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When God is Big… is a sermon series examining what happens when you have a bigger vision of who God is. Ministry is Natural — When God is small, other people seem to exist for our benefit. Serving or ministering to others is totally optional. But when God is big, church leaders are to equip every Christian to do the work of ministry — every member is a minister — and the goal of ministry is maturity in Christ as the church is built up in love. Recorded on Sep 26, 2021, on Ephesians 4:11-16, by Pastor David Parks. Sermon Transcript All year, we’re focusing on The Greatness of God. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series called When God is Big… Way too many Christians have way too small a view of who God is. But when God is small, not necessarily in reality but in your mind/imagination, even though you might believe in God, other things become big that shouldn’t be so big. Your circumstances, emotions, and failures can not only become big, they can become all-consuming. Well, in this series, we’ve been considering how a big view of God changes our values. And at this church, our values are worship, community, ministry, and mission. In a few weeks, we’ll consider how a big view of God can change our struggles as well, including fear, personal identity, and addiction. When God is big, it changes how we live out our values and how we deal with our struggles. So today, we’re considering how a bigger view of God impacts and transforms our understanding of and our obligation for ministry. And my goal today is that you would see that when God is big…ministry is natural. It’s not just the work of the pastors/professionals. But ministry is the normal work of every single follower of Jesus. Please open your Bible/app to Eph 4, starting with v. 11. Let’s read through this first and then we’ll go back and unpack it together. v. 11. Ephesians 4:11-16, “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. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” So the book of Ephesians in the Bible is an epistle/letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christians in and around the city of Ephesus in the modern country of Turkey. And like many of his letters, Paul initially emphasizes what the gospel is (chapters 1-2) before moving on to what the gospel does (chapters 3-6). So here in chapter 4, we’re in the middle of what the gospel, and more specifically Christ himself, does to build up Christians in faith/knowledge as well as their love for one another. Let’s look back at v. 11. Ephesians 4:11-12, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…” Let’s pause here. As I said, at this point in the letter, we already understand the good news of who God is, what he has accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that Jesus has ascended back into heaven and is reigning and ruling today as the Lord of all creation. So from his throne on high, we find that Jesus hasn’t forgotten/abandoned us. But he continues to provide for us. Here, Paul says that Christ himself has given us these four different offices of ministry. (Now, there is some disagreement as to whether pastors a...