"Christ Ascended = the Church's Provision" Part 5

Christ Ascended and the Gift of the Holy Spirit

Let's pray together. Father, it's such a joy to come together and worship you. You have made us in your image according to your likeness, given us your Son, Jesus Christ, and we will be saved. He suffered and died, and you have raised him from the dead, and he has brought us to you.

You have given us your Holy Spirit to indwell us. We would know this communion with you forever. You are a great and glorious God. The end of all things, we will say with one voice, you have done it all.

All praise belongs to you. God, we ask you to help us understand this passage, understand these words that you've given to us. They are clear. They are clear. We ask that you drive them deeply into our hearts, into our lives, to make a resounding impact in us.

As a whole church,.

That we would confess what you say, that we would be the amen of the earth, your word given from heaven. Lord, we thank you for hearing our prayers. We ask you to answer with all grace and with all blessing, all because of Jesus Christ, whom we trust, with whom you are well-pleased.

Amen.

Well, I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians four, and we'll look again at verses seven through 16, particularly this morning, verse 10. Verse seven of our passage has two main ideas, and we've been dealing with the second idea so far in verses eight through 10, that to each one of us was given grace.

To each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. We've been thinking about Christ's gift these last four weeks, and this week we'll finish our examination, our study of what does it mean?

What is this gift that Christ gives? Who is this but the Holy Spirit? And what does all this mean for us as the body of Christ, as Christians? And then in weeks to come, however the Lord leads, we'll be talking about to each one of us, grace was given and how this fleshes out in the life of church.

So that's our goal, that's our plan. We've been talking about the gift of Christ, that this gift is individual, undeserved, immeasurable, personal, completed, victorious, mediated, sacrificial, and then today, we're going to talk about how this gift from Christ on high, this gift of the Holy Spirit is glorious, glorious.

Well, I ask you to stand with me and let's give reverence this morning to Christ revealed in Ephesians 4, 7 through 16. 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 so 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 whatever 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.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Did you know that flat earth is still a thing? YouTube is full of believers, full of believers. There are still people, intelligent, mathematically inclined people who believe, no matter what you tell them, that we still live on a flat earth, not what they call the globe farce.

They believe that there's been a massive international conspiracy operating as a space race in the moon landings, the International Space Station and Dish Network to convince us that we live on a globe rather than a flat non-rotating disk.

Many flat earthers use mathematical equations, telescopes and construction levels to prove that there is no curvature of the earth, whatever arguments refute your facts, yet, as you may imagine, these theories are not very well-rounded.

They like to point to the pictures taken by airplane pilots from 30 ,000 feet up, five miles up, and look, the horizon is flat, no curvature. One of their heroes is one by the name of Auguste Picard who in the 1930s, early 1930, designed a hot air balloon with an aluminum gondola that could reach the upper atmosphere, a pressurized craft that he could still breathe, he and his partner, Paul Kipfer, and they reached the record height of 51 ,775 feet or about 10 miles, 10 miles up.

A 1931 popular mechanics magazine records that through portholes the observers saw the earth through copper-colored and bluish haze and it seemed, according to this reporter, a flat disk with an upturned edge.

No word was given as to whether or not this perception was due to their gondola leaking air and them suffering oxygen deprivation. It does, however, remain chief evidence for flat earthers that we do not live on a globe.

But no matter how the earth looks, five miles up or 10 miles up, you can go to YouTube also and watch a live feed from the International Space Station 254 miles up and the curvature of the earth is pretty clear.

Well, we are infants in a typhoon of lies. Without Christ and his truth, without the Holy Spirit, this is said in verse 14. Only as a result of the grace given to each one of us and the gift that Christ has given to us and the Holy Spirit, only because of who Christ is, as truth, only in him are we rescued.

But without him, we are infants in a typhoon of lies. We have an anchor, though, we have an anchor in this typhoon and our anchor for truth does not go down, it goes up. Our hope for having the right perspective on the world in which we live, this anchor is not lodged five miles up or 10 miles up or 254 miles up, our anchor is lodged beyond the veil.

Far above all the highest heavens at the right hand of God is our anchor, Jesus Christ, who is the truth. The truth is in Jesus. Now, an anchor, an anchor without a chain is no help for you and your boat in the storm.

You can toss that anchor overboard and that may help you float a little longer, but unless you have some sort of chain to attach the anchor to your boat, you're in a world of hurt. What is the point, what is the good of Christ who is truth in a person, that he is a sinner to the right hand, and that he is our anchor, as Hebrew says, beyond the veil?

What good is that if we have no access to him and his truth? But we are not left orphans, and he has sent another comforter. And we have the Holy Spirit who not only inspired every word of the scriptures, Jesus says of his father, sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth.

Not only do we have the truth of scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit indwelling us, illuminating the meaning of the text that we know what is the truth, and that we would know the person of Jesus Christ who is the truth.

And so, again, as we have said so often, our provision flows from Christ ascended. The truth that we need flows from Christ ascended and his glorious gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. So look at verse 10.

He who descended is himself who also ascended.

Far above all the heavens.

So that he might fill all things. Remember in verse eight, Paul quotes Psalm 68, 18 to give validity and proof to his fantastic claim in verse seven, that to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

What a fantastic claim. Well, it's proven in Psalm 68, 18, where we discover that Christ ascends to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the true Mount Zion, and his purpose in that is that God would dwell among men.

How does that work?

Emmanuel, God with us, ascends so that God can dwell with us but of course, this is the promise and the mystery of the Holy Spirit. He is a gift from the Father to the Son, from the Son to his people.

Christ gives the gift of the Holy Spirit from his glorious ascended position at the right hand of God. Verse 10 focuses our attention on the giver of the gift, Christ himself. And in this verse, in verse 10, we see his person and we see his preeminence and we see his purpose.

First, his person.

Notice how the verse begins and it may seem a little bit clumsy. He who descended is himself also he who ascended. Wow, that's a wealth of personal reflexive pronouns. What do you do with all of that?

Why is it important to say that he who descended is the very same person who ascended or above all the heavens?

Why is that important?

I think it's important because if we deny these personal reflexive pronouns, we have no salvation, we have no salvation. The one who ascends into heaven as our savior, mediator and king, God incarnate must be the very same Christ who descended from heaven to become one of us and live among us and die for us.

The savior who lived out all of this perfect righteousness on earth, a life that we could never live. This must be the very same Jesus, the very same savior who is now ascended at the right hand of the father, pleading his own righteousness.

The one who died for us on the cross must be the one who is at the right hand of the father, pleading his own blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Unless the one who descended is himself who also ascended, we have no salvation, we have no salvation.

Which is why you ought to be compassionate to the Jehovah's witnesses who knock on your door. They are separate from Christ. They are excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. They are strangers to the covenants of promise.

They have no hope and are without God in the world.

Why?

They believe that Jehovah created a son for himself called the word, it was not eternal, it was an idol. They also believe that this word was also the angel Michael and that Michael ceased to exist and that Jesus came into existence.

And that when Jesus died, he went out of existence and then Michael was recreated and will soon return to reign on earth. He who descended was not he who ascended and so on. So says Charles Taze Russell in his scripture studies.

The Bible does not say this, but Russell does, who also says that anyone who studies the Bible on their own end up in darkness. So much for Christ's gift of the Holy Spirit. The word who was in the beginning with God, who from all of eternity was God, this word became flesh and dwelt among us.

He who descended is himself who also ascended. This same Jesus Christ having returned to heaven will soon come again. That truth here is our unmovable anchor in the typhoon of lies. Here is our impervious bulwark against a raging foe.

Here is a burning light amidst a gathering darkness. That Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He who ascended was him who first descended to save us. This helps us know the truth about salvation.

How else can we as those made in the image of God, how can we as those who have been created in God's likeness who have no access to a holy God because of our own sin, how else are we going to return to God, return to our creator in good standing unless there is one who descends to be one of us and for us and then us sins to be in every sense of the fullest term, Jacob's ladder.

We may come to God. We have to have Christ as the same person, the one who descended is himself who also ascended. And the question is, do you believe in the God, man, Christ Jesus? When Jesus was witnessing to Nicodemus, Nicodemus was a very religious, incredibly spiritual, highly educated, well-respected man.

There is not even the slightest chance that if someone of his experience, reputation and caliber died in our town tonight, the preacher at his funeral five days from now would give him a chance of ever ending up in hell.

Oh, most certainly he'd be in a better place. The only problem is that Jesus told Nicodemus this highly religious, spiritual, educated, respected man, unless you're born again, you can't even see the kingdom of God.

And he began to witness to Nicodemus and give him the gospel and call him to faith in Jesus, faith in himself. Jesus says in John 3, 13 through 15, no one has ascended into heaven yet. Christ has not yet ascended into heaven.

He says, no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man, was Jesus Christ. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the son of man must be lifted up so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.

The snake on the pole, the bronze serpent, when the children of Israel began to complain vociferously about the manna that they were forced to eat.

Day after day after day,.

Bread from heaven that they could no longer stand, God sent among them fiery serpents full of poison and they spread among the people and they were biting them and the people were dying and they were crying out for help.

And so a bronze serpent was cast and hurt and put up on a pole and it was lifted up above everybody. And whoever looked to the serpent was delivered. This of course prefigures Christ on the cross, but you know, as well as I know, that a dead, rotting Christ saves no one.

When we think of Christ lifted up, yes, we are to think of him lifted up on the cross, but also, and this is the way it is in the gospel of John, it also means that we think of him as sending to the right hand of the father.

Who is it who saves you?

A dead Christ or a living, risen, glorious Christ? To the right hand of the father, that's who saves us. And so he is lifted up and whoever believes in him, whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

We have to believe in Christ, the one who descended, is himself who also ascended from the cross to the crown. We look at this savior and it's in him that we have salvation, he must be the same person.

We also know the truth about our peace with God, therefore, when we think about Christ ascended, we are to rest, not only to return to God through Christ ascended, but rest in the righteousness of Christ ascended.

He who descended is himself who also ascended. Christ truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The confession of the apostle John is the same as our brother Job. What did Job say? Job 16, 19. Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven and my advocate is on high.

Who did Job believe in for his salvation? The advocacy Christ gave to Job, look forward to Christ's own perfect obedience culminating in his cross, and the advocacy Christ gives to saints today looks backward at the very same righteousness.

First John two, one and two. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also of those of the whole world.

Propitiation, bloody sacrifice, his descending, his humiliation. Yes, but where is he now? Did you hear verse one? We have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous, so where is he now?

He is ascended, he is with the Father. So we believe in Christ, the one who descended is also he who ascended. And how does this bring us rest? My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

And if anyone sins, we have an advocate. Listen, how often do we fall back into the pattern of a man-centered religion in which we instinctively interpret what's going on in our lives as whether or not God is happy with us.

We have a Job-like day. God, I'll do better. I'll make it up to you. We'll get this set straight. Are we not resting in Christ? How often do we push ourselves to the brink of all reasonable stress and activity, having to do more and more and more because we think we've got to make God happy with us.

No, don't you know the Father is well-pleased in the Son that he has finished his work? And you know he's finished because he said it is finished on the cross, but also because he sat down at the right hand of the Father.

It's been completed. We are not the ones who make God happy with us. We are not the ones who turn God's wrathful frown to a favorable smile. We're not the ones who do that.

Christ is. Christ is.

And our faith must be in him so that we would rest in him. And only if we abide with him will we ever do anything of eternal significance. Well, let's think of Christ's preeminence. His person is absolutely essential.

He who descended is also he himself who ascended. But where did he ascend? Far above all the heavens. See his preeminence there in verse 10? Far above all the heavens. Jesus stands with his disciples at the Mount of Olives and they're asking wrong-headed questions, looking for unreasonable answers.

Jesus says, okay, hang on. Let's talk about what's most important here. You need to focus on the task I've given you and I'm going to give you a gift. A gift from on high to help you. In Acts chapter one, he says, you will receive, verse eight, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest parts of the earth. Just keep that in mind. Keep that in mind for the last part of Ephesians.

Four, verse 10.

After he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received them out of their sight. And now we could just stick along with the narrative in Acts and go along with the bumbling disciples as they work through their fear and their racism and all sorts of problems, trying to be his witnesses on earth.

And that's a great story. It's called the Book of Acts. But let's use the scripture now to just track with Jesus. Let's leave the disciples far below and ascend with Christ into heaven and watch what happens.

Passing from the now into the not yet. And from this age into the coming age, we see in a figure bright battlements, brilliant gates, doors closed tight. Angelic criers announce his arrival. Heraldry transforms into worship.

Liturgy transcends into praise. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates,.

And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. He is fairer than the sons of men. Grace anoints his lips.

He is blessed forever.

His sword latched to his thigh, flashes in glory. He arrives in splendor and majesty. He rides into the heavenly Jerusalem in victory, and he leads a host of captives. And all the saints bow before him, Abel, Shem, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and all those who have been nobles and kings upon earth cast down their crowns, Adam, Noah, Abram, Joseph, David, Josiah, Daniel, Mordecai, and yet Christ ascends higher.

24 elders on their thrones fall down before him and cast down their crowns as well, but Christ ascends higher. The four living creatures full of eyes, wondrous and powerful, give glory and honor and thanks to Christ, their sovereign master, but Christ ascends higher.

For he is the Lion of Judah. He is the Root of David. He is the Lamb of God, and he is overcome. He ascends to the highest throne in the highest heaven, and his name is above every name. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

Truth is in Jesus. His ascension means our provision. If we need objective truth, and we do. If we need the right perspective, and we do. If we need clarity in this world thriving on confusion, and we do, then we have the clear perspective of objective truth in Christ ascended.

The answer to all of our sanctification is this. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, Colossians 3. Verse two, set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And where is Christ? Above the highest heavens. Ephesians 2 .6 says that God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Christ from this glorious position has given us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who gives us Christ and to Christ.

To put it another way, unless we are heavenly minded, we are no earthly good. Unless we are heavenly minded, we are no earthly good. When the formula for sanctification is simply this, keep seeking the things above where Christ is.

We need to know the heights of his ascension. We need to know the glories of his exalted position so that anything that happens in our lives, from boring routine to gut-wrenching tragedy, from measurable success to rising frustration, anything that happens in our marriages with our children and our jobs and our homes and our friendships or in this church, we will not know the truth about what is actually happening all around us in front of our noses or even in our own hearts unless we have Christ's perspective on that matter.

That he is ascended to the highest heaven, seated upon the highest throne means that only, only when we consider our moments from the perspective of his eternity, only when we consider our choices from the perspective of his authority, only when we consider our resources from Christ's sovereignty only when we consider our relationships from Christ's supremacy, only when we consider our purpose from Christ's glory will we know the truth.

Miles up, the earth looks flat. From 10 miles up, the earth looks flat. From 254 miles up, but only from far above all the heavens do we realize where we really live and the shape of our existence and what it all means.

I gotta confess to you, I do not know enough yet. I don't know enough yet about Christ to think from such a high vantage point. But when Christ's glorious gift, when we depend on the spirit that inerrantly, unfailingly reveals Christ, we learn more and more about who he is and we gain more and more of that heightened perspective from above all the heavens that we know what's really going on.

His person is the same. He who descended is also he who ascended. His preeminence, his purpose is so that he might fill all things. He might fill all. What are we to say here? That he fills bursts with theological significance.

Surely Christ fills all things in significance and he fills all things in sovereignty and he fills all the things in his global. It is this last idea that I think is most clear in the passage. You have to be the person.

The text we see that through the Holy Spirit, the church is given all that we need in terms of that Christ has left us and what is that task? But what we saw that we would be his witnesses. Samaria and the uttermost connection for us.

John chapter seven. The Holy Spirit, he equips us for service. And one of the elders said to me, stop weeping. Behold, the lion that is from a tribe of Judah, the root of David has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.

The book, the entirety of everything that God has ordained for all of history. The book, God's plan. And only Christ has overcome to open that book.

Because he is the actor,.

The protagonist of that entire story. And I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders, a lamb standing as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

What strange passage of scripture. It's hard for us to grab hold of the image. I've never seen a lamb with seven horns,.

Let alone seven eyes.

I've never seen a lamb that was slain, though standing alive. I've never seen a lamb who was a lion, but here it is in Revelation. And we are given these images and they are pressed together to show us something of the glory of Christ.

And so here's something interesting about Jesus in his ascendant position, he having ascended to the right hand of God in all of his glory. And we see that truly God, the son and God, the spirit are one in essence.

And yet two different persons, yet one in essence for this lamb has seven horns speak of power, seven eyes, complete and utter wisdom. And these represent the plentitude of the Holy Spirit. Now notice what Jesus Christ does in his ascendant position.

He has been given the spirit. The father gives him the spirit. It is the spirit is the gift that he has won in his victory, in his righteousness and in his ascension. Here he's been given the Holy Spirit.

And then what does he do? He gives us the spirit because this Holy Spirit, the plentitude of the Holy Spirit, he is sent out into all the earth. Christ has ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.

How does he fill all things except through this gift of the Holy Spirit? He fills all his people and his people take the gospel that they may fill all the earth. So the purpose of Christ therefore is the purpose of the church.

He ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. How does he do that? He does it through the church empowered by the Holy Spirit. So the purpose of Christ is worked out in the life of the church.

Glorious things of thee are spoken.

Is that our purpose as a church? Is that our purpose as a church?

Somebody pick up a bulletin.

You got a bulletin next to you.

What does it say on the front? What does it say?

Shout it out.

Glorify God, build up the body, evangelize the lost, right? In other words, Christ is going to fill all things through his church as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to glorify him, to build up the body and to evangelize the lost.

That's why Christ has ascended far above all the heavens. That's why he's invisible to us now. He has ascended. The reason why he has ascended so high, a distance to such height is that his blessing would be a measure so wide and we're part of that.

So it's our purpose as a church to be about the purpose of Christ and his ascension. And now for the personal question, is that your purpose in being part of the church? Is that your purpose in being part of the church?

Lord willing, we're gonna see in verses 11 and following the ways in which Christ through his gift ensures that we have the grace for each one of us to be about his purpose in the life of the church. So let's pray and get our hearts ready for that next part.

Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the time you've given us in your word. Lord, thank you for the clarity that you show us your son, Jesus Christ, has ascended far above all the heavens to tell us what this means, what it's all about, so that we would know who we are, why you saved us and what we're to be about.

Help us, Father, to be rigorous in our thinking, that we would do everything we can and it depends upon you to see life in all of its quandaries, not just from a five mile up or 10 mile up or 254 mile up perspective, but that we would try to see everything from the perspective of Christ.

So that we would live in his wisdom and that we would know his truth, that we would be submitted to his authority, that we would be characterized by his holiness. We pray these things in his name, amen.