If you'll please open and turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, Lord willing, we come one last time to read verses 1 through 16 tonight. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 16. So you have the opportunity to once again hear the reading of the Lord's word. We are encouraged by the word itself to receive this word in faith, to trust what it holds out, to obey what it commands, and to delight in the glories of Christ that it reveals. So please hear the word of our Lord this evening. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 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 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. And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we 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 and 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. As far as the reading of the Lord's Word, may he bless it unto us. Please join me once again in prayer. O gracious and merciful Lord, we thank you for your word and that your word is truth, that here revealed for us is your glorious will for our salvation. We thank you that the scriptures principally teach what we are to believe concerning you and what duty you require of us. Here on these pages of holy writ do you reveal the way in which your creation, the way in which your people who've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ can glorify you and enjoy you forever. We pray that as we look once again in this book of Ephesians and under this theme of unity, you would remind us, O Lord, of the great duty, of the great privilege that we have to serve one another, even as your body builds itself up in love. We thank you, O Lord, for your church. We thank you for your people. We thank you for our brothers and our sisters. We thank you for the spirit that unites us one to another through the blood of Jesus Christ and all to the glory of the Father. Be with us as we look again into these verses, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this evening we wish to focus primarily on the closing or the rounding out of the section on unity here in verse 16. You remember that as we have been tediously working our way through these verses, that in these 16 verses, Paul is really stressing the need for the unity of the church. I remember once speaking with an aged and a wise and older man and saint, a brother in Christ, who told me that as I was entering into the ministry that I ought to always remember that one can never take the unity of the church for granted. That to find a truly unified church is often a very difficult thing. Indeed, even the psalmist praises and extols the glorious union when brothers walk together in harmony that he compares it to the oil that was running down Aaron's beard. As Christians, we can never take for granted the unity of the Church. As you look at many of the New Testament epistles, you see that many of the issues that even the early church faced were different fractions and factions that were arising within the church to vie and to break this unity that the church was called to maintain and to attain to. And so Paul here in verses 1 through 16 of Ephesians chapter 4, he's really setting before us this theme of unity. And as we round out this section, it is perhaps good just to pause for a minute and remember where we've come from, because we've spent a number of weeks looking at the different trees here in verses 1 through 16. Remember that as Paul comes into Ephesians chapter 4, that he now comes to his A practical section, if you will, of the book of Ephesians, he comes to the practice of how it is that we are to live as Christians. In the first three chapters, he laid down all the glorious blessings that are ours in Christ. And now in chapters four through six, he's saying, in light of all that we have in Christ, here is how you are to live. And you note that in verse 1, as Paul commends to us that we are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And as we looked at that a number of weeks ago, hopefully you remember that what Paul is commending to us there is that we are to structure our present lives in light of what glory will be. That as Christians we live in light of what will be even in the present, that as we think of this hope, as we think of the glories of heaven, as we think of what it will be to be with the Lord Jesus Christ and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, that that is meant to shape the way in which we live or walk in this present day and age. And as Paul comes into this and he begins to unfold for us how we walk in a manner worthy, you remember that Paul's primary focus here is on unity. That unity is the first response of obedience to a people that understands everything that we have in Christ. And so Paul reminds us there in verse 3 that we are to be eager to maintain this unity, that the Church is founded in unity. Remember that as Paul comes into verse 13, he also commends to us that we are to attain to this unity. So Paul shows us that not only is the Church founded in unity, but that unity is also the goal of the Church, that this is the grand narrative, if you will, that we strive for. As Paul continues on, he begins to deal with this truth that Christ, as the ascended king of his people, has distributed to his one church and his one body various gifts. That he has equipped us all with different gifts and with different talents and graces that are meant to be used. And as Paul goes on in verse 11, we remember that some of those gifts that Christ has given for the building up of the church, is that he has equipped some men to serve in the office of the ministry of the Word. And you remember that he lists those four offices there, and that final office being the only continuing and perpetual one, the office of the shepherds and the teachers. And Paul reminds us that the reason why we have shepherds and teachers is that they have been given in order that we might be brought into the full maturity, into the full stature of Christ. That this is the aim, this is the ambition, that this is the goal of proclaiming the Word of Christ. That we mature and that we grow and that we be brought into perfection. But as we've looked over the last two weeks, and we've looked into verses 14 and 15, remember that as Paul is commending to us this unity, that in no way does he want us to think that attaining to this unity solely rests on the shoulders of the shepherds and the teachers. But rather, Paul reminds us that we all have these three primary moral responsibilities. That as brothers and sisters in Christ, we have mutual obligations and duties one unto another. And we've summarized the first two in the last two weeks. The first, Paul tells us that we have the duty of speaking. If you were there for that sermon, you remember that it's more truthing, that it is living in integrity, that we are to mature towards unity as what we believe, as what we confess, as what we do, that these need to be in harmony and in sync with one another. And last week, we just focused on the last half of verse 15, where Paul commends to us our second responsibility, that we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. that individually we all have this responsibility of growing in our intimacy and our fellowship and our communion with Christ, that our growth as Christians is meant to be symmetrical growth, that it is meant to be in every way. As we come into verse 16 in this final thought on unity here in Ephesians 4, we come to the third moral responsibility that Paul gives to us. And this responsibility can be summed up in the word helping. That we are to help one another. That if we are to have a church that is flourishing, if we are to have a church that is building itself up in love, if we have a church that is committed to the things of Christ, then we must help one another. Now as we come into verse 16, perhaps it is worth noting that it is a bit of a tongue twister. I believe it was the early church father Christostom who said something, I'm paraphrasing him, but he said here in verse 16 that Paul kind of gets carried away with himself. That he throws in everything that he wanted to say that he hadn't quite said yet and that it leaves us with this very mixed bag. That Paul in some ways is getting carried away. And granted the very language and the structure and the syntax of verse 16 can be very challenging to wrap our minds around. Yet I don't think that we need to agree that Paul is getting carried away with himself as much as Paul is bringing the fullness of the maturity of his thought and what unity in the Church of Jesus Christ truly looks like. So as we look at verse 16, we do recognize that there are challenges here. We want to focus on two primary points that get, I believe, at the very heart of what Paul is saying in verse 16. Our first point is to simply look at Christ's supply and to secondly look at our service. So these two primary ideas from verse 16 is Christ's supply and our service. So we come into this third moral responsibility that Paul lays down here. He notes that 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 the first thought that we want to consider this evening is Christ's supply. The supply that Christ gives to his church. Now one of the challenges with understanding verse 16 is that verse 16 really flows together with verse 15. You note there in the beginning of verse 16 that Paul says, from whom. And of course, we ought to consider what is the antecedent of the from whom there. And we have to go back into verse 15. And it's important to note here that Paul defines Christ, or he describes Christ here, as the head. As the head of his body. And that it is from Christ as our head that the whole body is joined and it is held together. Some of us are familiar with this language of speaking of Christ as head. This is something that we've seen in the book of Ephesians. Back in chapter 1 and in chapter 2, this is something that we see in other places of the New Testament. And when we speak of Christ being our head, there are two primary ways that the Bible speaks of this, or at least conveys the idea. The first idea that attaches itself to head is that this is a title of authority. That when Christ is called the head, that it refers to his authority over all things. Perhaps you remember as we rounded out Ephesians chapter 1, that there in verse 22, Paul refers to Christ as head. He says, and he, that is God, put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to his church. The first idea of referring to Christ as head is that sometimes what the Bible means is that he is the authority, that he is the one who is in control and in charge, that all things, as Paul says in Ephesians 1.22, have been placed under his feet, that he is the conquering victor, that all authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth. It's the first way that referring to Christ as head is often used as a title of authority. But a second way that head is often used in reference to Christ throughout the New Testament is not so much the authoritative aspect as much as the origin of life itself, as the one who sustains all things. Remember being a boy and growing up in southern Minnesota that we had the opportunity on a summer family vacation to go up to Lake Itasca. Those of you who are familiar with Lake Itasca, you know what's so special about this lake is that it is the headwaters of the Mississippi River. And there in this lake, it's not overly large. I remember even as a boy walking there at the headwaters of the Mississippi, that as this river starts out, it's only about ankle deep, and you can walk across it with no troubles. Lake Itasca is referred to as the headwaters of the Mississippi because this wonderful, this majestic river that spans most of the continental United States, it gathers its sustenance, its life, its nourishment from this lake in northern Minnesota. And in a similar way, when Christ is at times in the New Testament referred to as a head, it's referred to in this sense that he is the origin, that he is the source of all life. And we see that in the parallel book of Colossians 2, verse 19, where Paul, using similar language, commends the church in Colossae that they are to hold fast to the head from whom the whole body is nourished and knit together. And so as Paul comes into verse 16, as he is going to speak of the supply that Christ gives, Paul first describes Christ as our head. And it's in the second way that we ought to understand head that what Paul is describing of Christ here is that Christ is the one who supplies his body, that Christ is the one who supplies his church, that he nourishes us with everything that we need for unity and for life and to flourish as his body and as his church. So Paul wants us to know first here that Christ is the one whom we are dependent on. That Christ is the one who is the head. That it is through him that we receive all the source of life that we need. And as Paul goes on to say here, he connects the idea of Christ being the head with our unity. That Christ is our head from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. Again, this can be quite the tongue twister of trying to figure out what does Paul mean here. I think if we just simply look at the metaphor that Paul gives, that it adds an immense amount of clarity. Paul here is showing, he is describing Christ as the head of his body. And as he speaks of the body, Paul here in the first half of verse 16 notes that Christ sustains us with every joint, that it's the joints that hold the body together. And if we think of our physical bodies, we begin to see what Paul is saying here and how he is describing the supply of Christ. Our bodies are filled with over 350 different joints. And the purpose of a joint is that it's meant to bring together two individual bones and to connect them for movement and for stability. The joints in our body is largely in part what keeps us together, what keeps us from falling apart. It keeps us close-knit. It keeps us united in and of ourselves so that our many bones, so there are many different muscles or ligaments, so we don't just spill out everywhere. The God as he has designed our physical bodies. He has supplied our bodies with over 350 joints, and that these joints allow our body to be connected. All these individual parts to be brought into a beautiful and into a wonderful, into a fearful, seamless harmony, one with each other. And as Paul is describing the supply of Christ here as our head, Paul would have us to know that Christ has supplied His body, that is the church, that He has supplied His church with every joint that we need to be connected one to another. That Christ, in His great grace and glory and wisdom, has so united the individual members of His body together by innumerable joints, so that we are united to each other. That Christ has supplied the Church with all the joints that we need to remain connected. Now Paul doesn't enumerate for us here what all of these joints are. But it does us well as we consider these things to ask, well what are the many joints that Christ has given? What are the joints that he has given to his body in order to bring individual members together? Undoubtedly there are innumerable joints that Christ has supplied the Church with. It is that Christ has supplied us with many points of contact one with another. We think perhaps first that what Christ has done through his life and death and resurrection is that he has provided the joint of fatherhood to us. That Paul brings us into contact one with another as we are adopted by his great and glorious grace, as we are not only brothers and sisters with each other, but as we are united together under one common father. What a joy it is that in the Lord's Prayer we are taught to pray, Our Father, who art in heaven. That through the work of Christ we are brought into the same family, that we have the same Father who is over all. That Christ provides not only the joint of this fatherhood, but that He provides the joint of His very own Spirit. As Paul tells us, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is the same Spirit that will give life to our mortal bodies. That it is a joy to know that the same Spirit that is waging war within me is the same Spirit that is in all of my brothers and sisters. That we have this glorious spiritual unity, one with another, as Christ is so kindly lavished and poured out His Spirit upon all flesh. As we think of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our minds, and in our hearts, not only does it connect us to Christ, but it connects us to each other. This is one of the joints that we have of being held close. Another joint that Christ is given, as He's given His glorious Word, His laws, and His commandments, and His promises, To know that the same word that I hold dear is the same word that my brothers and sisters hold dear. That the same word that keeps me accountable is the word that keeps my brothers and sisters accountable. That the same law that I have been taught by Christ to delight in is the delight of my brothers and my sisters. As Christians, we share this commonality that we all share in the ministry of the Word, and in the authority of the Word, and the law of the Word, and the promises of the Word. Such that when I read upon the glorious pages of Scripture, the innumerable promises that are mine in Christ, reminded that these aren't only mine, but that these promises belong to you as well. Christ has provided for us the joint of salvation, We've talked about this in many different times and in many different places that Paul draws this to our attention. I've communicated to you many times that one of my favorite things as a pastor and an elder is to interview new people for membership. to hear the work of the Lord and what Christ has done to draw us from all our various backgrounds and lifestyles and sins together, that though we have come from many different upbringings, sometimes from many different nations, from many different heritages and backgrounds, that in Christ we share a common salvation. That just as through faith I stand justified in the presence of God, so you through faith stand justified in the presence of God. That the same Spirit that is sanctifying me is sanctifying you. That the same grace that preserves me is the same grace that preserves you. That the same glorious truths that are held out to me in salvation are yours. These are joints that Christ has provided to bring us into connection one with another. Christ has given us his glorious church. He has left us with the church, with our brothers and sisters, to gather and to congregate together under a common form of worship and a creed and a confession that we have and we share in common, at least many of us here, that we are members, either actual members or northern family members, of the church here at Providence. Christ has given so freely and supplied us with the joint of baptism, that as we are baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so we are united one to another as well, sharing a common name, sharing a common engrafting, sharing a common life and death in Christ with each other. Even this morning we had the great joy of partaking of the joint of the Lord's Supper, of being reminded that in Christ we are one loaf, and as this bread and this wine are presented to us, as Christ ministers it to us, reminding us not only have we been reconciled to God, but we've been reconciled to each other. As we noted before the Lord's Supper this morning, that's why we take it together in the congregation, why we don't take the Lord's Supper at home in our own prayer closets, locked up by ourselves, because it serves as a reminder that we are one loaf. That Christ has given us the joint of prayer. That it is through prayer that together we meld our minds and our hearts and our wills together as we come before the throne of grace. How we are instructed in the Word of God to not only be praying for each other, but to be praying with each other, because this is a means that Christ has given to connect us, to connect the various members of His Church. And on and on we could go with so many other joints. He's given us the joint of the communion of saints. He's given us gifts and graces that were meant to share in with one another. He has given us a common faith and creed and confession. that we all maintain, that he's given us a common hope, that we all strive for and endeavor after, that he's given us a common love, the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit shed abroad in our hearts, that he has given us a common inheritance and a glorious habitation, the eternal dwellings that we are making our way towards. Paul would have us to see here. That Christ is our gracious head, has supplied us, he has equipped us with innumerable joints. With joints that are meant to bring otherwise distinct members together. and to connect us in solidarity and in unity, one with each other. And when we begin to even wrap our minds around what Paul says here, not only what he says here in verse 16, but what he has said in the 15 verses that have come before, how can we not be left with the impression that to be Christians, That we are not meant to be unfamiliar strangers to one another. That we are not meant to only be distantly united to each other, to have what's sometimes referred to as a shirt-tail relation. but to see the overabounding grace that Christ has joined us in so many different ways and in so many different capacities and that His gracious hand brings us together and cements our identity one with another as the one body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, what Paul is taken with in the beginning of verse 16 here is the innumerable, the immense and the glorious supply that Christ himself has provided. That he has provided his body with innumerable joints that are meant to connect us one to another. Paul goes on in this verse, not only to speak of the supply that Christ gives, but also to address our service to one another. Paul doesn't simply end with Christ, our head, giving all these joints with which the body is equipped. You note there at the end of verse 16 that he says, when each part is working properly, and it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Despite some of the interpretive challenges and difficulties that face this verse, in the very least what we can agree Paul is saying is that Christ has supplied us with all of these gracious joints for something. Christ isn't simply content to unite us one to each other with all these joints, with every joint and all these points of contact, and then leaves us to simply go and live our lives as we see fit. Just as in our physical body, the reason why the Lord has fearfully and wonderfully made us with them so that these two bones are brought together, the reason we have joints in our physical bodies is so that our bodies can work properly. We have joints for the purpose of working. We have joints for the purpose of laboring. In the physical body, what we know of joints is that they give stability and they give movement to our bodies. It's a marvelous thing, if you sit back and think about it, that the human foot alone has 33 joints. And that the point of these joints is that they're meant to cause our feet our foot, so it's 66 between the two feet, all right, that it's meant to make our feet work, that our feet have been supplied with these joints in order to grant stability, in order to grant movement, in order to keep us on our two feet, in order to allow us to walk distances, to traverse ground, to walk up hills, to walk downstairs, to walk through water, to do whatever, that the purpose of joints is that it puts the body to work. And with our physical bodies, some of us are perhaps more aware of this than others, that if we don't use our joints, Our body can become stiffened. It can become difficult to move these body parts. Or even if we use our joints improperly and in the wrong manner, often arthritis can set in. That it stifles and it hinders the body, that it causes pain when it doesn't work the way that it is supposed to work. And so Paul here in verse 16 doesn't just want us to know of the gracious supply that Christ has given. Paul wants us to know that Christ in all of his grace has supplied his body with so many joints. That Christ has supplied the joints for us to bring you and to bring me and to bring your other brothers and sisters into contact that we might work. That we might serve one another, that we might be put to work. And just as in our physical bodies, when we don't use the joints that we have or we use them improperly and that wears down and our physical bodies don't work the way that they are supposed to, so too in the body of Christ. When individual members don't work and make use of the joints that have been given, when we don't serve or don't serve appropriately, the whole body is affected. And the whole body can become stifled, and it can become painful, and it can become improper and functioning wrongly. And so as Paul applies this metaphor of the body to the church, he would have us see that Christ has supplied us with these joints, but that in bringing us together, he has given each of us a particular service that we ought to render. for the building up of the body of Christ. Now as we think of this, Paul notes here that it is only when each part is working properly that the body grows so that it builds itself up in love. Paul notes here that each individual part that is brought together by these joints has a particular service to render, that it needs to work properly. And so how is it that we are to work properly? What does it mean for each individual part to work properly in the body of Christ? At least four ideas for you to think of as we think of our service one towards another. When Paul tells us here that the body of Christ can only grow, it can only flourish, it can only build itself up in love when each part is working properly. To first note that each part only works properly, when each part listens to the head. This is something that I think is somewhat similar to our physical bodies. Our bodies and the different members of our body, whether it's