- Good evening, everybody. Glad we could tune in for another session of our Ephesians Bible study. Let's take a moment to pray as we begin. Our God, thank you, Lord, for your grace. And God, we thank you that, Lord, your heart is kind and generous. Lord, we recognize that throughout the book study, that, Lord, you have been overflowing with mercies, forgiveness, and love.

And what's more, God, that you have been absolutely generous with us. And this not because of anything that we merit, but truly because this is the character of your heart. And so we thank you, God, for not only allowing us to see it, but God, to experientially receive it from your gracious hand.

We pray for another session of Bible study that as we study your word, God, that we would truly have eyes to see and ears to hear. We thank you, it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Okay, we're taking a look at Ephesians chapter four, verses seven through 10 today.

But as you take a look at the passage, you could easily tell that verses seven all the way down through verse 16 is one paragraph. So let's take a moment to read that portion of scripture and we'll study the passage. Ephesians four, verse seven, it says, "But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men." Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descends is himself also he who ascends far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.

Let's take a moment to read the rest of the paragraph. "And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attained to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects and to him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, cause the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." Okay, let's begin by taking a look at the very first verse of our passage, verse seven.

And this is a topic sentence for the paragraph. It begins by saying, "But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift." Okay? Now, because it's a topic sentence, it's good to identify each element of this sentence. Okay? So the very first thing we're going to identify is the contraction there, or conjunction there, the word "but." Right?

We ask this question, what is being contrasted? We ask the question, hmm, what is the summary of verse seven that is being juxtaposed against what was stated before? Okay? And what we noticed from before was that there was such unity. If you recall, in verses one through six of chapter four, there was this repetition of the word "one." There was one this, and there was one that.

There was one body, there was one spirit. Okay? There was one baptism, and so forth. And so when we think about it, clearly there was an emphasis on the theme of unity. Okay? And then here, in this sentence, in verse seven, it's stating, "But to each one of us," it is highlighting this idea of individuality within the body.

Okay? And so, one of the ways that a commentator, James Montgomery Boyce, states it, is that Apostle Paul takes great lengths to stress the unity of the church within this same thought, in a balanced thought. Yet, it is a particular kind of unity. It is a kind of unity that sustains great diversity.

So we have to keep in mind that there is a commonality, there is a unity by which there is sameness, right? There is a same baptism, same experience, I said, same identity. Okay? And so much so, it supersedes a lot of the differences that we may have. But at the same time, God intentionally designed to preserve the individuality that he has created us to have.

And a good example of that, essentially, like the thumb. If we were to think of ourselves each as individual thumbs, but the thing about it is, each of us has a fingerprint that is unique. That is so unique that not a single person has the exact same fingerprint as another.

So another passage, a cross-reference to highlight this, is from a passage that should be familiar to every single one of you, because we go over it for every member's induction. Okay? So please turn your Bibles over to 1 Corinthians 12 as we do a walkthrough. Because this cross-reference highlights this idea in such extensive fashion.

This chapter is stressing the idea of incredible unity and diversity in the context of thinking about spiritual gifts, the practice and use of spiritual gifts within the church. I want to start off with 1 Corinthians 12, verse 4-7, and the passage says this, "Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit.

There are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good." Okay? So what's the idea here? The idea is that there is such a variety of not only the work and function that we do, but the effect and the results that we have.

And what's more, by the spirit, okay, by the spirit, there is going to be a manifestation of different kinds of gifts for each person. And so the idea there again is variety. Verse 11, verse 11 going forward says this, "But one and the same spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually as he wills." So that being the case, one might say, "Wow, that's really interesting.

This variety is not just because it's hard to get everybody to walk the same walk, get in line and do the same thing. It's intentional, okay? The spirit gifts each person distributing as he desires." But someone might say, "But why?" One of the thoughts that I had was there was a time when after doing, let's say, a project together with different people at the church, there are times when I think like, "Man, it'd be nice to have a bunch of you." And that's a compliment, meaning, "I wish I could clone you because if I had a bunch of you, man, think about how much work we could have.

Think about how many things we can do, right?" And I'm sure if you've ever tried serving at church and you were trying to run a project, sometimes you might've felt the frustration like, "How come everybody doesn't do this?" Well, I want you to think about that because although yes, it would be nice to have a hundred of certain individuals, God is saying, "No, according to his own wisdom, he made it varied." Although it might seem a lot better to just have every single person synchronized, EVing together, working together, and then we could say proudly, "We are like a unit." Clearly, scripture says, "No, that's actually not the model." Moving forward in verse 12, it says, "For even as the body is one, yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body.

So also is Christ." When I said earlier that that wasn't the design, think about what is the model. There is this very interesting and profound word here where he talks about how although there's one and there's many members, he says, "So is Christ." This is the way the design of the body of Christ is made.

Verse 13, "For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many." Also skipping down to verse 18, "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired.

If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body, and therefore we have to hold these two, five, thoughts in unison and in balance." I want you to think about this. Our Savior, is he varied? I think one of the very profound things about Christ is scripture says he is priest, he is king, he is prophet, he is the physician, he is...

We can go on. He holds incredible offices. And what's more, when we think about even the way that he presented his personalities, I mean, what a dynamic individual, where he is perhaps the most incredibly gentle, that the greatest of sinners, though shamed as they may be, would walk towards him.

Those individuals who are outcasts would find such comfort in Christ. And yet at the same time, Christ is somebody who we can't even compare how scary he is, how fearsome his authority and power is. To put it in another way, Christ is not a one-trick pony. He doesn't do one thing over and over again, and then therefore he does that thing miraculously, but every...

Like majestic, but everything else, it's like, "He left it to other people to take care of." No. Christ is one, and we're going to talk about this, who fulfills all in all, and there's this incredible dynamic nature to our Savior. And God had designed that his church, the body of Christ, be the same way.

Interesting, right? So those individuals who see church specifically as, "We should be a military boot camp and get people into shape," there may be aspects of discipline, exhortation, but that's not what we all are. We need to be an infirmary. We need to be a hospital. There may be a need for that, but that's not all that the church is.

You guys get my drift there. Moving forward, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 25, he says, "So that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it." Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it, and God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, the miracles and gifts of healing, helps administration, various kinds of tongues.

I just want to make mention of this fact then. Sorry, hold on one second. Make mention of this fact then that God has designed us varied. God has designed us in a dynamic way to create even greater unity. Now he asked this important question in verse 29, "All are not apostles, are they?" The answer is no.

There is diversity here. Let's continue to read these questions that Apostle Paul poses. He says, "All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they?" The answer is no. "All are not workers of miracles, are they?" No. "All do not have gifts of healing, do they?" No.

"All do not speak tongues, do they?" No, they do not. "All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts." I will show you still a more excellent way. And that leads into chapter 13, which talks about love as an incredible virtue, as a greater, higher superseding ethic than perhaps our intellect.

Now in summary then, earlier I mentioned to you that God has made things beautiful in the incredible unity that we have. So much so that our unity supersedes all the categories of division that we see on earth. Male, female, rich, poor, free, slave. All these categories does not matter in the face of God because He has built such a unity, a beautiful unity and commonality in us.

At the same time, this unity contains a diversity that produces even greater unity and interdependence and ultimately brings glory to God. When He said, "We are different. And if we were the same, where would be the sense of smell? Where would be the..." Right? Those are the things that we remember from chapter 12.

And He said, "This kind of dynamic nature of the church actually creates a greater kind of interdependence on each other. We give even greater honor to elements of our body that we think are just behind the scenes." Because why? We need them. And we're not able to say, "I don't need you." So in God's great wisdom, He has created all that.

And someone listening might say, "Yeah, last time, the last Bible study that I gave last week, I played up the unity so much. I was just like, 'We have everything in common.'" Right? And I pretty much said, "Who cares about your personality? I don't really care if you're an INTJ or whatever letters you may be." Right?

So in balance, just as a caveat, what I'm saying actually is your Myers-Briggs personality test just doesn't matter as much. But it's not as though your personality is done away with. It's not as though you have to go and kill your personality and fake like you're something else. No.

All of that is preserved and used as unique gifts that we're going to continue to think about. So, significantly speaking, every single member, we are many. And we are different. And we are all significant parts that God has composed together into this beautiful thing that God is desiring to make, which is His church, the body of Christ.

Okay? I hope that just makes you feel like, "Man, the church is awesome." Right? Not because we've made the church awesome because God has clearly designed it and gifted it that way. Now, moving forward to section B. Okay? Section number two, 7B. It says, "According to the measure of Christ's gift." Now, we have to ask this question, okay?

What is this gift, this Christ's gift? And when he says, "According to the measure," how is it measured out? What kind of measure are we talking about? Now, there are elements that we won't take extra time on. But when you even think about "of Christ's gift," when we say "Christ's gift," I think we naturally would read it.

This is a gift that maybe Christ is measuring out in His generosity and giving out. So this is Christ's gift to give to you. Or another commentator just kind of gave us some options and said, "What if this is more like the gifts that Christ received as the Savior, as the Son of God, as the King, to that great measure Christ gives?" Now, I'm just going to skip that part and leave that to you to dwell on.

Either way you think about it, the measure is incredible. The measure by which Christ is giving the gifts to the church is not the kind of way that perhaps we would measure it out. I mean, again, because we are in this scenario of people needing personal protection equipment like masks, and like, "How do I divvy this out?" Well, I guess you need it, so sometimes you think like generosity should happen just when there is a dire, dire need here.

Is that the way Christ is going to give gifts? Perhaps not, right? Now, in thinking about this though, A, there is clearly some indication of what kind of gifts Paul's talking about because he uses a specific term for gift, which is in the Greek, "dorea." This is a free gift.

And the dictionaries, when you do the word study, highlight that this term emphasizes the gracious nature of the character given it. So basically the idea is freely. This is a free thing, completely free of cost. Now, when we think about this gift, it has a couple different references that can be, but when you do Bible study, I want you to make sure that you're always first thinking about it in the immediate context, meaning you should be thinking about it within the phrases around it.

You should be thinking about it within the paragraph that it belongs to. What's very interesting is that in the immediate context, the gifts, one of the definitions that we can assign to this idea of gift is people. Christ gives the church people, individuals, apostles, prophets. Now I'm going to be just really frank with you guys.

The people that I consider to be incredibly huge facets of God's grace to me are individuals who have invested and taught me. I mean, I've always said to you guys that although I am a part of the leadership and have been now for a decade, I see all of our elders like they're my elders, right?

Because they've guided me this whole time. They've taught me, they've been patient with me, instructing me, guiding my steps. What a huge gift that is, your parents. I mean, think about again, the gifts that you receive when you think about the people, but what's more in broader context, as we think about later on in the paragraph, how we are supposed to be the saints who labor and do the work of ministry and how we're supposed to employ the things that we have.

Clearly both verse seven and then other portions of scripture, when we looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, think about gifts in terms of skills, functions, and enablements, usable traits that you can employ for the edification of the church. So each of these gifts we're supposed to use, each of these gifts we're supposed to have the sense of like, oh yeah, we're not necessarily maybe visibly like a vital portion, right?

Vital portion of the church, but nevertheless still so significant in the God has placed you there. The church is strong. The church is strong when each person fully ministers according to their gifting. What's more in Acts chapter two, verse four, verse 33, I referenced that passage for you in your Bible study questions.

And we point to John chapter 14 when Christ talks about what he's going to give his disciples. Okay. What he's going to send, who he's going to send. And what's very clear is that we have the Holy Spirit. So in various parts of scripture, when he talks about the gift that is given to men in Acts chapter two, verse four, when it talks about the gift that is coming down, he's talking about the Holy Spirit.

So take a moment to think about this. You know, one of the terms that I really don't have come to not like within just our common like use of language is the term layman. Okay. Layman. You see this idea of specialized clergy, okay. People of the cloth, so to speak, and laity has been a concept around us from a long time.

It has Catholic roots to it. Laity just means commoner. Okay. But just the way that even sounds, I don't like it. It just sounds so much like lazy, right? You just lay there. Layman, right? Lame. Okay. So what I'm trying to say is that kind of differentiate, like the difference that you categorically make between clergy and layman, it shouldn't be so strict within like church hierarchy of the Catholic faith.

There has been Pope bishops, like Cardinals and whatnot. And then at the bottom of the totem pole is laity. But that actually made some kind of difference in terms of function. They said that the laity, how could they understand scripture? Right? So I want you to think about the way that the passage is even talking about though the commoner, I guess you could say, you should be thinking of yourselves not as layman, but gifted people for ministry.

Right? There is a variety of gifts and a variety of effects that Christ is going to produce in you and the effects you don't even know yet. You are every single person within the church gifted people, not lay. Okay. Although yes, we can, we can talk about that. You're not in full-time ministry, right?

You're not a staffer at the church. We get that. But obviously in terms of the mentality, we have to be thinking we have, and I want you to say you have, you have the Holy Spirit, you have special gifting, the uniqueness of your, your, your, your, uh, abilities, your capacities, your experiences, your personalities, your thought, and most importantly, just your faith.

And then what's more, you have people, you have people in the church around you, not just pastors and elders, but people around you who are teaching you and investing you don't act like you don't have stuff. It is my point. And you know that, you know, there are people I like to mention, you know, sometimes we don't even know, like they don't have visible character traits that are like apparently right immediately noticed, but we have people in this church who you may not even know what their voices sound like, but it have contributed so much to build up this church and that we're so thankful for.

Okay. So that portion of it, we definitely want to really appreciate. And then moving on to section three, verses eight through 10, we can clump together as a support clause and rationale. Okay. Verse seven, I spent a lot of time because that's the topic sentence. Listen, we're all one, but each one of you have been gifted by Christ and that is a grace given to you.

That's not a, you know, a task master, a task masters, you know, whip given to you. That is, that is grace given to you to exercise such gifts. And then it's a support of that concept is verse eight through 10, which reads, therefore, okay, it says when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

Now this expression, he ascended. What does it mean? Except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all, uh, he might fill all things. Okay. So we have to ask, what is this quote?

Where's it from? What's its context? And most importantly, why is it being quoted? And I made mentioned earlier, it's being quoted to support this idea that Christ gave gifts. Okay. Now this verse in terms of the old Testament quote, what comes from Psalm chapter 68 verses 17 through 18 and it reads the chariots of God's are myriads thousands upon thousands and the Lord is among them as at Mount Sinai in holiness.

You have ascended on high. You have led captives, your captives. You have received gifts among men, even among the rebellious also that the Lord God may dwell there. Okay. Now when you think about the general thought and flow, if you read all of Psalm 68, it's going to read this kind of majestic, you ascended, you threw down, you conquered, you're victorious, that kind of thought.

Okay. And so, uh, Spurgeon in his treasury of David says, this Psalm is of might. It's a victory of God, a hymn of war and victory celebrating God's conquest and triumphant ascent. And then if you tie to the, if you think about what is tied King David and what is tied to the historical events, this is most likely the idea of the representation of the arc of the covenant.

When God leads with the arc of the covenant, the nation was victorious. So with that said, the concept and the thought is when a King is victorious, he receives all the spoils. When a King is victorious, he comes back into the kingdom and with him comes what gifts. Why?

Because he's just conquered and taken in all of the spoil. And so when you think about that, the way that we should be thinking about the measure, the way that we should be thinking about the kind of concept is a generosity of a King, okay, given to the church.

So I wanted to go down and break down a couple of things that you guys might have questions on and I'm going to go through this briefly, which is this. Apostle Paul highlights though, he doesn't specifically say the King is giving you gifts, but he highlights though, and you have to take note of this, the degree of descent and ascent, okay, the degree of the descent and then the ascent.

And then, so what he said is, when you think about this idea of he went up, what does it mean but that he came down? Okay. Now people are going to have this idea or the question, what does it mean that he came down and where, what are these lower parts of the earth?

Now a lot of people have different thoughts, whether it be first the incarnation, just simply coming down as a man, we know the distance between where Christ was, where in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, the word was God. And then for him to come down to us as incarnate man, that would be an incredible descent.

What's more, some people will say, he's just talking about earth. He came to earth and then he went to the grave into the lower parts. And then some people think that perhaps he's talking about Sheol, which is referenced a lot in the Old Testament, which is a place, a jail of the Old Testament for those who are demons, those who are opposed to God.

And first Peter chapter three mentions that when Christ is victorious through his death, that he preached to those who are in prison. And the idea is that Christ preached his triumph and said, look, you shameful beings, look what I've done. And then other people think he just literally spent time in hell.

This passage alone, it cannot give us enough to say, oh my gosh, it's all of these. It's best to think just the significance is the descent of this King to come. And this idea is in his coming was yes, his death and his suffering, but realize that it was through that, that Christ is going to also achieve his victory.

And so the question is, so then he went down and it's he who went up and to where? He who ascends far above all the heavens. But the point that is the driving force and the conclusion is verse 10, so that he fulfills all things. When you think about the idea of fulfills all things, we should be thinking about like the kind of terminology we read.

Remember like, you know, when back in revelation or sorry, the near revelation, when it talks about the savior, he'll say to him, be all things, glory, honor, power, right? That's to him, to him belongs everything. They were talking about cosmic sovereignty. He fulfills all things, right? He has universal power.

He has absolute authority. And the proof of all that is his grand victory of resurrection. And so when we think about that, we are essentially able to answer the question of, and it's this king, we're able to actually paint the picture, so to speak, not necessarily answer the question, but paint the picture of it's this king who has grand victory, who has universal authority, who is giving gifts to the church, who is leading the church in its enablement and its function and also its result.

So we want to wrap up with some meditations then. Let's meditate on this. If that is the picture that is being painted in verses seven through 10, let me ask you this question and meditate. If a king is giving us gifts, then will we sit and just envy other people's gifts?

I think if you guys have heard me preach, you've heard me probably confess this a lot, right? That some days I'm all down, I feel very stressed, I feel kind of incapable. I'm like, oh, I forgot to do this thingy. And then, oh, I should have done a better job.

And oh, I should have said this and woulda, shoulda, couldas. Like that is my mind regularly. I have this very sensitive guilt radar. And then you look over and the guy next to you, he's just like, you know, like getting everything done. He's like on top of his task list.

And when I look to my left, I see this guy who's so disciplined. I'm sitting there like, man, I wish I could do that. I wish I had the skills to get everything done and all that kind of stuff. I do realize, I mean, if my perspective is limited to just me and my natural tendencies, I'm just going to think that for the rest of my life.

But thanks be to God, he gives us the scriptures and he says, no, the king has given you gifts according to his great design. When the king gives you gifts, you don't sit there and be like, but that guy has more. Right? Like, what about that guy? You know, like, why would I do that?

I would say, thank you so much. And you would do according to what you think is going to be really honoring and blessing a blessing as a reciprocated thanksgiving to God. And yes, it's okay to be challenged by the gifts of others, but to sit and wallow like oh, come God, you didn't give me that.

I'm not sure that's the right perspective. Let's meditate on this. If a victorious, mighty, sovereign, universally sovereign king gives you gifts, why would you sit and worse off act like you didn't get anything? And some of us straight up do that. Like, I've got nothing. I don't have nothing to offer really.

You know, like, nah, you know, I'm just not like all of them. I really didn't get stuff. You know, that guy has both the voice and the technical skills and the charisma. I got nothing. Why would we act like that when the scripture says God has given us the grace?

Each one of us, he says. God is not like the government. He didn't accidentally send stimulus checks to dead people and then miss you, right? God has given, he says, each one of us already in Christ. And yes, it might not look like the measure you would desire or the measure that we would do it if I was gifting people at the church, but he's done it.

It would be wrong of us to act like that. Or if a king gives you a gift, why would you fake like, oh, thank you, and then just stash it in your sock drawer? Just hold on to it and say, I know I got it. And I kind of, if you notice, I'm kind of making it incrementally worse.

And you might be surprised to think, is it worse to just be like complaining like, I didn't get anything? Or is it worse to fake like you got it, say thank you, and then never use it and shove it away? Because of the biblical example of the lazy slave and servant, remember the parable of the talents?

The owner calls that slave a wicked person who feigns like, OK, I'll take it, but then believes in his heart that the person who gave it to him was a wicked man himself, that he was a harsh man. I just want to use this as a moment to quote a famous or popular pastor, Dr.

Steve Lawson. Truthfully, he's just really intense. And when you want to hurt good, you kind of listen to him. But he says about this passage, and I was listening to a sermon, and then he says, "Not to use our gifts is an affront to Christ's wisdom, a rebuff of his love, a dismissal of his grace, a loss to his church, and an arrogant self-determination that weakens the work of your neighbor and grieves the Spirit of God." OK, hope that impersonation was good.

Oh man, he's right. The effect of sitting there and thinking that I'm going to be passive because I actually don't have anything, it is an affront to Christ's wisdom, who is king, who, again, in God's wisdom and design has already orchestrated the church as he wills. So I want to conclude by saying, remember that our church believes every single one of you as a person is a gift to this church.

And if you're not motivated, if I sound like a motivational speaker, I want to. And I want to motivate you because it's true. You should be thinking of yourself as a gifted person, expected to use your gifts for this church. And remember that at this church, that's why we practice membership and it's a part of our membership covenant.

Because this is the design of God. He has made the church beautiful in his own sight, in his own wisdom to make it one, and then to gift it and bless it in a variety of ways that it would retain our individuality and so that each one of us have this responsibility to lovingly, to carefully use it for the glory of God.

And I hope that you're motivated to do so. Let's take a moment to pray. Our God, we thank you so much for your grace. We thank you God for this grace that is particular in that you have gifted each person with their unique lives. And I pray Father God that that would help us to really just soak in this thought Lord, that when we even think about our service in the church, God, first and foremost, we do have to think about our relationship to you.

You gifted us. And so now I'm held accountable to you Lord. Father God, for me to just compare all the time with other people would be to lose sight of you. Rather, God, I want to make sure and I pray that every single person in the church make sure that when they hear this truth, you as King has given us gifts.

So we thank you Lord. Would you empower, continue to empower us? Would you continue to build in us strength? Would you continue to build in us perseverance that we would then continue to be about the building of your kingdom and the building of your church. We thank you Lord Jesus Christ and we pray.

Amen.