Open with me to Ephesians 4. We have been working our way through Ephesians for four or five months now and we have arrived here in this heavily practical section. Last week we covered verses 1-6. Lord willing, this week we will cover verses 7-16. So we'll begin reading in verse 7. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when He ascended on high, He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men. In saying He ascended, what does it mean but that He also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." And so you can take a breath. That's a heavy passage. And what a book this book has been thus far. Ephesians, at least in what I call doctrinally motivated churches, which I hope that's what we are. Doctrine matters. It is mostly well known for its theology and not so much for its practicality. Well, I mean, it may be known for the Armor of God passage that we'll get to, but we need Ephesians 4. We need this passage. Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in North Port, Alabama, like the Ephesian church, needs this. Now you may know this, you may not. Jesus personally wrote a letter to the church in Ephesus. I mean, addressed by Jesus to the church in Ephesus. We call that Revelation 2, verses 1-7. He wrote to this church and he commended them in a number of ways. Now this was 30 or 40 years after Paul penned this book. But he had a complaint against them. Here was the complaint. Revelation 2, 4, and 5. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Love for Christ, love for one another. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." That's addressed to the same church several decades later by the Lord Himself. The love for Jesus in this assembly, the church at Ephesus, had waned. But no doubt, so had their love for one another waned at that time. Now you'll recall all of the deep theology of the first three chapters that we covered. We spent months delving through those things. And with that foundation of theology laid, Paul begins chapter 4. I therefore... Paul says it. He's referring back to everything that he has already said up to that point. He begins chapter 4 talking about Christian unity in the church between those believers. Now you remember at the church in Ephesus, there was a major division there between Jews and Gentiles. Something we really don't know anything about. We don't have Jewish believers here. In our society, it's all types of other things, but that doesn't mean there isn't still this fight for unity. There is and should be. Now in the text we covered last week, verses 1-6, Paul stressed that our actions and our attitudes should be that of humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another, in love, and only if we have those qualities are we going to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And that should be something we are eager to do. You say, man, that's strong. Well, that's Paul. Ultimately, that's the Lord because the Lord inspired this book. Paul's not the ultimate author. He's the human pensman. But the Lord inspired this book. I guess I could end last week's sermon and begin this week's sermon by saying, did you do anything this week to further the unity of this church? I mean, I thought that was a pretty heavy sermon last week. Did we change anything? If not, I made no progress. I mean, my preaching should be changing lives. That's the reason we come here. Well, today's lesson continues the theme of unity. But this time it explains the means of that unity, how God brings it about, the gifts that God has given to churches that help us to function properly with harmony. The name of the sermon this morning in Ephesians is Uniting Gifts. Uniting Gifts. I actually thought about naming it Congregational Dependency. I think that would be worthy because we are all dependent on one another. That's really what's going on here in this passage. Nevertheless, this text is clear. God gifts every member. Not just Preachers, not just musicians. God gifts every member. And those gifts are given to unify the church. So we need one another. Thus the optional title, Congregational Dependency. We need one another. So he begins in verse 7. He says, "...but..." Now see, you've got to know where we were here. "...they..." The church in Ephesus, just like we here at Sovereign Grace in Northport. "...their one body, led by one Spirit, called to one hope, they all had one Lord, united by one faith, baptized by one baptism, and had one God and Father of all." Listen, that's a pretty good argument that we ought to be united, right? I mean, that's a lot in common. That's life. That's everything. We ought to be one. So, with that backdrop, Paul says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when He ascended on high, He led a host of captives and gave gifts to men. But, in spite of the fact that we are to be one body, united together, but each of us have been specially and individually gifted. That means we're not all the same. You say, wait a minute. He sounds like he's talking about disunity if we're not all the same. Well, that's because you've got a terrible idea of unity. Unity is not everybody being alike. Part of God's plan in gifting is that everybody's different. Isn't that amazing? There's this diversity. I mean, that's what this whole passage is about. Every member's not the same. Every member has their individual gifts that are just for them. They're not carbon copies of one another. They're all different. And yet, we are to be united as one. You say, well, that's a whole different idea of gifting as I've ever thought about. Listen, I mentioned last week that it's common for churches, especially conservative churches, to demand uniformity among the membership. They go so far maybe even to create a list of rules that every member has to follow. Listen, folks, there's enough in this book right here to keep us busy. We do not need another list of rules. That we won't keep, by the way. This book is enough. We believe that the Scripture is sufficient. We're not going to create another list of rules, at least not while I'm leading. I want us to get this part right. Uniformity is when everybody in the church is alike in most every way. Uniformity should never, ever be confused with unity. Those are not the same. And Paul is actually explaining in this text before us today that God, through Jesus, by the way, Jesus is ultimately the one who gifts, He has gifted us all differently. And so because of that, there is diversity. That is literally the opposite of uniformity. This passage is not only not saying that everybody has to look alike, talk alike, whatever. This passage is actually saying that Jesus has gifted people so they are different. I hope that makes sense as we move through the passage today. But what we must do is maintain unity as a body while recognizing diversity in gifts. It's important. So Paul had a gift. He was gifted to be an apostle. And he exercised that gift very well. But none of us have been gifted in that way. We aren't called to be apostles. We may think everything we say is the gospel, but it ain't. I saw husband and wives looking at each other. If you aren't married, you'll get that one day. But we aren't required to be apostles. We're not. We follow the leadership of the apostles because God used them in a very special way. But we aren't required to be apostles. But we do all have gifts. And by the way, the operation of these gifts is not optional. It is not. Tell the parts of your body Legs, it's okay today if you don't function." That's silly, right? That's what Paul's likening a church body to here. Everything's got to work in harmony. It's got to do what it's been made to do. We all have gifts and if we do not use them, the church can't be healthy. No more than a body can be healthy if parts aren't working. It's not possible. More on that later. Then Paul quotes Psalms, or the 68th Psalm, I should say, the 18th verse, at least the way we read it, Psalm 68, 18. This is the difficulty of doing what we do here, preaching through books, because you come to passages like this and you have to deal with it. You say, well, this shouldn't be hard, it makes perfect sense. Not if you go read Psalm 68. That's where the hard part comes in. This is tough to relate partly because this psalm is one of the most difficult psalms to interpret without this passage. In fact, Harold Hohner, he's actually referring to a man by the name of Mitchell Dayhood, but you don't care about that. Here's what he says, Psalm 68 is reckoned as textually and exegetically the most difficult and obscure of all the psalms. and variously attempted interpretations have been opposed." So we've got to know what Psalm 68 means to know what Paul really is talking about here because it's richer than you actually think it is. Here's what we know about Psalm 68, and I hope Brian or Jacob get Psalm 68 in six years when we get there. It is a psalm of triumph. It is a psalm of conquering one's enemies, specifically Israel conquering their enemies. Walter Kaiser says that verse 18 is the grand messianic verse of that psalm. That's the verse Paul here quotes. Now this is the way it reads in the Psalter. you ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there." So the receiving of gifts in that psalm is the receiving of the spoils of war from one's enemies. That's what it's speaking about. The one who receives the gifts in Psalm 68 is the conqueror himself. He receives the spoils of war. So why does Paul use it then? Is he using it out of context? Never. He's not using it out of context. Paul never would use Scripture out of context. To quote Lee Corso, not so fast my friend. Paul, like David, presents the Messiah, Jesus, as the conquering warrior victorious over his enemies. Same person. Same identity. Now the way that he applies it will be somewhat different because Paul is going to apply it to the cross where David ultimately is looking forward to the kingdom. But it's still the same person and the means of conquering is the cross. There can be no kingdom without a cross. There can be no new covenant where sins are forgiven without Jesus dying in the place of sinners. You see? So this host of captives here is not His followers, but His enemies. Paul in Colossians 2 says that Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame, triumphing over them. He did that at the cross. In quoting this psalm, it says that Jesus did three things. Notice, He ascended on high, He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men. Three things. Now He ascended into heaven. We know that. That's recorded for us in Acts chapter 1. It's clear. Jesus ascended into heaven. He'll actually explain some more of that here in just a moment. Again, this host of captives probably refers to defeated enemies. Satan, the demonic horde that follows him. Wicked men. And it says that he gives gifts to men in the church. That's obviously Paul's point from the context here. So the ultimate divine warrior from Psalm 16 conquered his enemies through the cross. But Psalm 68 seems to show him receiving gifts from his enemies, not giving them to men. You say, are you telling us that the Old Testament is contradicted here by the Apostle Paul? I am in no way suggesting that. Listen, the one who receives the spoils of war shares them with those on His side. And that's what Paul is saying. Jesus has conquered the enemies and He is now gifting His people with the spoils of war, so to speak. Paul actually is not in any way misusing Scripture. He's using it perfectly rightly. So Paul is saying that because of Jesus' faithful life, death, resurrection, and ascension, He is in this age gifting people to serve Him and that, by the way, in local churches all around the globe. So he goes on in verses 9 and 10 and he explains what he means by the word ascended. You say, why does he go off subject? He's not going off subject. He's just offering clarification here. Verse 9, in saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Now I know some of you are talking to a new King James and a King James. Here's what it says. Now this, he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? The ESV says He just descended into the lower parts, comma, the earth. Which is it? Well, I think they're saying exactly the same thing. Some have tried to make the lower parts of the earth hell itself, but I believe that is entirely incorrect. Some even believe that after Jesus died on a cross, He spent the next three days suffering for sins in hell. That is wrong. That is wrong. Every text in the New Testament that refers to the payment of sins, without exception, points to the cross. That's why we sing songs like, At the Cross. Because our sins were paid for at the cross, when Jesus died. This is in no way suggesting that He went to hell for three days. And Paul wrote to the church in Colossae, he said, And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. But he goes on. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them. Where did that happen? At the cross. That's where Jesus conquered His enemies. And just so you know, Jesus, just before He died, said three very important words. It is finished. He did not go to hell and suffer three days for the sins of His people. He finished that at the cross. Here's what John Calvin said, quote, "...these words mean nothing more than the condition of the present life. To torture them as to make them mean purgatory or hell is exceedingly foolish." End quote. I'm not standing alone in what I'm telling you here. This is what theologians believe. And since he ascended, where? Into heaven. And the descended is offered as a contrast to His ascension. In my mind, it makes the most sense to believe that His descending means His coming to earth, His living a life here on this planet. Now, that said, Harold Hohner makes a decent argument that the lower parts of the earth could refer to the grave. And that's certainly possible. I wouldn't argue against that. He says this viewpoint includes both Christ's incarnation and His death, where He won the victory over Satan and sin. His burial substantiates His death. His ascension could not be before His death. So in other words, He says the lower parts of the earth refer not to hell, but to His simply being buried for three days. Well, I guess that's certainly true, but Jesus' incarnation includes all of that. And so I'll just stick with believing it's the Incarnation. So Paul says, he who descended, that is Jesus, is the very one who ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things. Now his ascension is the key point in this passage, not arguing over the descension. Paul is making sure that we know that Christ is now sitting at the Father's right hand. He is fulfilling Psalms 110. He is sovereign over this universe. He has been given all authority. And from that seat, He is gifting His disciples as He will. That's His point. And so in verse 11, Paul says, And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. So in 9 and 10, Paul explained the word ascended, and in the remainder of our text this morning, he's explaining the word gifts. Both of those come from Psalm 68. Now let's run through these really quickly. Apostles are the twelve apostles. That's the ones they would refer to. These men specifically gifted by Jesus to lay the foundation for church doctrine in the first century, to write the New Testament. The apostles wrote the New Testament and then those people closely related to them like Mark and Luke, a couple of two or three there, but most of these guys were apostles and the rest were those closely related to them. We today are studying the fruit of apostolic ministry. This is Paul, the apostle's letter to the church in Ephesus. So the apostolic ministry, though it has completely passed away, there are no apostles today, the fruits of it still continue because we're studying Paul's writings here. The prophets was another gift given to the early church to stand in the gap, so to speak, until the Bible was completed. In other words, they didn't have the entire New Testament canon at the church at Ephesus yet. And so they had prophets that God used and gifted so that they could know the truth until the Bible was completed. Paul speaks of their temporary nature in 1 Corinthians 13. He says, as for prophecies, they will pass away. We don't have prophets today, not in the functional sense. If you want to call preaching prophecy, that's fine, but we are preaching what God has already given. He's not dropping sermons into my head. He has written His Word. And so Paul tells Timothy, preach the Word, not what God laid on your heart, so to speak. We don't need prophets today because we have the Bible. Listen, if the Bible says what you are prophesying, we don't need your prophecy. Right? I mean, it's in the Bible. If what you're saying as a prophet isn't in the Bible, we're going to reject what you're saying. So we just don't need prophets today. Then Paul lists the evangelists. Now this has been somewhat of a debated gift to the early church. Most commentators take this gift to continue to be active today in what we call missionaries. I've always taken that position. I still take that position. I think that's what it's talking about, men that are missionaries. But John Calvin did offer an interesting point of view I've never heard. Here's what he said, quote, "...next to them," and he means the apostles and prophets, "...next to them come the evangelists who were closely allied in nature to their office, but held an inferior rank, This class belonged to Timothy and others." In other words, he sent Timothy up to carry out things not yet fully written down in Scripture as an apostle's assistant, so to speak, and he calls those evangelists. Well, he goes on to say he doesn't believe it's active today. Well, I disagree with him on that. He's a lot smarter than Todd, but I think he's wrong on that. Now admittedly, there are only two men in Scripture referred to as evangelists. Really, Philip is the only one specifically called an evangelist. And then Timothy is told to do the work of an evangelist, so he is at least indirectly referred to as an evangelist. But both of their ministries were vastly different. I mean, Philip seems to be a traveling missionary, so to speak. Timothy, at least for some lengthy time, was set up in Ephesus almost as a pastor to bring them into a solid foundation to ground that church. Either way, we do have men today who are gifted as missionaries. I don't think that's a question, and so I'm going to stick with that's what this is talking about. These next two, shepherds and teachers, are linked by one Greek article. In other words, it says the shepherds and teachers, not the shepherds and the teachers. Now that leads some to believe that this is referring to just one office, shepherd-teachers. And that certainly is possible. Certainly elders here called shepherds are to be able to teach 1 Timothy 3. But it seems quite possible in my opinion, and I'll add biblically, that though all elders should be teachers, not all teachers are necessarily going to be elders. And that seems in my mind to at least separate these two offices. So, all of these that Paul calls gifts were given to the church. Why were they given? That's the big question, right? Not some doctrinal argument over what evangelist means. Why did God gift the church this way? Verse 12, to equip the saints. To equip the saints. Ultimately, we may see some of this fulfilled when he starts talking about the armor of God. These offices, these gifts are given to equip the saints. By the way, not just plugging in theological information in your head. That's not all this is. No, verse 1 says that we are to be walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've been called. Walking implies service, energy, movement. We are to be doing things as a faithful servant of Christ. We are to be productive. And the work of these gifts is to equip the saints. Listen, Christianity is not preparing for some final exam at the great pearly gates. That's not what's going on. We treat it that way sometimes, like it's just a big theological drama, a big theological argument. No, no, no. Christianity is not merely knowing a bunch of theological facts. It is about serving God through Christ. That takes knowledge. All kinds of people are trying to serve God right now, apart from knowledge, and that is a mess. It does take knowledge, and it takes theology and doctrine, but it takes applying that and going forth. So what are these saints to be equipped for? You say, well, to equip the saints, what are they equipped for? Well, let's just keep reading. Paul probably lets us know. To equip the saints for the work of ministry. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Todd, you're the minister. What is Paul talking about? that they equip the saints for the work of ministries. I thought the elders and maybe the Sunday school teachers, I thought they did the work of ministry. Nope. That's false. That may be our model today, but our model is wrong. We are servants of the church to equip you to go serve the Lord. That's why God has gifted The church. Listen, if you are a Christian, you have been called to ministry work, or we may say service. Church is not just something you do. In fact, I dare say if church is just something you do, you may want to check and see if you actually know who Jesus is, because Christianity is a 24-7, 365. We live our Christian life all the time. Now listen, God has placed people in preaching and teaching roles to help you serve Him better. But you've got to walk out those doors and then go do what's being instructed. And by the way, it's not optional. So these gifts have been given to the church to equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. In other words, God gifted me, He's gifted some of you, He's gifted all of you to edify the entire congregation. Now let me just pull the rug out from under the charismatic movement today. Gifts are not given for self-edification. They're not given just for you to show out in front of the church and holler and scream and fall out like you're in some type of fiat. That is not in any way the purpose of gifts. They are for the entire congregation. They are not for you. There went the charismatic movement. One blow. Straight out of the text. They are for the entire church, for all of the body of Christ. He says in verse 13, "...until we attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Listen, we need biblical instruction until Christ returns or we die, one or the other. But He is not here saying, Okay, so one day you're going to be perfect in Jesus and now you're just going to be imperfect. That's actually not at all what he's saying. There's no way to continue reading this text and find that. That's true. We're never going to live a perfect life apart from sin. We can't. Believe it or not, this is going to shock some of you, we're all wrong about some stuff. Husbands and wives, look at each other again. See? There you go. But we are. We can't. If we are, we're God. We're still learning. Now, I hope we're more right than wrong, but the only way we can be is to be in this book. By the way, that's in this passage. Let me not get ahead of myself. So, following what is taught in these verses will lead us to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to being conformed to the image of Christ. That's why God has gifted churches so that we mature. And by the way, if we mature as a church, we will become more unified as a church. If we are not unified, we are immature. Those two things go together in this passage. There's no way to separate them. Now, I don't think we all take advantage of the giftedness of our fellow members as much as we should. We don't. We still sort of live in this me-first society where we think, well, it's me and Jesus. That's not New Testament Christianity though. New Testament Christianity is a very social thing, not social in the social gospel. That's not what I'm talking about. But I mean we come together as a church together and help one another serve together. That's what we are meant to do. That is New Testament Christianity. None of this can be done as a Lone Ranger sitting at home in your chair on Sundays. It's not possible. This has got to be done in a church setting. None of us have perfectly reached maturity. None of us fully measure up to the stature of the fullness of Christ flawlessly. But Paul is not speaking in absolute terms of sinless perfection. That's not his point. But He is saying we should be growing this way and God has gifted church leaders to mature us. Here's what the writer of Hebrews says, quote, You know, my joy is not always complete. When people aren't serving the Lord with the zeal that they could be serving the Lord, it's hard to be fully joyful as a church leader. The Apostle John says, I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in the truth. Elders feel the same way. If people aren't living out their Christian faith, we're not rejoicing over that. By the way, we give a lot of effort to study. And you've hired us to preach. The best thing you can do is encourage us. Show up to hear it. By the way, I study just as hard on Wednesdays as I do Sundays. Now Paul is saying here that a body will become more unified as the church matures. A refusal to become mature as a believer is hurting the entire church. In other words, if your body's growing, you were born, most of you were, I assume, you were born and you're growing, but one of your feet is not growing properly. Is that going to hinder your ability to do things? Well, of course. Of course. And if we as individual members are remaining immature, it's hurting the church body. It has to. It can't do anything else. God has gifted the entire church with gifts to help one another grow in Christ. Why? He tells us. Verse 14. so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." This is another reason that we need to grow in the church and we need to be instructed in biblical preaching so that our lives are foundationally biblical. We need a biblical worldview. You know what we need with COVID? A Biblical worldview. You know what we need when we elect as a nation a bad leader? A Biblical worldview. You know what we need when COVID goes away? A Biblical worldview. You know when your guy gets elected, what we need? A Biblical worldview. We don't just have a Biblical worldview when things are going good or when things are going bad. We're to have a biblical worldview all the time. Listen, it is important for us to know the Bible. You cannot serve a God you don't know. That's why our Sunday school classes are set up the way they are. That's why we preach the way that we do. You can follow along and see what's being said. It's right here in the text. Now you may not agree with every statement. That's okay. You got a right to be misinformed. And I'm not perfect. Most of the time, she can inform you of that. But we don't demand absolute conformity here. It's okay to disagree on some doctrinal things. We've always been that way. We don't demand that. But I think you will have to say that your Sunday school teachers and your elders here do our best to present the passage as it's written. We try. We're not perfect. But we do try. And the only way for us to be consistent is to have a solid biblical understanding. Otherwise, we're going to be like a ship in the middle of a hurricane. We're just going to be tossed all over the place. We're going to be like a leaf being blown in the wind. We're just going to go from teacher to teacher to teacher to teacher. But we need solid foundation. Every one of us. By the way, there were plenty of crafty schemers back in Paul's day. Read Galatians. They were there. Folks, it ain't got any better. There's a ton of crafty schemers in our day today. And the only way you can point out who they are is to know God's Word. Verse 15, rather. Now that's a good turn. That's a change word, right? In contrast. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. So rather than being immature, rather than being tossed about like a ship or a leaf in the air, rather than that, here's what we are to do. We are to speak the truth and we are to speak the truth in love. Now you cannot separate these two principles. You cannot biblically have one without the other. You can't. Biblically they go together. 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says that love rejoices with the truth. You cannot hold the truth with a bad attitude and believe that God is going to use you. But you also cannot condone what God calls sin in the name of love. You can't do either of that. Love and truth must be maintained together. And this truth spoken in love will mature us, he says, in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. You know in Romans 8.29 Paul says that we were predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. it ought not be shocking that then He has gifted church members to conform one another to Jesus. That's not surprising, right? I mean, that's what He's doing. And we do that through the Word. Now this process will not be complete until glorification, until Jesus returns. We are never going to be fully conformed to Jesus in this life. But we ought to be working that way. If you've been saved for years, you ought to be a whole lot more conformed today than you were. That's the direction we should be going. That's what this entire text is about. Moving in that proper direction. So the whole body, the whole church is supplied its growth because it is connected to Jesus. Remember, we have one Lord. We have one faith. And listen. All this talk about parts and joints. We may say in our day bones and joints. It refers to a connectedness. It refers to a closeness. It actually refers to contact. We have contact with one another. Right? That's how we encourage one another. Listen, I know that I've said this ad nauseum and you're not going to get away from it in this book, but you cannot serve God apart from other Christians. You just can't do it. I know people try to this day and age, but it's just unbiblical. There's no Lone Ranger Christianity in the New Testament. There is nothing like that. We serve God among a group of believers in a church. And notice what this last line says right here. When each part is working properly, it makes the whole body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Listen, you cannot treat the church like a store where you just drop, buy a Dollar General and pick up the things you want and leave the rest without any thought beyond that. No! We don't just do church. We are this church. The members. Listen, you, if you're a member here, you have been given a role, a gifting. And if you don't do your part, the whole church suffers. We ought to think about that. And when you make your choice to be elsewhere, you are making a choice for the growth of the church that day to be stunted, at least in a sense. That'd be like saying, you know what, I'm not going to take my left leg out today. Who would do that? But that's what it's like when we aren't together. It is. I mean, that's exactly what Paul is talking about here. Look, I know it's not always easy. The Christian life ain't called to be easy. That's what the prosperity people preach. They go, if you come to Jesus, it's just rainbows and flowers. No! Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow Me. If Christianity was presented to you in that it's all just rainbows and flowers, the Gospel wasn't rightly presented to you. The Gospel is presented as, take up your cross, deny yourself. If you don't hate mother and father and sister and brother, and even your own self, you're not worthy of Me. That's the Gospel. It's not always easy serving Christ. But we need to tell people that up front. Now there are four passages in the New Testament. I'm winding this up. There are four passages in the New Testament that deal with spiritual gifts. This one here, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4 has a couple of gifts mentioned, and Romans 12. All of those gifts vary a little bit. So that means that this is just a general Really, Paul primarily in Ephesians 4 is dealing with church leadership in the things that he's mentioned, but he's already said we're all gifted in a way as a body, and every part's got to work right for it to work. Here's what he says in Romans 12 about spiritual gifts. Quote, For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. He's talking about your human body. ears, eyes, mouth, arms, legs, all that. For as in one body, the human body, we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individual members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let them use them." We are diverse in our gifts. So if you have individual gifts that nobody else has, and the Scripture says you do. Gifts that are, I should say it this way, you are gifted uniquely unlike anybody else. When your gifts aren't being added to the church, the church is hurting. That's the point. Listen, our job as elders, And Sunday school teachers is to get you to develop your gifts. That's why we're here. We're not here just to be glamorous, even though that comes naturally to me. But that's not why we're here. This is not a stage where we perform. If that's what it's about, we need to quit. This is about urging you to develop and use your spiritual gifts. Now God gifts all these gifts. These are His sovereign choice. He gifts who He will, the way He will. The apostles didn't choose themselves. Jesus chose the apostles. It's very clear. And not everybody has been given that gift as an apostle. We are not called to be carbon copies of one another. I mean a head doesn't look like a hand, heart doesn't look like a foot, but they are all necessary for a body to properly work together as one. You pull the heart out, the rest of the body is going to suffer pretty quickly, right? In fact, without that diversity of gifts that God has supplied, we can't work in harmony together. So again, God has not created uniformity. He has created diversity and then demanded that we live in harmony, unity. Why? Because we've been called with one hope to one Lord. We've been baptized with one baptism. We've got one God and Father of all. All of that we are to live in harmony under Christ. Now listen, we all need growth. We will all need it until we die. I'm not suggesting you can't grow at home. You can and should. but you can't serve your fellow church member at home. You can meet with them for coffee on Tuesday afternoon. I know some of you are still rebels and won't drink coffee, but you could go drink water or whatever you do and get together and encourage one another. We need that. We need that. That's what we're called to do. Stand with me, if you will.