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

Let's pray together. Father, it is such a joy to come together and worship you.

You have made us in your image according to your own likeness, given us your

Son, Jesus Christ, that we will be saved. He suffered and died, and you have raised him from the dead, and he has brought us to you.

If 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 to understand this passage, to understand these words that you have 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 4, and we'll look again at verses 7 through 16, particularly this morning, verse 10.

Verse 7 of our passage has two main ideas, and we've been dealing with the second idea so far in verses 8 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 the church.

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 -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 unto him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what 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.

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 on 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 on 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 Descartes who, in the 1930s, early 1930s, 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 lives without Christ and his truth, without the

Holy Spirit. This is said in verse 14. Only as a result, 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 lives. 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, 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 8, Paul quotes Psalm 68, 18 to give validity and proof to his fantastic claim in verse 7, 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 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, who is not eternal. This is 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 that 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.

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 ascends to be in every sense of the fullest term

Jacob's ladder that 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 -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 hurled and put upon 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 this is the way it is in the gospel of John it also means that we think of him ascended to the right hand of the father.

Who is it who saves you? A dead Christ or a living risen glorious Christ?

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. It 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 looked 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. 1

John 2 1 and 2 my little children I am writing these things to you 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 for those of the whole world.

Propitiation? Bloody sacrifice? His descending? His humiliation?

Yes but where is he now? Did you hear verse 1? 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 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. When 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 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 1 he says you will receive verse 8 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 the remotest parts of the earth just keep that in mind keep that in mind for the last part of Ephesians 4 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 oh gates and be lifted up oh 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 oh gates and lift them up oh ancient doors 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 lashed to his thigh flashes in glory he arrives in splendor and majesty, he rides into the heavenly

Jerusalem in victory and he leads captive 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 and 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 2, 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 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 inherently and 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 authority and he fills all things in his glory and it is this last idea that I think is most clear in the passage that you have to be the person, in 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 7 he equips us for service and one of the elders said to me stop weeping behold the lion that is from the 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

I've never seen those 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 the Spirit is the gift that he has won in his victory in his righteousness and his ascension here he has 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 bullet you got a bullet too what does it say on the front what does it say shout it out right 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 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 going to 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