This Sunday Ryan will return to his series through the Psalms, Pour Out Your Heart to Him, with the first of three sermons from what are sometimes called, “Creation Psalms.” This kind of psalm draws on the colors, sounds, things, and realities of creation to show us the beauty, majesty, sovereignty, and saving power of the Creator.

For example, consider how Psalm 96 calls on all of creation to praise God, showing the breadth of God’s sovereign and gracious rule:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord,
for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.

To help you prepare ahead of each Sunday, here are the texts for the next three weeks:

• September 9: Psalm 96
• September 16: Psalm 97-98
• September 23: Psalm 104

Everyone lives in God’s world, and everything God made points to him. But we need divine revelation to overcome the hardness of our heart toward the Creator revealed in creation. With that in mind, this would be a great time to invite a friend to join you at church. May God do a great work to glorify him in our church and in the lives of those we bring, to show himself great as Creator, and as Redeemer!

For a refresher on the nature and purpose of the Book of Psalms, here’s an excerpt from the “Introduction to the Psalms” by Jack Collins from the ESV Study Bible.

The Psalter is the songbook of the people of God in their gathered worship.

These songs cover a wide range of experiences and emotions, and give God’s people the words to express these emotions and to bring these experiences before God.

At the same time, the psalms do not simply express emotions: when sung in faith, they actually shape the emotions of the godly. The emotions are therefore not a problem to be solved but are part of the raw material of now-fallen humanity that can be shaped to good and noble ends. The psalms, as songs, act deeply on the emotions, for the good of God’s people. It is not “natural” to trust God in hardship, and yet the Psalms provide a way of doing just that, and enable the singers to trust better as a result of singing them. A person staring at the night sky might not know quite what to do with the mixed fear and wonder he finds in himself, and singing Psalm 8 will enrich his ability to respond.

The Psalms also provide guidance in the approach to worship: at times they offer content that is difficult to digest, calling on God’s people to use their minds as well as their hearts and voices.

They show profound respect for God as well as uninhibited delight in him.

They enable the whole congregation to take upon themselves, to own, the troubles and victories of the individual members, so that everyone can “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).

They enable God’s people more fully to enjoy being under his care, and to want more keenly to be pure and holy, seeing purity and holiness as part of God’s fatherly gift rather than as a burden.

You can purchase a copy of the ESV Study Bible online or at our newly refreshed Resource Center which will reopen on Sunday, September 16.

When we speak about gifts in the church, what usually comes to mind first are the gifts that God’s Spirit has given to individual believers for the building up of the church. Some of these are mentioned in passages like Romans 12:6-8, and 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.

What we don’t consider often enough is the gifts that God has given to his church in various kinds of leaders.

In Sunday’s sermon, “Jesus’ Plan for Your Growth,” Ryan spent some time unpacking Ephesians 4:11-12, where Paul writes, “God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…”

If God has given these leaders to his church, and if they are integral to the growth of the church, then we should know who they are and what they are given to do. Some of these roles are clear from the title, but some require some dot-connecting.

Clues To Understanding The Gifts in Ephesians 4:11-12

First, from verses like Ephesians 2:19-20 and 3:3-5 we can discern that “apostles” and “prophets” were closely related to one another and were unique in their foundational role in the establishment of the church.

So then you are . . . members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone…
—Ephesians 2:19–20

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
—Ephesians 3:3–5

So, while there are different kinds of prophets and prophecy in the New Testament, there is also a more specific kind of “prophet,” as mentioned in Ephesians 4, closely related to the role of an apostle. These prophets were probably Scripture writers along with the apostles. Luke is an example of a Scripture writer who wasn’t an apostle.

Second, there is good reason to see a logical or chronological order to this list in Ephesians 4. Obviously, “apostles and prophets” are foundational, and they are first in Paul’s list. But in 1 Corinthians 12:28, another passage dealing with the unity and growth of the church, Paul gives us a similar list but this time he actually numbers a few of the roles: “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.”

The whole list isn’t meant to be logical or chronological. But at least part of it is. Tongues is last for a reason, given the context. And the order of the first few are actually numbered, and probably according to a kind of priority: “. . .first apostles, second prophets, third teachers. . .”

So, here are some short role descriptions for each of the leaders in this Ephesians 4 list:

• Apostles – These are the twelve appointed by Jesus, which included Matthias who replaced Judas, and also, Paul.
• Prophets – These are men like Luke who wrote Scripture but weren’t an apostle.
• Evangelists – These are the men who took the Word and the gospel to places where it hadn’t reached. These were what we would call, “missionaries,” or, “church planters.”
• Pastors – These are the shepherds who led churches once they were established, most often raised up from within the church itself. These are in other places called, “elders,” or, “overseers” (1 Peter 5:1-2).
• Teachers – Since teaching is a function of pastoring, and since “pastors and teachers” seem to be paired grammatically, these are often seen as the same role. But if this is a list of five different kinds of roles in logical and chronological order, then teachers would be those in the church with a ministry of teaching under the authority of the elders of the church. In our immediate context, this would include Sunday School workers, Community Group leaders, Men’s and Women’s Ministry teachers, and others.

But then notice that each of these leaders is given in order to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.”

Some Implications

There are several neat implications that we can draw from Ephesians 4:11-12. Here are a few:

1. God has given special care to the establishment and structure of his church. He is a careful builder and has his own designs for the creation and growth of his people.
2. Each of the equipping roles that God has established work together to grow the church. We need the Scriptures given to us by the apostles and the prophets. We need some to go out and take the Word where it hasn’t gone. We need some to shepherd and lead established churches. And we need teachers.
3. Central to the church’s growth is the Word. Each of these roles is related in some fashion to the Word. There are Word-writers, Word-takers, Word-feeders, and Word-teachers.
4. Every member of the church is a minister. The role of each of these leaders is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Who are the “saints”? That’s all of us. From Ephesians 4:14-15 we learn that we grow as we mature in right doctrine, and we are held to the truth as we – the saints – speak the truth to one another in love.

In Sunday’s sermon, “Jesus’ Plan for Your Growth,” Ryan unpacked Ephesians 4:1-16, one of the New Testament’s most intricate and beautiful passages on the nature of the church and its growth. Verses 1-3, which concern our shared calling and attitude together, reach into every one of our relationships with rich application:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

To help all of us better reflect this spirit, Ryan mentioned a book by Sam Crabtree, titled, Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise to Those Who Are Not God. The book is about exactly what it sounds like: using our words to affirm the good we see in others. This is an important book for the home, for the work place, and certainly for the church.

Here are some helpful quotes to whet your appetite:

“God is glorified in us when we affirm the work he has done and is doing in others.”

“To fail to commend the character of Christ in people is to fall into the same lackluster indifference of a person who never exclaims what a beautiful morning it is, thereby robbing the Creator of glory he deserves for making that sky, that volcano, that character.”

“Good affirmations are God-centered, pointing to the image of God in a person.”

“When our mouths are empty of praise for others, it is probably because our hearts are full of love for self.”

“The affirmation ratio is at work, even when your rationale for making the corrections you are making is completely justified. The dynamics in play don’t go away just because you have taken the right position on the issue.”

“We must leave room in our thinking for the possibility of being pleased with someone, yet without being satisfied entirely.”

“Salvation will not happen in the absence of preaching, but salvation is not guaranteed in the presence of preaching. Similarly, affirming people will save no one. But lack of affirmation may bring hindrances and obstacles into play,making it less likely that they will give the gospel a hearing, especially when the good news comes from someone who is predominantly bad news.”

“It was a sandwich all right, and he boasted about his method, but his employees began to call it the baloney sandwich. Let affirmations stand alone, separated from correction.”

“It seems easier to practice affirmation early in relationships, and it can get harder later. Have you ever noticed in a restaurant that some couples are talkative and some are not? What happened? Generally, new relationships are still predominately affirming, but as relationships endure the years, they also endure a lot of correction. More specifically, affirmation didn’t keep up. Not enough affirmation was dished out compared with all the other.”

“This is where we get in trouble: affirmations tend to evaporate over time. Meanwhile, corrections keep piling up. Corrections tend to out-number affirmations, and by doing so, corrections sabotage or undercut the value of affirmations.”

“The absence of affirmation for God’s handiwork in his people is also a kind of sacrilege . . . It is disobedience to God’s command: ‘A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised’ (Prov. 31:30).”

“A fire not stoked goes out. A refrigerator unplugged rots the eggs, which were perfectly good not too long ago.A garden not tended erupts with weeds,not vegetables. Affirmation is the fire-stoking,refrigerator-electrifying, garden-tending side of relationships.”

Buy Practicing Affirmation online here, or pick up or order a copy at our newly revamped Resource Center starting Sunday, September 16.