Now let's turn to this passage in Ephesians chapter 4. To each one of us, verse 7, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. And you'll notice immediately there's a quote from the Old Testament. When he ascended on high he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. That quote in fact comes from Psalm 68 about which we'll say something more in a moment. But last week we were considering the fact that the church is one church throughout all time and throughout all space. The people of God are one people. The bride of Christ is one bride. For various reasons, historically and in other ways, there have been denominations and other things built up in the history of what we call church history, but in fact across all of the denominations, across all of the nations, wherever there is a man or a woman who belongs to Jesus Christ, there they know the same Father and there is one church across that whole different mix of backgrounds and cultures and so forth. And that one church we saw last week has a unity which is undividable and inseparable because there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one spirit and so forth and then one God and Father who is over all and in all and through all. But we saw that that church lives in two ages. While there's one church, There are in fact two ages in which we have to live and those ages are in conflict. We have already tasted of the powers of the age to come. We already have a deposit of the Holy Spirit within us. We already have a pledge of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and we have the hope of the redemption of the whole of the creation set before us, but we live in an age which is passing away. what Paul calls an evil age, an age which does not recognise the truth, does not recognise the Lord of Glory, an age in which the world and the flesh, the devil and all of the principalities and powers are active and so the church, so it's one church throughout all time and throughout all nations, lives in this situation where it's in the overlap of the ages and therefore it always lives in a state of conflict And that's where we saw sometimes some of the battles that we have against love, against the truth of Christ, against the forgiveness of sins and so forth, and how deep and protracted that battle is. Paul says a little later, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. That just is the way it is with the one church in these different ages. But throughout all of that time, Ephesians has been telling us one thing that we have to know by faith, and that is that Christ, who has died, has been raised up from the dead, and he has now ascended to the right hand of the Father, and from that position he is filling all things. Now this idea of filling things means that things must be empty. And we won't spend time on it this morning, but if we did have time, we could spend a whole series looking at the way in which Christ is bringing about a new creation. Now, in the old creation, if we could speak that way, the first creation, the creation which God brought into being at the very beginning, God said, and there was, you know, the creation in Genesis 1 and 2. The thing that you find there is that two things happened. It was formless and it was empty. Formless and void. Formless, shapeless and empty. And that creation account in Genesis 1, 2 and 3 tells us how God brought form to the things that were formless and how he filled the things that were empty. So he brought form to the formlessness and fullness to the emptiness. And I think you could go through Ephesians and other passages in the New Testament and you could see the work of Christ at the moment as the great head of a new creation, the great second Adam, the great king who is actually doing that, bringing about a new creation by forming up all of the things that have lost their shape because of sin and wickedness. and filling up all of those things that have lost their fullness because of sin and wickedness. Can you see what I mean by that? That outside of Christ there is nothing that's full. Like we might fill ourselves with unrighteousness, or fill ourselves with greed, or fill ourselves with envy, but even if you're full of those things you're empty. Does that make sense? The only fullness there is, is the fullness of God who is love and therefore the only fullness that can be finally in the new creation is the fullness of the God who is love, filling all things. And so Christ is now at the head of this new creation, shaping up all of the things that have lost their shape because of human sin and wickedness and filling up all of the things that have been emptied because of human wickedness and angelic sin and so forth. And so we're in this stage in a sense in which a new creation has already been achieved in Christ on the cross and is now being spread out to the uttermost parts of the earth through all the nations of the earth. filling up the emptiness. So he's filling all things and today we're reading in this part of Ephesians about how it is that he's filling those things up and he's filling them up in part by the giving of gifts, the giving of gifts. Now if you look at chapter 4 verse 7 To each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. In here and in other parts of the New Testament, not least 1 Corinthians chapter 12, from which we've also heard this morning, we find that Christ has given gifts to his body. He is the head of the body, we are his body, we receive the gifts from his head. Not everyone is an eye, not everyone is a foot and so not everyone has this gift and not everyone has that gift. But he's given gifts across the board to his body. But what's in focus in Ephesians chapter 4, and not the general run of gifts, all of those are important, what's in focus here is specific gifts which we could designate as word gifts. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. They are all gifts that are concerned one way or another with the proclamation of the ministry of the word. And you say, well what are they proclaiming? And here you look at the continuing work of Jesus Christ. It says in verse 8, therefore when he ascended on high he led captive a host of captives. You take the ascension out of the book of Ephesians and you've really ripped the heart out of it. If you follow through the book of Ephesians at virtually every key point, the key turning point is a reference to the Ascension. So we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, in the heavenly places. It's not just the ascension of Jesus Christ by which he was raised up from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, but Jesus Christ as a representative of his people, as the embodiment of the church, as all of his people identified with him in that great act are taken up with him, And so the whole church in Christ has been raised up with him and ascended with him, and everything in Ephesians happens from that place where Christ is now ascended to the right hand of the Father. You take that idea of the ascension out of Ephesians, and as I said, you rip the heart out of the book. But if we can coin a word, if there's an ascension, there's had to be a descension. If there's an ascension, if he's gone up to the right hand of the Father, there has to be a descension. He has come from the Father and he has entered into something below. And here in chapter 4 verse 9, it talks about having descended into the lower regions or the lower parts. Now it's not here primarily sporking. speaking about geography. He's not spalking about anything, but he's not speaking about geography. He's not talking about up and down in a physical sense, because Christ is as near to us as our breath. But from the position of being ascended to the right hand of God, he is now far above something. In terms of moral authority and actual spiritual power, he is far above all things. But there was a time when he was not far above all things, but in fact all things seemed to be ruling over him. He descended into the lowest parts, he descended even to the point of death on a cross. where in that death on a cross all of the powers of hell were unleashed against him. Now just the other day we had someone call in and while we were sitting there having a cup of coffee the TV was on mute in the background and it just showed a picture of a pack of dogs who had gone wild and it was one of those nature programs and at a certain point they just set upon a lamb as which was part of a flock of sheep and they singled one off and they just sat upon this land and one dog brought it down and the others just started ripping into it. And the person who was there with us having a cup of coffee just glanced out of the corner of their eye, saw that and said, that's Christ. I thought, what an insight, what a statement. Dogs have encompassed me, the bulls of Bashan have surrounded me. that everything that was unholy and unclean, all of human wickedness and sin and all of the powers of the evil one that built their kingdom on that human wickedness and sin, they were all unleashed on him at that point to tear him, if they could, limb from limb. And in that dark recess where he descended to the lowest parts, he defeated them all through the meekness of his own suffering and rose victorious over them, having borne away all of the guilt of our sin. But there is an ascension only because there's been a descension. And when Christ now is filling all things, he's filling all things through the proclamation of that descension. It's a strange statement to make, but he's filling all things by telling us of how he was emptied of all things. like on the cross where he poured himself out for us, on that cross where in that outpouring he actually became our sin, and there in the utter darkness of the uttermost parts of the deepest suffering of humanity he bore away the guilt and the pain of it all. There at that point the whole of human history was changed, the whole of the destiny of the creation was secured, And now the fullness that we receive is through the hearing of the emptiness through which he underwent. Can you hear what I'm saying in that? Like if any of us here have come to faith in Jesus Christ and received the gift of the Holy Spirit and known the fullness of the Father's love in our hearts, it's only come to us through the word of the cross. It's not going to come to us by any other means. We can try to fill ourselves up with other things and we're always empty. You can try and fill yourself up with another gospel but you'll always be empty. The only fullness that ever comes is the fullness that is based on the emptying that took place on the cross. So here he is now ascended to the right hand of the Father and he's given gifts. He's taken captivity captive and he's given gifts to men. Now, you could read Psalm 68 from which this quote is taken here. We won't do that now. I'd urge you to do that at another point, perhaps when you go home today, this afternoon. You could read the whole of Psalm 68. It would be an interesting exercise for you to perhaps read the Psalm and think in what way is Ephesians an exposition of the theme of Psalm 68. This is a good essay question for someone who is teaching in a Bible college, John. In what way is Ephesians an exposition of the theme of Psalm 68. But Psalm 68 states, let God arise and his enemies be scattered. That's how it begins. Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered. And the Psalm goes on to talk about the one who wins the victory over all of his enemies and therefore over all of the enemies of his people. And how he does that is very significant because we're told in Psalm 68, the one who does this, who wins the victory, who has the enemies scattered, is the one who daily bears our burdens. You wouldn't think that you could win a victory by daily bearing someone's burdens. But Christ on the cross bore our burden. My sins are too heavy for me, it says in Psalm 38. They are a burden I cannot carry. There's only one man who could actually bear the burden of our sin and he did that on the cross. But then daily as he stands now interceding for us in the right hand of God, he is bearing the burdens of his people. He's defending them in the heavenly places against their enemies. He's carrying through the valley of the shadow of death. He's bearing them along on eagle's wings, making sure they come to their resting place. He's bringing them out from underneath the iron heel of Pharaoh, spiritually speaking, to settle them and to seat them in the worship of his father. He's the one who daily bears our burdens and as he does so, his enemies are scattered. But if you read Psalm 68 all the way through, it comes to the point where the whole of the nations, even the rebellious, actually hear of what he's done. One translation says of Psalm 68, 18, you ascended on high, leading captives in your train, receiving gifts from among men, even among the rebellious that the Lord may dwell there. That's translated in another version in this way. You've climbed the heights, you've taken captives, you've taken men as tribute, even rebels, that Yahweh, your God, might have a dwelling place. And the psalm ends with the kingdoms of the earth saying, sing to God, sing praises to God. It's a wonderful psalm. Spend a whole afternoon reading it and praying through it and meditating on it. And Paul plucks out this verse from Psalm 68 and places it here because he's saying this is in fact by faith what is happening across the whole world at the moment. That Christ has come through this terrible place of emptiness, of pouring himself out like water into the dirt and there he has thirsted and hungered on the cross and he has borne the burden of our sin on the cross and our guilt and all of its shame and pollution. and he's taken away the penalty of that sin, and he's now raised up to the right hand of God, and from that place he's going to fill all the emptiness, and he's going to shape up all of the formlessness, he's going to fill the things that are empty, bring to shape the things that have lost their shape because of sin. But the only way that that can happen, the only way that it would ever happen, is if people hear of the word of the cross. Couldn't do it by any other means. And in order for that to happen, he's given gifts to men, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, for the building up of the body in love. If you go to the end of this passage, down to verse 16, what do you discover? The end point is that the body would be built up in love. Now, what is the end point of the whole of the creation? That there would be a new creation in which there is no unrighteousness, but everything is filled with the Father's love. So, the ministry of apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist, these are all ministry gifts by which through the word that they bring, the body is filled with love because that's all that there's going to be in the new creation, the fullness of love. See, in a way, this is the answer to the prayer that he prays. Just go back to Ephesians chapter 3. Paul's bowing his knee to the Father in verse 14. He's praying that they would be granted that they would be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith, so that they would be rooted and grounded in love, verse 17. and that they'd comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth, verse 18 and 19, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. That's the prayer that Paul prays because he knows that's the fullness for which we're created and he knows that's all there's going to be in the new creation when all there is is fullness and there's no emptiness and all the shape has been brought to everything as it ought to be. The only thing that will bring that love to us and secure us in that love and keep us in the love, the only possible thing is the word of Christ and him crucified. The word of him who's emptied himself. So he brings to us all through these gifts, apostles, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, he brings these gifts to the church so that the church may be filled unto the fullness of the love of God through the hearing of the word which they proclaim. Now, if we were in a Bible college lecture today or something similar, we'd now spend a bit of time going through what all of those gifts mean and how they're very distinctive. We won't do that except for doing it in three minutes. We know what an apostle did. The apostles were those who took the whole truth of the Old Testament scriptures and proclaimed them in the light of Christ and proclaimed Christ in the light of the Old Testament. They steward the apostles as a ministry that could by its very nature be unrepeatable because they were forging a whole new Christian community which had never existed before through the word of Christ. And every point they went to, every place they went, the apostles had to say, no, this is what the scriptures have said. Read the whole of the scriptures in the light of Jesus Christ. And whenever you look at Jesus Christ, look at him in the light of the Old Testament scriptures. That was their apostolic ministry. And those apostolic ministries broke new ground opened up the gospel amongst the nations and to the sense that there are apostolic ministries today that are still doing the same thing in this sense, that they are always telling us the fullness of Christ in the light of the fullness of the scriptures and they are always pointing us to the new ground of the nations which has been to be opened up. And then there are the prophets who are ministers of the word in what we might call a direct sense. Some have, through the history of the church, have equated preaching with prophecy and there's some grounds for that but I don't think that exhausts it by any means. A prophet is the one who is immersed and soaked in the apostolic teaching and as they are immersed and soaked in that apostolic teaching with the fullness of grace in their hearts and the fullness of the love of Christ in their hearts, and the fullness of the compassion of Christ and the fullness of the fruits of the Spirit. So out of all of that fullness they actually speak a word into a particular situation which is to exhort and to encourage and to inform and in some cases to predict. And then there are the evangelists who we have a model of which we would best forget. But to be an evangelist you have to be a great theologian really. You have to be a Philip or you have to be a Stephen or you have to be someone who is just soaked again in that apostolic gospel and who has this fullness of the love of Christ just flowing out of you. One of the best definitions of evangelism occurs in a book over there called Gospel Incandescent, if it's still there. And it says evangelism is the overflow of a heart that's too full to contain it. What a wonderful statement. Evangelism is the overflow of a heart that's too full to contain it. So, do you want to be evangelising, then get a full heart. Do you want an overflow to happen, then be filled up unto all the fullness of God. And then there are pastors and teachers, and I don't think that they should be separated out into two separate gifts. I think in fact they are two aspects of the one, eldership-y type functions. But pastor-teacher means watching over the flock of God. It means exhorting a congregation in the apostolic gospel. It means keeping the flock, as it were, fed and watered in the truth. And to pastor in the Old Testament and to teach are almost inseparable. We have this division today where you have people who go off to universities to do degrees and that's where they get teaching and then they do something else in church. That would be such a strange and false distinction in the scriptures because the pastor-teacher, the teaching is the pastoring, the pastoring is the teaching, the two things are inseparable. But whether it's pastor-teacher, evangelist, prophet or apostle, The whole of the ministry which they are given is a gift to the church to proclaim Christ and to proclaim the fullness of what he's done through his emptying, through his dissension. And the point of all of that is that Ephesians 3 the prayer that they might be filled to the fullness of God, that they might comprehend the love of Christ which passes knowledge. The point of all of those giftings is that love may be provoked amongst the brothers. So the end point of this great gifting is that the body would be equipped for the work of service, that it would be built up, that it would come to the point of being a mature man, of just being of one heart in the faith and therefore be stabilised, not tossed to and fro. I think most of us, perhaps many of us have been through situations where in any situation, could be here in Adelaide or in other places, there's the latest sort of travelling roadshow comes past and spreads out all of the materials and hypes the whole of the Christian community up for about four or six weeks and then it all goes flat and then you have to wait for six months until someone else comes through with a bigger roadshow. That's not what it is to be built up to a mature man. To be built up in all of the simple, straightforward things of life he's going to talk about. He's going to talk about husbands and wives and parents and children. That's where we're built up, into maturity and in love. So how does that happen? Well, in verse 15, and we touch on this only briefly, we have quite an unusual statement because it's an unusual word. It says in my translation in verse 15, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into all aspects of him who's the head, even Christ. And the difficulty with that translation is that there's no verb there for speaking. It's like speaking in love is the translation, but it's the wrong translation. And when we separate the speaking and in love, we can get into trouble like in one situation someone said on one occasion, I'm saying this in love brother, but you're really hopeless. It's not speaking the truth in love, is it? I'm saying it in love means I'm not actually going to knock your head off with a brick just at the moment. In fact, the word should be translated, if we could find an English verb for it, truthing. And there's a couple of translations that have had a go in it. One says, practising the truth in love, we will grow up into Christ who is the head. Another translation says, if we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow into Christ who is the head. You think, what does that mean? There's a very important phrase I want to draw your attention to that we'll come back to in the next week or so. Verse 21 of chapter 4, you have been taught in him just as the truth is in Jesus. The truth is in Jesus. Can you see that? Now, if there's no fullness outside of Christ, there's no truth outside of Christ. He is the truth. The truth is not as things seem, but the truth is as things are in Jesus. Can you see that? Now let me give you an illustration. In this universe there are principalities and powers which have the most brilliant minds that God ever created and those principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness now are using all of their brilliance for opposition to God's purposes. And one of the things that those principalities and powers will do, will collect dossiers and files and information. It's a bit like the secret police, a bit like the Stasi in East Germany or elsewhere. Everyone watching, everyone else building up the dossier, building up the file and then at one point when you step out of the party line or whatever else it was, the police would come and they would just unfold any of this that they would want and say, We've got a dossier. Now that is not the way that Christ is towards us. But it is the way that the evil one is towards us and it is the way the principalities and powers are towards us. Here's an example of it from the New Testament. You remember Moses? You remember Moses died? And you remember that Michael had a battle on his hands because we're told in this strange and curious and unusual passage, Satan contended for the body of Moses with Michael. Now what does that mean? Who knows? But Satan brought out a dossier and said, Moses when he was a 40 year old man murdered an Egyptian and buried him in the sand and then ran away to the wilderness. And what did Michael say to him? The Lord rebuke you Satan. The evil one will come to us with a dossier of all the things in which you failed and your only defence against that dossier is the truth as it is in Jesus. Because the facts on the dossier are not the truth as it is in Jesus. The truth as it is in Jesus is that that whole document which consists of decrees against us and which is hostile to us has been taken out of the way, nailed to the cross and the truth as it is in Jesus against all of that accusation is no, I'm a justified man. So you relate to yourself and to one another according to the truth as it is in Jesus, not according to the dossier of facts. And that's how it is that the truth as it is in Jesus, because that's the only truth there is, builds up the body in love. Because if you just speak the truth and you say, well, I'm doing it in love, but I really want to reveal to you today that Joe Bloggs has done this and that and this and that, and he's also, and I want you to know, but I'm saying it all in love, that's not what it's speaking about. It's speaking about the way you relate to yourself. When you're looking at yourself in a mirror and you have that voice that goes through your head every day, does it not? This continual monologue of negativity about where and how and what you've done. How do you defend yourself against all of that accusation except to say, no, there is a truth as it is in Jesus? John Wesley said, or Charles Wesley said, what? Don't argue with the devil. He'll beat you every time. You'll never outwit him or outlogic him. And so as the whole body lives under the apostolic word of the cross and relates to itself and relates to one another in the reality of the truth as it is in Jesus, so the body builds itself up in love. And you think, well, what's the importance of that? Because it's only as that body is built up in love that it flows out to the nations. The only thing that will flow to the nations is the love as it is in Jesus, the truth as it is in Jesus. Does that make sense to you? And so he says, this whole gifting that's come is so that every joint that is supplied. Supplied by what? Supplied with the energy and nerves and the blood flow that is the proclamation of the Gospel. That whole body being fitted together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. That's why we took that reading from 1 Corinthians today. Not all are apostles, not all are prophets, not all are evangelists, not all speak in tongues, not all have interpretation, but the one goal of the whole is love. And love of what order? Love which keeps no record of wrongs, love which does not take into account a wrong suffered, love which is not provoked, love which is gentle and patient and so forth, because that's the way God has been to us in Christ. It's the truth as it is in Jesus. We'll pray and then we'll sing. Father we thank you that you have set before us a great truth and a great reality which is embodied in Jesus Christ. That in him there has been in fact a whole new creation forged and in him Father He is currently at work to fill all things. Father, He's at work this morning to fill us where we've been empty, to shape us up where we've lost our form, to bring us to the fullness that we've sought to find in so many places but have only ever found vanity and emptiness. He's here this morning, our Father, in the Spirit to bring these things to us. Father, secure us in His presence and in His Word We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.