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When you came in today, you should have received a little jigsaw piece. On its own, it may seem small, a bit random, insignificant. But it has an incredibly important part to play in the whole jigsaw.
There is not another piece exactly like it. It may be a similar colour, a similar shape, but it has a different place to go. Without the whole picture, your piece is incomplete — but without your piece, the whole jigsaw is incomplete.
Hold onto that illustration. We're going to keep revisiting it.
In the New Testament, Paul uses a different picture to describe the church. His favourite term — and it's right here in Ephesians chapter 4 — is the body of Christ.
So here's good news: you are not a piece of card. You are a member of the living body of Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit. And you have a unique grace, purpose, and place to play your part in bringing the whole body to maturity.
Last week we looked at Paul's introduction to the theme of the unity of the body — how we're to earnestly endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Paul uses seven "ones":
One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of us all.
Aren't you glad that we are one in Christ? That's why unity is so central.
But in verses 7–12, Paul moves on from oneness to diversity. Because unity does not mean uniformity. Just because we're united doesn't mean we're all the same. Paul now emphasises the diversity of grace gifts that all of us have, and the importance of each of us playing our part.
Three truths:
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. — Ephesians 4:7
Home in on that phrase: "to each one of us." Not to some of us. Not to a special few. Not to the most obviously enthusiastic ones. Not just to long-standing believers. To each one of us.
So if you're a Christian listening today, this applies to you. It applies to me. Every single one of us.
The Greek word for grace is charis, from which we get our English word charisma. Throughout the New Testament, and particularly in Ephesians 2, Paul goes to great lengths to talk about grace as God's free gift of salvation.
Our sin was so great that we couldn't work our way to God or earn His approval by our own good works. We are saved by God's grace through Jesus Christ. How many are glad today for saving grace? Let's thank the Lord that He rescued us — through sending Jesus, His atoning death, and His glorious resurrection. He made a way for us to receive God's love and come home into the family of God.
But then, in verse 10, Paul changes tack:
For we are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus so we could do the good things He planned for us long ago.
Here's the logic, and it's important:
Grace doesn't just get us into the family of God — it empowers us to fulfil our purpose in and through the family of God, and far beyond it too.
Don't think of grace as something merely past. Grace is an endowment, an entrustment, a supernatural enabling. I could not do what I'm doing by my own energy or effort. I'm so glad for the enabling grace of my Father God, through Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Grace is still active in the body of Christ.
You're a masterpiece. God isn't going to make another one of you. Through a combination of your talents, experience, personality, passion — and particularly here, the spiritual gifts Jesus has given you — He has graced you to make a difference.
When I first got saved, my first feeling was of being washed clean, forgiven, right with God. I felt overwhelming love, joy, and peace. But almost in the same moment, something on the inside of me thought: I'm here on purpose. I've got a destiny.
The tragedy is that many Christians rest on saving grace but never move into purposeful grace, serving grace, ministry grace. They don't live up to Ephesians 2:10 — that God has good things for them to do.
These grace gifts are not just for Sunday. Christianity is not a Sunday deal; it's a Monday-through-Sunday deal. God has wired you in a certain way, and those gifts can be deployed in serving your family, your friends, your work colleagues, and in the marketplace ministry the Lord has for you.
I want to celebrate the amazing job so many of you are doing out there as kingdom ambassadors. This is like the embassy — you come here, and then you get sent out. Many of you are serving sacrificially while also raising kids, caring for elderly parents, and doing great jobs out in the world. Well done, and thank you for all you're doing to make a difference for the King and His kingdom.
With that caveat, notice that every time Paul mentions gifts in the New Testament, his first concern is that they be used in the context of the local church. It's not either/or; it's both/and. You have a part to play as a jigsaw piece not just out there, but in here — to help build up the body of Christ so that the church is able to display Christ to the world.
To those of you already serving across our campuses: on behalf of Karen, myself, the leadership team, and I believe the Lord Himself — thank you. Well done. Lives are being transformed.
Whether you're already serving and sensing there's more, or you've yet to take the first step, here's the question to ask yourself:
How has Christ uniquely gifted me, and where has He graced me to serve?
Having studied this in my own life and helped people for many years, I think God guides us through three ways:
The amount we can serve will vary with our season of life — family, work, health. That's a given. Some can give more than others. The key thing is that all of us pray and ask the Lord how we can invest in this season. We all have a part to play.
When we first started the church, for the first year we had no musicians at all. Then God sent Pete Lister, a brilliant guitar player, still with us today. I thought, "We're going somewhere!" But I'd rather have a worship band than one musician — so I bought a tambourine and started to play.
The Bible says we're to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. One thing you could say about my tambourine playing: it was wholehearted. And sometimes it was even on time. I'm told it aided the worship most of the time.
But when God sent a drummer who could actually keep time and other musicians came in, I laid the tambourine down. It's been dormant for 35 years or more. (And Simon Vennus tells me there is no way I'm having a tambourine comeback — we don't want tambourines messing with the rhythm.)
Why did I do it? Because I loved the Lord, and because there was a need. It was never going to be my primary purpose in the body of Christ, but I did something for the moment. Over the years I've been able to specialise in areas where I was more gifted.
If you're not sure where you fit, we've prepared a short five-question quiz to help point you toward areas of church life where you can serve. There's also a more in-depth tool called Discover Your Destiny on the website. There'll be a team after the service to help you.
Back to verse 7: "To each one of us, grace has been given — as Christ apportioned it."
Notice where the gift comes from. Christ apportioned it. It's not just, "This is my personality, this is my hobby, oh, there's a rota that needs filling." No — this is holier, higher ground. Christ Jesus Himself apportioned you your gift.
Back to the jigsaw: if you think of this as your gift, there's no point looking at someone else and saying, "Can we swap?" This is what you've been given.
Paul then quotes Psalm 68:
When He ascended on high, He took many captives and gave gifts to His people.
This is a picture of a conquering king returning from battle and distributing gifts from the place of triumph. In verses 9 and 10, Paul applies this to Jesus — who first descended, becoming a man, descending to sin and ultimately to death, for our sakes, that we might be set free. Then He rose from the dead and ascended to the Father's right hand. And from that place of ultimate victory, the ascended Jesus says: "Here's My grace gift to you. This is what I've deposited in you."
Can you see how holy this is? God Himself, through Jesus, has distributed the gifts. No member of the body is exactly alike or called to do the same thing — just like no piece of the jigsaw is doing exactly the same thing. But it takes each one of us to build up the body of Christ.
This gives enormous dignity to our gifts:
Jesus told some strong parables — like the parable of the talents, where a master gives talents to his servants, returns, and asks: "What did you do with what I gave you?"
Some of you feel a bit challenged this morning. I'd rather challenge you here, so that when Jesus returns and asks, "What did you do with what I gave you?" you can say: "I responded. I said yes. I didn't bury my gift. I didn't neglect it. I didn't hide it. I didn't think, 'Someone else will fill my role.' I took responsibility as a steward for the grace God gave me."
So the deeper question is: Lord, what have You entrusted to me, and am I stewarding it faithfully?
Stewardship is usually more than one epic moment of sacrifice. Sometimes we have those moments, but in my experience faithful stewardship looks more like a lifetime of a thousand yeses. Just keep showing up. Keep turning up. Keep going back for strength. Another meeting, another life transformed.
I think of Mel. I met him and his wife Tina on our very first Alpha course back in 1994. Here's what he wrote to me:
I participated in my first Alpha course in 1994 as a guest. I was completely unchurched and had lived a very unholy life, mostly in military service. That Alpha course not only changed my relationship with God, it radically changed my relationship with people. From being a loner, I was truly transformed into someone who loved others and wanted to hear their life stories.
Thirty-two years and 103 Alpha courses later, I still have the same passion for seeing people come to know Jesus — usually just by listening to them and demonstrating God's love, usually with food, of course. It remains one of my greatest joys to see men and women I've met through Alpha living out transformed lives here at Kingsgate. Serving with the Alpha team has allowed me to enjoy a role I believe God called me to, and to play a part in the growth of God's family. I will always be grateful to those who helped me, and I'll continue to do the same for others as long as I'm able.
What a beautiful picture of someone who knows that alongside saving grace comes an entrustment — and has been faithful, serving others as an act of worship.
Look at the jigsaw again. It's beginning to show us something — but the problem is obvious: there are lots and lots of pieces missing. It's hard to see the full picture.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul uses the body analogy to show how every single member must play their part for the whole body to function. When members aren't functioning, the whole body suffers. That's a tragedy — and sadly, many churches today look more like this incomplete picture than the New Testament pattern.
So how did we get here?
The early church was growing and exploding — the gospel going across the known world with every member in ministry. But for well over a thousand years, the church lapsed into a non–New Testament way of doing things: a priest whose job was to perform religious functions, with a special "hotline" to God, while everyone else watched on, waiting for a religious fix and carrying on with daily life. That is not New Testament.
Then in the 16th century came the Reformation — a recovery of the Bible and of biblical truth. One rediscovery was that the word "priest" was never applied in the New Testament to a few special people; it was something all believers were.
If you are a believer in Christ today, whether you knew it or not, you are a priest — with the function of serving God and serving people.
The theology of the priesthood of all believers was restored in the 16th century. But tragically, in practice, it didn't fully translate into the ministry of all believers. Instead of "priest," we often just changed the name to "vicar" or "pastor" — but their job was still to do all the work, to "hatch, match, and dispatch" and everything in between. That leaves a largely passive view of church: one person, or a few exhausted helpers, doing everything for everyone else.
Church is not a religious function that one or two people perform while everyone else sits and watches.
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. — Ephesians 4:11–12
Here's the model. There is a grace gift on certain leaders in the body of Christ. So we believe in leaders — God believes in leaders. But not one type of leader: some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastor-teachers. It's never a one-person ministry; it's a team ministry.
And notice what the leaders are meant to do. It does not say God gave these leaders to do the works of ministry. It says He gave them to equip His people — the saints, the people of God. Who are the people of God? All of us — the same "each one" Paul started with in verse 7.
This is ministry not reserved for a few. It is ministry released to the multitudes, so that every single person fulfils their God-given destiny.
I love that word equip. It means to restore or mend something — like setting a broken bone. The role of these leadership gifts is to help mend and restore the body, so that it doesn't just feel healed and free, but can actually function.
At Kingsgate we're passionate about this. We have a whole freedom ministry. If you ever come on a Sunday and think someone's just given you a nice talk — think again. We're here to equip you, to restore you, to free you. Some of you have come in with wounds and baggage; you need restoring and freedom. But you also need to be released and equipped into your God-given destiny.
So: leaders equip; the whole body does the ministry.
Alongside the historical reason, there's a cultural one — maybe even more prevalent today. We live in a consumer society that trains us to ask: "Did I like it? Did it meet my needs?"
There's nothing inherently wrong with those questions, and we don't want to put on boring services for the sake of it. But it's the wrong first question to ask of the church. The church is not a religious product delivered to an audience. It's Christ's living body functioning, with every member serving and fulfilling their God-given destiny.
May the Lord renew our minds and remove every wrong historical or cultural framework.
Paul pictures the whole body:
...joined and held together, growing and building itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Each part does its work.
We heard from Yianni, who has been serving at Kingsgate since she was 12. She started on the kids team because there was a need — and though it was scary, she thought, "They're younger than me; what's the worst that could happen?"
She learned confidence and discovered she had something to bring. She's served on the kids team, the youth team, car parking, and production — "car parking and production are my people." She found that serving builds community, and it's often in community that you discover what you're called to do.
She loved how the problem-solving skills she uses as an engineer transfer into serving, and how serving in a safe space — where it's okay to make mistakes and receive loving feedback — grew her confidence for the workplace too.
Her punchline says it all: "If we believe this is the Lord's house, we want to get involved. Grab a friend, pick a team, and go for it." I couldn't put it better myself.
As we get ready to respond, let's return to the jigsaw. Some of you have been wondering what it depicts. It's a picture of Aslan — C.S. Lewis's lion, representing Christ the King.
What's the goal of all this? It's not just to meet needs, though it does meet needs. It's not just to fill rotas, though there are rotas to fill. Ultimately, this is about us all playing our part individually, so that together we represent Christ in all His fullness — both within the church and to a watching, waiting world.
...so that the body of Christ may be built up. — Ephesians 4:12
And in verse 13, Paul talks about us becoming mature. How many want the church to become all that Jesus intends it to be? We've all got a part to play in that.
Take your jigsaw piece in your hand. This is, first and foremost, a heart response to Jesus.
Some of you need to respond, maybe for the very first time, to saving grace — the free gift of salvation, whereby Jesus Christ came, died in your place, took your sin upon Himself, to forgive you, make you new, and give you a glorious future.
If that's you, close your eyes. I won't ask you to repeat something; just join with me from where you're at:
Lord Jesus, I reach out to You. I want to receive what You've given. I want to be born again, to be made new. Please come into my life. Forgive me. Cleanse me. Fill me with Your love, joy, and peace. Make me brand new. I want a fresh start with You, and I choose today to follow You all the days of my life.
For the rest of us who have already received saving grace, remind yourself and say: "Thank You, Lord, that You saved me." Serving often flows out of returning to the cross and remembering what Jesus has done for us. Return to your first love. "Thank You, Lord, for Your gift of salvation. Renew our first love here."
And for all of us, I invite you to begin to say yes to Jesus:
Lord, I want to exercise the serving grace You've called me to. I want to use the gifts and talents You've given me to make a difference — not just for this life, but for all eternity.
The deeper question isn't just "Which team should I join?" — though that may be a practical outworking. The deeper question is: "Lord Jesus, my life is available to You. What would You have me do as I step into Your destiny for my life? I want to be a faithful steward, so that when You return, I can say: this is what I did with what You entrusted to me."
Lord, I thank You for the grace that changes us, and the grace that empowers us. I pray for a renewing and revitalising of every single person. Where there's weariness, where there's fragility, I pray Your strength and Your healing, in Jesus' name. Amen.
