in Exodus, chapter twenty. Then, in chapter twenty-one, He revealed our moral responsibility to do what is Right in His Sight and in the sight of man. This Revealed Right is the Unshatterable Foundation.