Join Aaron Budgen on a transformative journey through the Book of Ephesians as he delves into the deeper purposes of God in our world. This episode shifts focus from our personal expectations to understanding God’s broader objectives. Explore how a genuine relationship with God can change one’s perspective on life, ministry, and faith.
Shema Yisrael Welcome to the broadcast outreach of Living God Ministries with Aaron Budgen. Aaron discovered Jesus is his Messiah while preparing to be a rabbi. He now teaches for several organizations and is the teaching pastor for Living God Ministries. Strongly distinguishing between the Old and New Covenants, Aaron presents the scriptures from a Judaic and historical frame of reference. Join Aaron now as he reveals the reality foreshadowed and the new life we can now experience because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us.
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Thank you for taking the time to listen to this program. Do also go to our website, livinggodministries.net, and read through the recent testimonials page that we have there. There you will see the effectiveness of this ministry and discover how we have cleared away many of the common barriers that keep them from knowing their God, growing and maturing in their faith. Again, you can find this page at livinggodministries.net and know that as you listen to these programs, you will likely find something that will be significant for you to grow and mature in your relationship with your God. I’m presenting a verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, and in the previous message I was in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 6, speaking about one God and what that implies. In this message, I’m going to move forward into verse 7, which is the introduction of a new topic. Paul makes a transition here and starts to speak about God. God giving gifts and the relationship between his gifts and the ministry in the sense that he is going to give gifts to people that will enable them to be more effective as participants in in the ministry for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, which is found in verse 12. I’m going to look ahead into verse 12 and then come back into verse 7 and 8 and 9 from there. But before I get into that, it’s important to spend some time reviewing the purpose of God, the objective of God. It’s important to keep in mind what our God is really accomplishing, what his purposes are, what his objectives are it’s really important to review this especially in the context of what our role might be in participating in the work that he’s doing if we don’t even know what he’s doing well then it can be quite a challenge to be a participant in what he’s doing we certainly don’t always need to know what he’s doing it’s just that if we don’t have a general perspective that is consistent with what God thinks, then it can be easy for us to deviate from the purposes and the objectives of God and get lost in some of our own things that we tend to get wrapped up in. Now, this is a topic that people don’t consider a lot. You know, what is God really doing? What are his objectives? What is his purpose, especially in this world that he created? And in many cases, people do not want to know. They want this kind of a question to be relatively open-ended. And the reason why that I have found that people relate to the Lord in this way, the reason why they relate to the Lord in this way, is because they are more interested in their own objectives and their own interests than they are interested in God’s objectives and his interests. So they would like this kind of a question to be somewhat open-ended because to them his objectives and his interests don’t really have that much relevance. They look to their God as a person who helps them to meet their objectives. That’s what they want a God for. They want a God to intervene in their lives to do things for them, that he exists for their benefit. this kind of an attitude can be interrupted when we take a moment to think about what might be important to him. You know, I mean, what really could be his purpose here? What would be in his interest? Maybe we should be thinking a little bit more about how we might contribute to his life rather than how is it that he’s going to contribute to ours. You know, when people think about just the existence of God at all, That’s often what they struggle with is, well, what’s he going to do for me? You know, I mean, why bother? Or is he just going to restrict my ability to function in life? You know, give me some more rules and regulations to live by and restrictions that prevent me from enjoying myself as much as I would like to. These are the kinds of things that people will think about when they get confronted with the existence of God at all, let alone are they going to discover who he is and what might be important to him. The risks can be profound in the sense that you might have to give up on some things that you don’t want to give up on. And most of this, of course, is related to the indulgence of the flesh. And it does take a tremendous amount of faith and trust to enter into a relationship with God with the promise or with the hope that your life would actually be much better forever. through a relationship with him than without him. That takes a lot of trust and a lot of hope and a lot of faith to pursue something like that that you really know nothing about. But when a person will recognize that there is a God and that he wants them to know who he is and that he wants to have a personal interactive relationship with them, if they will turn to him with that in mind and with that focus, then of course, you know, whatever a person may feel they may lose, they can believe and trust that what they will gain will certainly be much better as long as they pursue it, as long as they pursue him. So this change of thinking about God instead of thinking about yourself is a big change. You know, it really is. And most people just never make it. They just don’t make it to that point of recognizing that maybe God, God created this world for a reason, and that this reason would be for himself. Now, as I have explained in many of the previous programs in this verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, God is interested in having people in his life because they want to be in his life. He wants people to know him because they genuinely want to know him. And as you may have noticed, it can be quite a challenge. It requires a tremendous amount of sincerity and interest that most people just don’t have. But those who really want to know their God— They will have enough available to them so that they will find him as they search for him. And the struggle does filter out a lot of people who don’t really want to know who he is, who don’t really want to have a relationship with him. will in general be quite genuine in their interest. So that’s the world that God created. He created this world in such a way that only those who really want to know who he is are going to go far enough to discover who he really is. He and in effect force himself upon anyone and everyone. He could certainly do that, just sort of show up in a public way and say, look, I am God. Does anyone have any complaints? Let’s deal with that right now. We’ll bring on some fire and lightning and great suffering in order to make the point that I really am God. You know, I know a lot of us would probably say, relate to the world that way if we were God, so fortunately we are not. But he’s definitely not going to do the God thing in that capacity. He did things that were similar to this, such as the flood of Noah, and of course the exodus from Egypt. There were some moments, but still, you may have noticed that in the age that we have been living in for the last couple thousand years, and for the thousand years or so before that, you probably have noticed that God is being very subtle about presenting himself, and what he gets in return are people in his life who are there, because they really want to be there, and they really want to know who he is, and they really want to be a participant in what he is doing, instead of being so consumed with just trying to get him to do what they want him to do for their own personal benefit. Because in the end, of course, the only thing that’s going to matter is what is really in the interest of God. What is really in his interest. In the end, that really is all that’s going to matter. He has given us an invitation to be in his home, in his kingdom, for all eternity to be a part of his life. and the new life that we will have opened up to us in eternity after we physically die. We don’t have a lot of information to know really what that’s going to be about, but we don’t need to know that much about it. It is something that we will be able to discover once when we enter into that new life with him. All right, now I’m going to look ahead into verse 12 and then work my way backwards from there. In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 12, he speaks about why he is giving gifts to us. And I will explain the gifts that he is referring to in this context in just a moment. But in verse 12, he explains why. In verse 12, it says, “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” All right, now what I would like to do is focus on the first half of verse 12 just for the moment, the part where it says, “…equipping the saints for the work of ministry.” Now, in order to appreciate what Paul is mentioning here, it’s necessary to define the work of ministry. What is that? And what is that really? This needs to be better defined because what people are generally thinking about when it Well, you know, it may not be that consistent with the way that God would want to define the work of ministry. There may be some similarities, and it could very well be close. But still, you have to remember that he is a person, and that when it comes to the idea of the work of the ministry— Well, you know, his opinion probably is important, especially if this is his world, his planet, and his ministry. So we need to define better what this ministry is so that we would be able to relate to the idea of participating in the sense of working in the ministry, towards the ministry, for the ministry. Well, what is the ministry? The ministry, the service of ministry, it is related to God’s objectives. And I know that might sound a little surprising, but you have to keep in mind that he has specific objectives, such as can he get people in his life who are there because they want to be? Can he get people who know who he is because they want to know who he is? The work of ministry is related to helping people discover who their God is as a person, to know who he is. If you take a look at verse 13, just ahead of this, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. And there are many verses that I’ve already spoken about in the previous programs that relate to knowing our God, the knowledge of God. So the work of the ministry has to be related to helping people to know the Lord, to know their God, to really know him. And if the work of the ministry that we are doing is not related to improving a person’s knowledge of their God, well then, you know, chances are that the work of ministry in that context might not really be as effective or may not be related at all to what God is interested in. And it turns out that there is a lot of work that people are doing in the name of ministry that is not helping anyone to know their God anymore. than how they may already know him if they know him at all. And of course, I’m just saying that in a general sense, you have to take each individual circumstance separately and consider, well, just how effective might that be? And this, of course, would be a reflection of the leadership of the congregation, the leadership of the ministry, or the activities of the individuals who are engaged in this kind of ministry. Now, we also have to consider the people, the congregation or the recipients, those who are being equipped, the saints. Are they being equipped? If they are not being equipped for the work of ministry, for the work of helping people to know their God more and to increase in their relationship with him, If this isn’t happening, if the saints are not being equipped, it can either be because of a failure of the people doing the equipping, it can be a failure of the people who are to be equipped, or it can be both. And of course, if you look around in your community, you will probably find lots of examples of all three of those. and perhaps a few examples of none of them, whereas the people, the saints, are being equipped for the work of ministry, and they are doing the work of ministry, but this means the work of helping others to know their God more. That’s what I mean by the work of ministry. This is important to define because, you know, in most cases, it turns out that a lot of the ministries that people think of, either a church or a nonprofit organization or other ministries that people define, when they think of a ministry, what usually shows up is some kind of business, right? Churches are quite often run like a business. Ministries are quite often run like a business. It’s difficult to avoid that. I know, you know, with regards to Living God Ministries, when I founded it, I wrote the charter in a specific way to keep it from evolving into a business model. And for decades, it has been successful at avoiding morphing into a kind of business model. The ministry does have to interact with other businesses, such as the radio stations. The radio stations are definitely not ministries. They are businesses. They function and run like businesses. And I know many owners who do what they can in order to adapt it into a ministry as well. And so I’m not saying that this is an absolute way that the radio stations are being run. It’s just that in order for them to be successful at what they do, they have to operate with a business model. They don’t really have the luxury of operating as a ministry, regardless of the outcome of From a business point of view, churches will also have limitations, especially if the organization has debt. In the event that the organization has debt, then they have to service that debt. And sometimes in order to service that debt, there will be a little bit more of an emphasis on the business model of the church rather than it just being a ministry. If they don’t have any debt, well, then sometimes there can be a struggle over control of the assets of the organization, in which case they again will find themselves defaulting to a business model. It’s a real challenge, you know, and it’s just simply difficult to avoid, really difficult. And what happens is that these kinds of things become or can become a distraction for from the purposes of God. Instead, what people will tend to do is become more focused on the perpetuation and the continuation of the organization rather than staying focused on the objectives, especially in the event that the ministry has to stop doing what it’s doing and just simply shut down or abandon the work that it has been doing. And many people will look at something like that as a failure and say, oh gosh, you know, something went wrong. But that certainly does not have to be the case. It can just simply be a situation where things have changed, the work of God has changed, or the people have changed, or the people have passed away. You know, I mean, there are many reasons why an organization or a ministry could legitimately stop doing what it is doing and the people who were operating the ministry or doing the work would move on to doing something else. And so these things need to be left as open-ended as possible. Otherwise, you could easily fall into the trap of just simply functioning like some kind of a business. And these businesses can easily lose sight of the objective of in what ways are we really helping others to know their God and equip them to do the work of helping other people to know the Lord. Okay, so now in this passage, the emphasis is placed more on the people who are considered to be in a leadership role. I’m going to go back to verse 7. This is Ephesians chapter 4, verse 7, and read through to verse 12. From verse 7, it says, “…but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now, this he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things, all right? And then we go to verse 11. But what I’d like you to see first is that between verse 8 and verse 10, there is a description of Jesus making some kind of a journey between the point when he was crucified and sat down at the right hand of God. I am not going to try to get into an explanation of what these verses might represent. The main reason why is because we’re not so certain as to whether or not they were really part of the original writing of the Apostle Paul. There is some uncertainty with regards to it. The other reason why is because it appears to be a little bit too much of a deviation from the theme of God giving and gifts and that these are gifts that people will then give to others so that they can be better equipped for the work of the ministry. There appears to be a little bit of a deviation here just talking about what Jesus might have been doing after he was crucified and entering into the temple of God. So I’m not going to speak about these passages. I’m going to refer you to the programs that I did on spiritual warfare, that in those programs, you probably will find some content that will be better related to what these verses might imply. Instead, I’m going to go right to verse 11. So let me read verse 7 and 8, skip over to verse 11. It says, “…but to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Focus on the gifts to men. And then in verse 11, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now, the first thing that we need to recognize is that the fundamental gift of God is the giving of himself to us. First, that he gave himself to us, and then through his relationship with us, he also gives more to others within and through us. And a way to describe some of this activity can be described, as we see in verse 11, in the context of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, that this is a part of the work of the ministry. But the first thing that I want you to keep in mind is he gives himself to us, and then through that, he reveals himself more by making use of us so that others may get to know more about who he is. But this, of course, starts with God revealing himself to a person. He dwells within that person. That person gets to know who he is. And then the Lord will send that person out in order to reveal to others the God who they have come to know. And so if this person is going to fulfill the role of being an apostle or a prophet or evangelist or a pastor or teacher, then this is what we would expect to see. We would expect to see others growing to know their God more. Now, of course, this can very well depend on not only the person presenting the Lord, but also it depends on the person who is hearing and learning about the Lord. But this is the transaction. It is a transaction of God revealing himself to one person, and then through that person, he is revealed more to somebody else. And I really do believe that this is important to keep in mind, and I will explain this more in the next program. Thank you for tuning in to today’s program. This is Aaron Budgen, and I recently released a book titled Building Life. This is for young people who are starting out into adulthood, and it is also for those who have found themselves in a circumstance where they are starting their lives over. I have put a lot of effort into writing this book. It is a short read of about two and a half hours. It is only available directly from me. So if you would like a copy, go to the Living God Ministries website, and you will see a link there that says, Inform Me of Aaron’s Books. Fill out the form, and I will get back with you as soon as I can. do take the time to go to the Living God Ministries radio archive at livinggodministries.net. The archive is divided up into three sections. The first section is more of the life of Christ, and I provide a lot of historical content there in those programs. And I have made a lot of important contributions from a historical perspective to better understand what was taking place during Jesus’ ministry. In the second section of the archive, I speak about our life in Christ. And in the third section, you will find the verse-by-verse studies. If you would like some recommendations on what to listen to and in what order, do just send us an email to staff at livinggodministries.net. You will find that email on the Contact Us page. And after a conversation with me, I’ll give you a list of programs that I would recommend and in what order.
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