Please turn to Ephesians 4 beginning at verse 7. Ephesians 4 beginning at verse 7. 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 descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. 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 attain to the unity of the faith and of 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 into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Amen. Before we go to prayer this morning, I wanted to just bring to your attention, especially if you weren't in Sunday school. This past Wednesday, Ernie had gone in for the procedure that we've been praying consistently about, and they took out five lymph nodes. The dye actually only traveled to one place. They took those lymph nodes out, and if there was any abnormality whatsoever, they were going to send them to pathology right away and take whatever else that needed to come out. They removed the lymph nodes, they all looked normal, and so there's a high degree of certainty that they got all of the cancer, and those lymph nodes are now at pathology, and we'll find out for sure, but the doctors felt 85% certain that there was no cancer, so we should give thanks to God for that this morning. Also, we've been praying for Mike Parker, and Mike's had a long-standing relationship with our church. We've been praying for Mike. He had cancer in his neck. More specifically, it was actually thyroid cancer. And Mike had that removed. They were able to avoid his vocal cords, so his speaking ability is still intact. And the doctors actually give him a 95% recovery rate. He'll be doing some radiation in the near future, I think next month. And so we should give thanks to God for that as well, because it turned out very, very well. So, let's go to God in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we come into your presence this morning, and we thank you that you are indeed a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God. Father, we thank you that you do, out of tender mercy and love toward your children, hear our cries and our pleas. We thank you, Father, that you have revealed yourself to us as the God of compassion, who is merciful and shows pity to his children, knowing that we are but dust. And Father, we give you thanks this morning for working in Ernie's life. We thank you for upholding him and Sandy. We thank you for bringing them back to us safely. We thank you for the apparent good report that we've received. And Father, we would ask this morning that indeed his body would be cancer free. We give you all of the honor and the praise. Father, we thank you for Mike Parker as well, and we thank you for the successful surgery with him. We do pray that there would not be any trace of cancer left in his body. We ask that you would continue to uphold and sustain him and Stephanie. We pray for Stephanie as she is about to deliver their second baby in December. We pray for your blessing upon their pregnancy and delivery. Father, you are so faithful to us. And Father, we oftentimes worry and fret over the things of this life, and yet you tell us that you are a refuge and a rock to those who will seek safety in you. And Father, we thank you for demonstrating your power and your grace and your tender mercy to this body this week. Father, we also thank you for the way in which you continue to work in hearts and lives. And we thank you, Father, also for your faithfulness to meet with us, Lord's Day by Lord's Day. Father, we also pray this morning for Paula Kina and ask for a speedy recovery for her. Father, we think of others in our congregation, Bob and Beverly Long and the Edwards and others, Father, who need your physical touch and strength. We pray for healing for them. And Father, we do pray this morning also for our dear brother Woody and Helen, and we ask, Lord, that you would continue to strengthen them. Father, thank you for bringing Woody here Wednesday night out to Bible study. We pray that his strength would continue to increase, and we pray that you would uphold both him and Helen. Father, we pray this morning also for our soldiers who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places at home and abroad. We pray that you would keep them safe. We pray that you would protect them from harm. We ask, Father, for our President and his cabinet that you would give them wisdom and direct their steps. Father, we are living in tumultuous days. days in which there is much danger and much turmoil. And Father, we thank You that even in the midst of such turmoil, we can say with one heart and one voice that our God is in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases. Father, we thank You that You indeed are the sovereign God who is enthroned over the affairs of the nations. And so, Father, we pray for Your help in these days. Father, we pray also for your help today as we open up your Word. We pray, Father, that as we enter into this difficult passage of Scripture, that you would give us aid by your Holy Spirit. Father, we recognize that we can labor and should labor and diligently work in the text, but we know, Father, that unless your Spirit comes and opens our eyes and our hearts, that it will not profit our souls. And so, Father, we pray that you would send forth your Spirit, in keeping the promise of your own word. Father, we pray that you would open our hearts to the truth today. We pray that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to feel and eyes to see and to embrace that which you have for us. Father, we pray for the one who preaches. May he preach with this power that you supply so that in all things Jesus Christ would be exalted and glorified. Father, we pray particularly this morning for those who are here, young or old, who are without Christ and without hope in this world. Father, we pray that you would save them today. You alone have the power to save. And Father, we pray that through the mighty redeeming work of the Lord Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit, that you would bring lost boys and girls and men and women to yourself even today. Father, may you be glorified in all that is said and done. I pray, Lord, that you would touch my lips as with a hot coal from the altar, that I may speak your word with power and authority and gentleness in your spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. It's no secret, as we've been expounding these first six verses in Ephesians chapter 4, that God wants unity in His church. He purchased that unity with the blood of His own Son. His Spirit has created that unity in us, the body of Christ. And now God, on the basis of what He has done, calls us to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. God's desire is for unity among His people. But God also wants not only unity in His church, He also wants His church to grow. He wants this church to grow. And I'm not necessarily talking about more bodies in more chairs, because ultimately that's God's business. Acts chapter 2 tells us that the Lord adds to the church those who are being saved. And so that kind of growth is in a sense God's business. But what we're talking about today is the kind of growth that leads to spiritual maturity among God's people. God wants unity among His church for certain, but He also wants His church to grow. God wants Grace Community Church to grow. He wants us to mature in service, and in faith, and in unity, and in Christ-likeness, in doctrine, and in love. And we can put it like this, that's His agenda. That is His agenda. If you wanna know what the head of the church's agenda is for us, it is that we would grow in maturity, and grow in service, and love, and unity, and truth among ourselves. Furthermore, God wants you to grow. God wants you to mature. God himself has won the ultimate triumph through his son. Jesus Christ, his son, is now exalted to his right hand. We sang about it all morning. And God, as it were, now says to his son, son, this is your body purchased at the awesome price of your blood. Now give it all of the grace and all of the gifts that it needs so that it can grow up into you and bring us glory. That is the divine agenda. Now in order for that to happen, Christ gives each of us gifts, including His Spirit. And He gifts His church with ministers for their growth. And that's what Ephesians chapter 4 verses 7 through 16 is all about. The ascended Christ has given a diversity of gifts to his body for the unity and maturity of his body. Now we're going to take verses 7 through 16 over the next number of weeks, and we're going to divide it up as follows. The ascended Christ gives grace to each one of us, verses 7 through 10. The gifts of Christ given for the maturity of his body, explained in verses 11 through 13. And then each doing our part for the body's growth in maturity, verses 14 through 16. And we begin today in verse 7. And notice very carefully the language. But to each one of us grace was given. Now there's actually something that should be striking to us if we're reading the passage carefully. Because as we read through verses 1 through 6, we have this language One, one, one, all, all, all, and there's this heavy, heavy emphasis on the corporate, on the unity, on, in a sense, a broad perspective on there's one body. The emphasis is not on the individual in those verses, the emphasis is on the corporate. Then you get to verse 7, and all of a sudden there is this wonderful shifting or changing of gears, but better yet, and to each one of us, grace was given. So we go from the one and the all, the one in the terms of the corporate unity, to the each one of us. John Stott very wonderfully puts it like this. He says, although there is only one body, one faith, and one family, this unity is not to be misconstrued as a lifeless or colorless uniformity. We are not to imagine that every Christian is an exact replica of every other as if we had all been mass produced in some celestial factory. On the contrary, the unity of the church, far from being boringly monotonous, is exciting in its diversity. This is not just because of our different cultures, temperaments, and personalities, but because of the different gifts which Christ distributes for the enrichment of our common life. And so Paul moves from the glorious one, the glorious one body, one faith, the all, now to the individual. And he says grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Now when he says grace was given to us, our first notion might be that what Paul's talking about is saving grace. The kind of grace expounded in Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. But I don't think that that ends up being the point here at all. In fact, I don't think Paul is talking about saving grace, but what we might call serving grace. This grace, Paul's already talked about in terms of his own ministry. Turn back to Ephesians chapter 3. Remember in Ephesians chapter 3, the first half, Paul's talking about his own ministry. And I'll just pull two verses out to demonstrate what we're talking about. Verse 2, if indeed you've heard notice of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you. Now, the stewardship of God's grace at this point refers to Paul's ministry as the apostle to the Gentiles. Verse 7, "...of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of His power." Again, Paul sees himself as a minister, a steward, a servant, and he has received the gift of God's grace, certainly in salvation, but more specifically here, the gift of the ministry or service. And so I think when we get to Ephesians chapter four and verse seven, and he says, and grace was given to each one of us according to Christ's gift. He's talking about serving grace. This right away indicates to us or displays for us the fact that when God gives a person saving grace, when God reaches into their life, makes them one of his own children by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he takes that person and doesn't just put them on a shelf to display to everybody how wonderful is saving grace. but he also infuses into them, if we can use that terminology, serving grace, so that every one of God's trophies of saving grace are endued with a serving grace, so that we can say all of those who are recipients of saving grace now are to serve by the grace that God gives to them. Now this grace, which of course is the fruit of saving grace, is the grace which comes to us in the form of gifts, in the form of God's Spirit for the service to Christ's church. Now, some of you know that in Greek, the term grace is the word charis. And that just has the idea of God's favor to the ill-deserving. The word gift is the word charismata. The idea of gift actually is right embedded in the word grace, charismata. And of course we know other passages refer to God giving us charismata or gifts, but here notice it is just grace. And I think that the point that Paul is trying to make here is that this gift that God has given us comes from a divine source from God alone. William Hendrickson refers to the grace here as a particular endowment. In fact, if you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we see a little further explanation here. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7, Actually, I would commend to you the entire chapter 12, but just particularly here verse 7, but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Now, just let your eyes go right back up to verse 4. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. Varieties of ministries, the same Lord. Varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things and all persons. but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." The rest of the chapter will tell us that the manifestation of the Spirit is one of the gifts of the Spirit. Now, turn back just a few pages to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, starting in verse 3. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another, since we have gifts that differ, notice, according to the grace given to us. Now, when the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter four and verse seven, that Christ has given grace to each one of us, he is talking about the grace that encompasses a spiritual gift that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now the text goes on to say that these gifts, or the gift of grace, is given according to the measure of Christ's gift, very similar to the Romans 12.6 passage. In other words, what is being taught here is that Jesus is the one who distributes this grace and he measures it out. It is given according to the measure of Christ's gift. That is, not everyone has all of the gifts. Not everyone has all of the grace. It's measured out. Thus, by necessity, it is limited, indicating the very reality that although it is individually given, since it is not all given to one individual person, we all end up, at the end of the day, needing each other. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 16 sums up this very thing, "...from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working notice of each individual part, is causing the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." And so the Apostle Paul says, here's this one body, this one faith, The people that are brought into that are brought into it by saving grace. And those who are recipients of saving grace, the Lord Jesus himself then measures out to each person as he and his spirit sees fit according to his gift, which I think is a reference to the riches of Christ's grace, according to his spirit. And he distributes grace gifts to each individual person coming in to the body. There are three things about this passage that should strike our attention. First, this grace that Paul is talking about is given to each one. Peter O'Brien puts it like this, none misses out on Christ's bounty. None misses out on Christ's bounty. And do you know what this means? And I understand we live in a church context where spiritual gifts and things like that are controversial, and I think that's actually quite a shame that we would be divisive and fight over the gifts of God's grace and spirit. But the fact of the matter is that the Bible teaches that if you are in the body, God has given you A grace gift to be employed. Nobody is left out. The whole point of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is this. Look, we all have different functions because we all have different gifts. But the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, everybody has something to do. In one sense, you know what this does? This brings out the glorious equality in the body of Christ. We know that we're all one in redemption. We know that we are all one in Christ Jesus. But now we've come to realize that everybody in the body has been given a grace gift. And in fact, the function of my gifts depends upon the function of your gifts. And there is a glorious, not only individuality, but a glorious interdependence in the body. There's not a single person who is born again who is without a grace gift. Second, this grace gift is a gift from Christ and thus not from us. The implications of that will be tremendous. The grace gift has a divine source. Of course, when a person is converted, their talents and their abilities and their gifts that come to them by God through nature can be sanctified for his use, and they should. And some of those can rightfully be called even spiritual gifts, even though they are the sanctification of what God has simply given this person by nature. But the Bible teaches us clearly that spiritual gifts are a supernatural endowment by God's grace. It comes to us by God's grace, through Christ, by His Holy Spirit. Therefore, think back to the Corinthians and think about how they boasted about what they could do and the gifts that they had. That's why Paul says, what do you have? that you didn't first receive. And if you received it as a gift, why do you boast as if you had not? The reality is, is that whatever God has endowed you to do by the grace of Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit, He has given that to you. And it is not something to be puffed up, nor is it something to be, as it were, hid under a bushel. It is something that comes from His grace that needs to be used, third point, for the benefit of the body and the glory of Christ. This charis, this grace gift that God gives to us through His Son, by His Spirit, should be used, should be employed for the benefit of the body and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you realize that the unity of the church consists in the diversity of its gifts, which come from Christ and His Spirit? The unity of the church consists in the diversity of its gifts, which come from Christ and his spirit. Now, if you have the typical evangelical mindset, you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, hey, obviously if that's true, what I should do is I should take a test. and I should fill in the bubbles. And then I should figure out where my gift is because I mean, really, I mean, I don't want to be serving in an area where I'm not gifted. Let me just give you my opinion on that. It's nonsense. It is absolute nonsense. absolute, utter, and complete nonsense. Do you understand that in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul did not give us an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts anyway, all right? So, if the list is not exhaustive, and we take into account, secondly, that the Apostle was not giving those lists so that we could sit there and some sort of gift navel-gazing, say, oh, look what I got, look what I got, look what I can do. That is so contrary to the Spirit of the New Testament and to the teaching of the Church of Christ. Christ indeed has given us these divine endowments by His Spirit, and the goal is not for us to get into some navel-gazing at our gifts. The point is for us to start serving and to start doing. I'm gonna suggest to you that it is absolutely possible for you to live and die and never know for sure what your gifts are and still be useful in the body of Christ. You don't have to have some sort of inherent job description so that you know exactly what God's wired you to do. Just start doing something. There will be things that you like, there will be things that you don't like. I found out this morning that I am incredibly gifted to serve in the nursery. I'm being serious now, don't mock me. Ariel would pick up the kids, they'd cry. I'd pick them up and they would just stop and look at me and wonder. And I just had a great time with them. Does that necessarily mean that I'm going to start serving all the time? No. I'll do my six months just like everybody else. Once in six months, just to clarify. But you just start doing something and all of a sudden you realize, hey, you know what? The Lord Jesus is helping me to do this. The Lord Jesus is giving me patience with children. The Lord Jesus is giving me the ability to open my mouth and say something. The Lord Jesus is giving me strength to serve. The Lord Jesus is giving me the ability to show hospitality to strangers. I mean, whatever the case may be, but the bottom line is that we just need to start doing something. He gave us the grace to serve. The operative term there then is to serve. We're going to get more into this in verse 12 because the Apostle tells us that he's going to give us apostles and prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers for the equipping of the body for the work of service. And we'll talk more about that later. But isn't it a great thing just to know that when Jesus saved me, He didn't just save me so that I could go around just living the kind of life that I want to live. He saved me so that I could be a servant in His church and do good to others and bring Him glory and He'll give me all of the grace I need to do just that. Now Paul's going to drive home the point that Christ's grace to the church is nothing less than the necessary result of His glorious triumph and ascension. Paul, as it were, is going to... it's not really a sidetrack. He's made an affirmation that this ascended Christ has given grace to each individual member of his body according to the measure of his gift. And then what Paul's going to do in verses 8, 9, and 10, is Paul is going to, as it were, give the theological foundation for making the assertion that the ascended Christ indeed is the giver of gifts to his church, and he's going to focus on Jesus' ascension and then by way of implication, His descension, which we're going to look at next week. But what Paul does now in verse 8 is he goes back to the Old Testament and he says, do you want to know how I can prove to you that Jesus ascended to give gifts to each one of the members of his church? Look at Psalm 68 and verse 18. That's what Paul says. Now Psalm 68, go ahead and keep your finger in Ephesians 4. and turn back to Psalm 68. Psalm 68 is actually one of the most notoriously difficult psalms in the whole Psalter. Psalm 68 is a divine warrior psalm. We actually sing this psalm when we sing number 71, stand up O God, be present now. As you look at the psalm, the theme ends up being God is a warrior who triumphs. And his triumphs are demonstrated in the Exodus and at Sinai. His triumphs are demonstrated in the wilderness wandering of his people, the conquest of Canaan, and the establishment of his own kingdom. This psalm, as it were, celebrates God's victory and his return to heaven. In fact, the imagery is that God comes down, gains the victory and the triumph among his people, and then ascends back up to his place in heaven. In fact, if you look at Psalm 68 and verse 18, you read, "...you have ascended on high, you have led captive your captives, you have received gifts among men, even among the rebellious also that the Lord God may dwell there." Now, if you're reading Ephesians 4 carefully, you realize that there is a little bit of a discrepancy. In Ephesians 4, 8, it reads, "...and he gave gifts to men." In Psalm 68, 18, it reads, "...you have received gifts among men." And so, Paul does two things. He changes the second person singular to third person, and instead of saying, you received, he turns around and says, you gave. Now, people say that Paul did this for a number of reasons. By the way, this particular passage, Old Testament quotation, is probably one of the most difficult Old Testament quotations used in the New Testament, okay? Now, as Paul does this, there are a number of people who say a number of reasons as to why you have the changes. Some say that Paul was just sort of simply quoting from memory and thus simply misquoted the text, like you and I do probably 90% of the time. We change words around. We mix little words up. Others say that Paul actually was quoting from a different textual tradition or version. And in fact, there is evidence from the Syriac Peshitta and the Aramaic Targums that they both used the word gave instead of received. Some people say actually that the context simply implies that if gifts were received or taken, they were also received or taken in order to turn around to be given. In fact, the whole Psalm 68 is a military conquest type psalm, and the idea within a military conquest would be receiving tribute to then do what? To distribute the spoils or the tribute. I believe that what Paul is doing is he's simply paraphrasing Psalm 68, 18 to make his point. He already does this when he changes second person to third person. But furthermore, if we understand the background to why he uses Psalm 68, I think that we will see why Paul Changes, in a sense, received to gave. Now, let's try to understand this use of Psalm 68, 18. And this is going to be a little tough going, so I give you a heads up, but just follow the best that you can. Turn over, first of all, to Numbers chapter 8. Numbers chapter 8. Now, what we're trying to display is the reason why Paul would use Psalm 68, 18 in this section of Scripture. Numbers chapter 8. Now, I would recommend to your reading verses 6 through 19, but I'm just going to pick a few verses out for the sake of time. Verse 6. The Lord is speaking to Moses. He says, take the Levites from among the sons of Israel and cleanse them. Verse 14, thus you shall separate the Levites from among the sons of Israel and the Levites shall be mine. Verse 18, but I have taken the Levites instead of every firstborn among the sons of Israel. I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the sons of Israel to perform the service of the sons of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement on behalf of the sons of Israel so that there will be no plague among the sons of Israel by their coming near to the sanctuary." Now, in this passage where God is sanctifying the Levites to His service, He says very clearly in verse 6 that He is going to take the Levites for Himself and cleanse them. He then says very, very clearly that He is going to take them and they shall be His And then he says he's going to take them and he's going to then in turn give them back as a gift to Aaron and to the sons of Israel for their service in the sanctuary. And so the pattern in Numbers chapter 8 is that God takes the Levites unto himself, he sanctifies the Levites, they are his, and then he gives them as gifts to his people for the work of ministry or for the service in the sanctuary. The other passage is Numbers chapter 18. Numbers chapter 18. Numbers chapter 18 in just one verse, verse 6. Behold, I myself have taken your fellow Levites from among the sons of Israel. They are a gift to you dedicated to the Lord to perform the service for the tent of meeting. Now, what a number of scholars, biblical scholars say is that when you get over to Psalm 68, go ahead and turn back over to Psalm 68, that when you get to verse 18, that the imagery here is not necessarily God triumphing over His enemies. although that is implicit. But when it says you have ascended on high, that is you have gone back up to Mount Zion on your way back to heaven, you have led captive your captives. Many scholars say that that is the Levitical priesthood that is being referenced here. You have received gifts among men, that is you've taken them, even among the rebellious also. Remember Israel was consistently a rebellious nation even the Levitical line frequently, that the Lord God may dwell there. I'll just read to you from Peter O'Brien and follow his train of thought. If Psalm 68 is read in this light, then the captives taken in Yahweh's train as he enters his sanctuary are not his foes, but ministers whom he has taken and given to his people to serve them on his behalf. God's action in taking and receiving the Levites as a gift then, and then giving them back to his people in order to minister to the congregation, then parallels the ascended Christ's leading captives and giving gifts in Ephesians 4. Walt Kaiser says, the captives then are first the Levites, but eventually all those called into the equipping ministry of outfitting all of God's people to do the work of the ministry. Now, if you turn back to Ephesians 4, I would suggest to you that with the Levitical background as the gifts, the Levites as the gifts, that serving as the background, that is what then makes this passage make more sense than any other interpretive idea. Verse seven, but to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, therefore the scripture says, when he, Christ, ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. Now, what also is interesting about this passage is that he quotes Psalm 68, which in Jewish liturgy was used in connection with the Feast of Pentecost. It gets even better. The Jews, by the time of Jesus, used Psalm 68 as one of their liturgical readings for the Feast of Pentecost. And in fact, the rabbis taught that the passage was used to commemorate Moses going up to Sinai to receive the law, bring it back down, and then distribute it to his people. So it seems to me that not only does Paul make use of the Levitical background, Yahweh taking these priests for himself, giving them to his people as a gift for service, but also the connection with Pentecost, it's not Moses that ascends and brings Torah back down, it is Jesus who ascends and then sends forth his spirit, which of course, that's what happened on the day of Pentecost. Turn to Acts chapter 2 and verse 33. The Apostle Peter, Acts 2.33, his Pentecost sermon, speaking of Jesus, therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God." Now notice this language, "...and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth that which you both see and hear." Now, When we go back to Ephesians chapter 4, I think that we can bring these things together and say that the Apostle Paul is teaching us that this one body that has been joined together, that has been brought together by the power of God's Spirit through the Lord Jesus Christ, That wonderful one body is now, Paul says, each individual member in that one body is given grace by the ascended Christ according to the measure of His gift. And to demonstrate that, he hearkens back to Psalm 68, verse 18, which has explicit overtones both of giving gifts of men and giving the gift of His Spirit. So that the one who has ascended is the one who has given ministers to his church and the Spirit to his church so that they can serve each other and build each other up in love. Now Paul is going to resume this part of his argument. Christ giving gifts to his church in verse 11. And if you look there, he gave some of his apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. But in the meantime, Paul is going to expound the psalm even further in light of Christ's ascension And of course, we get to that controversial statement, he who descended is himself who also ascended far. I'm sorry, verse nine, he who ascended, what does it mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? And that's what we're gonna look at next week. The ascended Christ has given to each one of you, if you are a Christian, he has given you his grace, he has given you gifts, He has given you His Spirit. He has given you ministers for your growth and maturity in the faith. It is Christ's passion, indeed it is Christ's agenda, as our exalted head, to see His body grow and mature. And so I ask you today, is the priority of your life to mature in the faith? Paul is going to tell us one of the major reasons he who descended also ascended was so that you might receive his grace and his gifts, so that you might be a part of a body that is growing up and maturing in him. Jesus Christ didn't save you just to exempt you from eternal hell. Jesus Christ saved you in order to empower you and equip you to be an operating, functioning, producing part of His body that is growing up in love into Him, in maturity. And so I ask you today, is the priority of your life to mature in the faith? Is there a sense of earnest desire? Can you say it really is a commitment, it's a priority to grow in grace? My friends, if it's not, if it's not, then you are by your lack of priority to grow and mature in the faith, in a sense being very counterproductive to one of the main reasons why Jesus Christ ascended back into heaven. He ascended back into heaven to be seated at God's right hand, not just so that He could spend this interregnum period between the two Advents, waiting for the second coming. He ascended back into heaven in order to distribute His grace and His gifts, so that you, you would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and so that you would mature in the faith, bringing Him honor and glory. That's why you're left here. It's to serve, it's to grow, it's to mature. I mean, if that's not the reason why you're left here, then why the minute you accept Jesus, why don't you just get sucked up through some secret rapture shoot? You're left here to mature in the faith. You're left here to grow in grace, not just for yourself though, but for those around you. So is that the priority of your life, to mature? grow in grace? Do you see this particular local body's growth and maturity as a priority? Seriously, do you think of the growth and maturity of Grace Community Church and how you can be a part of that? That's not only why Jesus ascended back into heaven and gave you grace, it's why you're here. Jesus didn't make you a part of this body just so that you could keep the seat warm. He made you a part of this body and gave you grace and gifts so that you would do something to enhance the body and help the body grow and mature. Over the next number of weeks, we're going to be looking at Christ's agenda for His church. And here's the challenge. As we go through this passage, Will you be a part which grows and helps contribute to the maturity of the body or will you simply remain the same? Year after year goes by and you make resolutions and you say things are going to change. And you're going to get serious about Christ, and you're going to get serious about His Word, and you're going to get serious about involvement in His church. And my friends, here we are again at the end of another year. Will you take the responsibility seriously? Will you be a part that says, Lord, in this passage, I want to learn how I am to help this body grow? or you're just gonna be like a barnacle on a ship. My friends, let's come back next week and the week after with a holy discontentment. Lord, I'm not happy with where I'm at. I'm not happy with the way I contribute to this body. I'm not happy with the way that I am growing or maturing. speak to me, speak to this people, and may you be glorified through the ministry of Your Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank You today for the Lord Jesus. We thank You that He has indeed equipped each one of us to do our part. We thank You that He didn't leave us here ill-equipped or unequipped, but He's given us all of the grace that we need to fulfill our part in becoming mature and helping this body mature. And Father, we pray that You would give us an earnestness, a seriousness, a boldness even to evaluate our own priorities. And Father, we pray that you would work mightily in our hearts and our lives, especially, Father, as we go through this passage that so clearly sets forth your desire and your will for the church of the Lord Jesus. Father, we pray for those here today who do not know you. We pray, Father, that even today that they would come to consider the wonderful and matchless grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to sinners. and that they would come to put their hope and their faith in Him, and that they in turn would become fruitful, maturing members of the body of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.