The The past. A pastor's job is to teach God's word and to equip the congregation to grow

spiritually so the church will be built up.

But church members have a responsibility as well,

and today on Truth for Life

we'll learn the part we are to play.

Alistairbegg is teaching from Ephesians Chapter 4,

focusing on verses 12 and 13.

The word for equip is actually a medical word. It's a kind of orthopedic word it would be used for the

resetting of a limb it's also a word that is found in the Gospels where the disciples are mending their nets and the word that is used

there is the same word. They're equipping themselves for their next voyage. So what happens is simply this, that the ministry of God's

word is brought home to the lives of God's people by the power of God's spirit so that, if you like to stick with the

picture of the fishing nets, so that the tangled, knotted, disjointed features of our lives are then brought into line with God's plans and

purposes so that when we set back out on the voyage of life we have been equipped to do that

which we have been enabled to do. And that is why it is so vitally important the way in which we listen to the Bible.

I've told you before there was a man who used to preach at Kessick in the Lake District in England

his name was S.D. Gordon.

And apparently he used to say and he had a very quiet voice and he made

it even quieter and he used to say, are you listening? Are you listening with all the ears of your heart?

It's a good question.

Because remember, James says,

if you got a filthy mind, if you have an angry heart you might as well not even

listen to the Bible you need to make sure that when you receive the word, he says you receive it with meekness as the

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