In this sermon, Scott Brown addresses the question of what a church should do if all the elders died. He emphasizes that while elders are important, the church is not defined by their presence and should continue to function as a body. The passage in focus is Ephesians 4, which highlights the importance of every member doing their part in the church. Brown urges the congregation to examine if they are actively using their gifts and ministering to others. He also discusses the challenges of age segregation in churches and encourages a generational unity. The sermon emphasizes the importance of practicing hospitality, attending prayer meetings, Bible studies, and women's mentoring to foster connections within the church family.

Please open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4, 5, verse 1. Before we get to that question, what would you do in your church, And I'm grateful to be talking to two churches right now. What would you do as a church if all your elders died? What would you do? It could happen.

I got a call recently from a pastor in another state, and something like that was happening. His fellow elder who did most of the preaching and carried most of the pastoral load fell into tremendous distress of sickness and things like that, and he couldn't do it anymore. He just flat couldn't do it, and his other elder really didn't have the ability to carry all the weight. And he called me and he said, we're weighing our options, should we shut the church down? About 200 people in this church.

And you know, we walked through various alternatives and things like that. Here's what I told him. I said, bring your church together and instruct them about the nature of the church and the functionality of the church, and help them understand out of the particular passages in the New Testament, Ephesians 4 being central, what a church is, that the church is a body, the church is the people, the church is made up of the people. And while churches do need elders, they do need that authority and that instruction, the church doesn't cease to be a church because elders die. They don't.

But what would you do? What would you do if all of your elders died in these two churches? And I pray that it would not bring the church down, but it would make the church rise up and really be a mighty church where every joint supplies, every member does its work. It's very easy for churches to kind of sink into a casual, wow, everything is just so nice. We come, you know, the building's all lit up and the preaching happens and the fellowship is there and it's just so nice and then the elders die, what do you do?

So this passage speaks of it to a degree, and what I really want to say, pretty much one thing. Every member should be doing their part. And I want to ask everybody here to ask themselves, are you doing your part? Are you exercising your gifts? Are you doing the things that the New Testament church member does?

Are you doing those things or are you just soaking it in? You know, there's a lot to soak in. I love coming here and singing and just soaking it in. It's a blessing, but are you just soaking it in? When you walk in here, are you coming here as a minister?

In the New Testament, all are ministers, by the way. It's not just the guys preaching who have ties on. All are ministers. That's the way the Bible explains it. So let's dive into this.

I'm not going to do a detailed exposition of this passage, but I want us to hit some critical points, and then I want to begin to work through some other implications of it first. In the first part of this passage, in the first five verses, you have this idea that people in the church have a duty to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. In other words, not walk their own way, but walk in the way that the Lord has them walk in His church. You can walk your own way in the church if you want, but God's calling you to walk His way in the church. And He says, "...walk worthy of the calling with which you are called with all lowliness, gentleness, and long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So you have this relational atmosphere of humility and loving kindness toward one another, and in doing and in walking in such a way, you are preserving the unity of the Spirit. Now what's the unity of the Spirit? Here's what It's not. The unity of the Spirit is not agreeing on everything. The unity of the Spirit is being unified in Jesus Christ.

Our unity is in Jesus Christ and in His salvation. All of us are in different places growing along a trend line, and our unity isn't that we agree on everything. Our unity is in Jesus. He's the one that pulls us all together and pulls us up to the upward calling. The second section, verses 7 through 10, this marvelous reality is communicated, but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

In other words, every person has a deposit of giftedness and it's not like anybody else's. They're different majors, they're different kinds, they're different effects of ministry. That's the normal life in the body of Christ. Everybody's not the same, but everybody has a measure of giftedness that Jesus gave them. Every person who names the name of Christ is in that category.

Then, there are different kinds of men in the church. This is verses 11 through 14. Now, notice the language. And he gave, and he himself gave some as apostles, prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping in the saints. These aren't gifts, these are men.

These are people. You think about the people in these churches and the different functions that men have. You have evangelists in these churches. You have people who have an extraordinary pastoral care gift. You just have different...some are better at teaching, others are not as good.

They're different men who have different gifts. That's what you have here. These are men that God gives to the church and then Every member is designed to do a chair that's verses 15 through 16 He talks The apostle talks about speaking the truth in love that we may grow up in all things into him who is the head That's what we're doing. We're growing up in the church. We're all growing up We're getting rid of really dumb ideas bad patterns.

We're growing up You know, you don't come into the church as a grown-up. You come in as a baby and God grows you up. Praise God for that. So you're growing up, but two things. You're growing up into Christ, into the head, becoming like Christ.

Christ is center, is central to everything. Becoming like Him is really the solution to everything in the church. You're growing up into Him who is the head. But then verse 16, from whom, In other words, from Christ, the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. That's critical.

By what every joint supplies. Every joint in the body is designed to supply something. What are you supplying? That's the idea. According to the effective working by which every part does its share.

Are you doing your share? That's the question. What happens? It causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So everybody's growing up now.

And then in verse 17, it speaks of the kind of culture in the church. It's a culture that doesn't walk like the world. We don't walk like the world, we don't talk like the world, we don't live like the world, we don't dress like the world, we don't, we're running away from the evil world, not toward it. We repented of that and we're running the other direction. So not walking Like the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind a church should be content to be weird in the world We you know, frankly, you know from what all I can tell we you are weird and so am I And that's actually a good thing.

You don't want to be walking the ways of the world and So it you know being content and weirdness in that sense is actually good verse 20 But you have not so learned Christ, you know in that way. So we're learning from Christ, He's the one we're trying to be like, and we all have something to do. All of what we do comes directly from Him as the head. It flows from Him, not from ourselves. So that's the basic doctrine.

Now, I want to talk about how this works and doesn't work in a church like this. When I say a church like this or a church like these because these two churches are very similar, we are lightly programmed churches. We don't have hundreds of programs. And we don't have many titles and we don't have many positions in these two churches. Actually, this is quite common in the network of churches that we're a part of.

And we, on the other hand, rather than relying on titles and programs and positions, rather than that, we engage people in simple things and Pray for and expect the body to minister to one another and to evangelize. Okay, not through a program Our programs bad no, But we're not a highly programmed church. There you have it. Some are, we're not. And, you know, will we ever be?

I doubt it. We're going to, we are going to operate according to what some theologians call the ordinary means of grace. We're going to trust the preaching of the word, the singing, the evangelization, the fellowship, the discipline. We're going to trust in those ordinary means and try not to create things out of whole cloth for the programming of the church. We want our people to go out, fill to the Spirit, demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ relationally and personally and not primarily programmatically.

Now we do have some things that we really try to draw people to. We really want men to participate in men's Bible study. We want everybody there. We want them to come learn the text and go and teach it to their roommates or their families. And when everybody comes to the church on Sunday morning, those children, those wives, those roommates, they've already thought about the text.

Like, we're not hitting them cold. We want people to participate in women's mentoring once a month. You know, my heart is most intent on the young moms, frankly. I'm praying for the young moms in this church like crazy. I want all you want, young moms, especially at women's mentoring.

Why? Well, because God ordained that the older women should teach the younger women. Here's the reality. If you don't go to women's mentoring, you're not going to feel connected to women in this church. It's just the way it is.

If you don't go to prayer on Wednesday night, If you don't participate in this thin programmatic presentation that we have, if you don't, you're going to feel really disconnected. If you don't go to prayer on Wednesday nights, if you're not part of women's mentoring, you're just going to start, you're going to feel disconnected because you've disconnected from things that we've established to be the connecting rods for the ordinary means of grace. So practicing hospitality, There are particular commands in the Bible for practicing hospitality. Nobody tells you what to do. God has told you to practice hospitality.

And one of the most remarkable parts of the hospitality commands is that we're commanded to practice hospitality without grumbling because, you know, you can fall into that. You can grumble at the people that you went over and visited, and you can grumble about the people that visited you. You know, that's how it works. It's a sinful tendency. We have two particular ministries outside of our church every week at Carillon, the old folks' home there, and we also are involved in the abortion ministry.

Those things are really critical. We want people to be involved in those things. If you're not involved in things like that, you just might not be feeling connected to the church. You can...the deacons need a lot of help, you know. The deacons are trying to deploy and delegate, and maybe you can help the deacons do things.

So in a traditionally highly programmed church life, there are lots of places to plug into. You know, you can plug into the children's ministry, you can plug into the choir, the puppet ministry, you know, the parking ministry, the nursery, the sports ministry, you can, there are 50 ministries you can plug into. What we're what we're saying is to trust in the ordinary means of grace and pray for people, individuals. Well, my wife knows I'm going to say this again, and she knows I'm going to say it right now. What is your ministry?

What is your ministry? Your ministry is the next person you meet. How about that? You don't need a title, you don't need a position, you don't need an institutional structure to minister to the next person you meet. And so, it's difficult, particularly when people come to be part of us.

You know, most everybody comes out of churches where your ministry is defined by programs or by titles or positions, those three things. And that's you. That's your ministry. And I think what we want to say is does the Bible actually Require that kind of thing and we actually don't think necessarily it does you don't see these kinds of things in the New Testament. What you do see is the body building itself up in love through natural relationships filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you're not feeling connected with somebody, start praying for somebody and you'll be connected to them. Practice hospitality, you know, minister to the people that God gives you. Now I want to make another comment about some of the challenges of what we have determined to do in terms of age segregation. We have determined that the Bible really doesn't teach anything like a generationally divided church. The church was always generationally united, all generationally together.

The reality of the Bible is that you is while there are many many examples of the church being Generationally united there. There's really nothing. There's nothing in the Bible that advocates dividing a church by age or by life stage or anything like that. So what we've always said is that it's wrong for a church to be comprehensively age-segregated. And what that means is that we really do want a generationally united fellowship.

One of the places you really see the difficulty of it is when you have the fellowship meal, because the adults tend to want to talk to the adults and the kids want to tend to talk to the kids. And it's actually a trap. And you can end up with an age-segregated church just because that's where everything drifts. So here's what I want to ask everybody, at least at Hope Baptist, to do. Resist it.

The drift always is that way. And, you know, let me address the old people first. Old people like to talk to people their own age. They like to look eyeball to eyeball with one another, but they don't that much like to look down and and really engage younger people. That's a tendency we want to break in the old people.

So if you're an old people, you know, then I just want to really encourage you do what you can organically. We're not going to legislate this, but we want you to create a generational culture in this church. The problem is you always have to resist the drift to life stage, you know, segregation. Let me talk to the young people. I'll say two things.

First of all, I'm really delighted with the young people in our church. I really am. I praise God for you. I see the glory of God. I see your desire for God.

And I don't see the devil tearing up very many kids in this church. I'm so thankful for that. So I have really high hopes and high praise for the young people in our church. But there's a trap for you too, And it's just like the trap of the old folks too. And that is that you are gonna have a natural inflection point just to go see your friends.

Just talk to the people you're comfortable with. Talk to the ones that are just your age. Here's what I want you to do. I don't want you to shut off your friends, but I want you to work harder at mixing it up. Okay?

My view is you're a little bit too much together. You need to break it up a little bit. That's my view. And So, you know, go be a part of creating an intergenerational culture in the church. You have to work at it, actually.

So there you have it. Young people, mix it up. Old people, mix it up. And don't let the drift overcome us, because it's very easy to happen. So come to the church as a minister.

We're not going to tell you what to do. We're not going to plug you into a structure and say, now you're a minister. We're going to ask you to be filled with the Holy Spirit and love the people that God puts in your life and reach out to people and don't just be to yourself. And don't come in and create a click by just talking with your own friends when you come here. You know, here's something that I would just encourage you to think about.

You know, most everybody comes in with a family, not everybody, But if you come with a family, you need to understand what God has done by creating the church as a family, okay? You bring your family in here and now you're part of a big family. And let your, you know, let your children be part of the big family. And don't isolate yourself as a family. I'm not saying, you know, you've got a bunch of little kids you're gonna have to control these kids sitting together right?

But do everything you can to mix it up, but don't Don't think wrongly about what's happening here. We're a big family and You know you know some of the older men need to be ministering to some of the younger men, and the older women need to be ministering to some of the younger men in your family. You should open up the door for that, not be afraid of it. So We are a big family. When we walk through those doors, it's pretty neat.

You know, everybody gets 25 new aunts and uncles, 25 new grandfathers and grandmothers and brothers and sisters, and it's a big old family. It's wonderful. One of the most blessed things about the church is that if you don't have a father, you can get a bunch of fathers. You don't have a grandmother, They're all over the place. Go grab one.

It's so nice. There doesn't have to be a fatherless boy or girl or grandfatherless man or woman in the church because God's created a big family. It's so neat. What a blessing. You know, God in His wisdom understands the troubles that come into families and how losses occur.

And so He creates a big family. So, okay, so here is how, I'm just going to repeat this a little bit in a different way, here's how you will feel disconnected from the people in this church. Don't seek people out during the fellowship time, just keep your family to itself. Here's another way. Don't go to prayer on Wednesday.

In other words, one of the things about prayer is the hurts and the sorrows and the troubles all come out, and you get to know people, and you feel their pain, and people pray. It happened this morning, you know, somebody prayed about a big pain in their family. Now you know and you can, we can bear one another's burdens that way and you, you sort of are connected to that person now, because they shared their sorrows with you. Come and pray so that you can hear of the sorrows and enter into them. Another way not to feel connected is don't go to Bible study.

Don't get connected with the men and get involved in the discussions, the practical and theological discussions that happen at Bible study. Don't practice hospitality, that's another way. It actually is a command, But those are ways that you can feel disconnected. Don't go to women's mentoring. Hey, the preciousness, the long-term value of women gathering together where there are older, Titus II category women is incalculable.

Here's what I tell men, I'm going to tell every husband in this church, I've probably said this to you before, I'll say it to everybody now. The Women who get counsel from my wife have happier husbands. That's right. Because they get wise counsel. And she talks them off the ledge all the time.

With wisdom from heaven. Younger women need that. You men with young families, please send, this is a direct command, you men with young families send your wives to women's mentoring, okay? Well you know what I mean by that. You don't have to send your wife when it was a mentoring, but I hope you do.

Okay, so here's the last thing. Recalibrate your family. Just take another look. Hey, we have a lot of people in this church that minister. It's really amazing.

You know, we just had an Elder Deacon retreat in the last few days. I was so thankful. These are all families that are pouring it out. They're practicing all these things. And I felt so comforted to have a team of officers in the church that are doing everything I just talked about right here.

And I would just encourage you to follow their example. And maybe take some time today and say, okay, how are we doing? You know, are we functioning such that every joint is supplying what it ought to supply? So there you have it.