"Christ Ascended = the Church's Provision" Part 4

Prayer for Illumination and the Gift of Christ

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, you are an eternal creator, as you have been, so you will ever be perfect, and holy, and glorious. Be able to, why you would create us, why you would provide for us, why you would save us, man, that you were mindful of him.

The son of man, that you would take notice. You have given us life. This is grace. You sustain us, and this is grace. And you give to us your only begotten son, whom you are well pleased, and this is amazing grace.

We ask, as well, for what you promised to give, and have given, and continue to give, that your Holy Spirit, that you would fill us, that you would fill us with your spirit, that we would know and understand, that we would be illumined in our hearts to know, what is this word that you have inspired,.

That you have given to us?

A word about your son, Jesus Christ. We ask that you would lead us in worship today, that you would continue to bear us up, and bring us along into all of the glories that you have to show us this day.

We thank you.

We pray for these mercies, for the sake of Christ. This is his name that we pray. I want to invite you to open your Bibles, turn with me to Ephesians four. We are in the middle of a lengthy study of Ephesians four, verses seven through 16.

Our attention thus far has been expended on verses seven and eight as we consider this truth about Christ's gift, that to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. And what is this gift?

And what does this mean for our everyday lives.

As Christians?

What does it mean for us in our marriages and in our families in this church? What does this mean? And we've seen a lot about this gift, and that it's an individual gift to each one of us, it's an undeserved gift because it's all about grace.

It's an immeasurable gift, but we cannot measure the height and the breadth and length and the depth of this gift. It's a personal gift, it's Christ's own gift to us, it's a completed gift, it has been given.

It's a victorious gift for God sends forth or Christ sends forth the Holy Spirit from his victorious session at the right hand of God. And this is a mediated gift, the Spirit was given to Christ without measure, and he gives the Spirit to us.

And we come again to our passage as we consider this morning the sacrificial gift. Let me read for us and if you please stand and let us give our attention 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 descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he himself also who ascended above all 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 into 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.

And this is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Christ's Sacrificial Descent Before His Ascension

Early in my Uncle David's military career, he transferred from regular army to the National Guard, Army National Guard, he was a captain, and he was placed in charge of a company that had failed all 16 areas of their review.

The company commander and the highest-ranking NCO had been relieved of their position due to failure at leadership. And so as part of his massive overall, he began to do things incredibly different. When it came to the annual training in which they would be camping out in the field for a couple of weeks, for the first time in 13 years, as this company's commander would sleep with his troops in the field.

He made himself part of the advance team. Uncle David went out and cut down trees and cleared brush. He made sure that his platoons bivouacked on an old army encampment using the old concrete foundations for their tents.

He borrowed 160 cots from another company. He secured an extra water buffalo for a shower point. He smuggled in a satellite so they could have TV in the cafeteria tent. He supplied a large stash of cold drinks for them.

He was the last person to eat at every meal. And he showed them by his actions that he was with them, and so he was for them in his leadership. He contracted tick fever and stayed in the field for the rest of the operation.

Where do you learn that kind of leadership? It's Christ-like, it's Christ-like. Verse 14 of our text tells us that we are infants in a typhoon of lies.

Without Christ.

We are tossed every which way by every wind of doctrine subject to the torrential schemes of the enemy. Infants in a typhoon of lies. But verses 20 and 21 of the same chapter says.

We are to learn Christ and truth is in Jesus.

If we have heard him and been taught him, we know this. And he has shown us in his lowly service the way to glory. Hebrews 2 .10 says he is our archegos. He is our pioneering captain who goes before us through suffering, he leads us in the way to glory.

He is the author of our salvation, so he has written the script of our sanctification. By the merits of his condescension, he has won the gift that he gives us in his glorious ascension. Unless we make a full accounting of Christ's sacrificial descent, we'll not understand the purpose, the full purpose of his gift given to us in his victorious ascent.

The sacrificial gift he gives to us is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is he who equips us and empowers us for the work that we are created for in Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, this work is modeled after our captain, it is lowly work.

It is lowly work. This is a sacrificial gift. Paul has just quoted Psalm 68, verse 18.

There in verse eight.

He quotes this verse to support his fantastic claim in verse seven, that to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. And then he begins to expound upon this verse and explain the meaning of Psalm 68, 18.

He says, now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. Paul reads in Psalm 68, 18 that Christ ascends so as to make possible God to dwell among men through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

So Paul wants the Ephesians to think through, now if Christ ascends, we have to take account for the fact that first he had descended. And we cannot separate or isolate his exaltation from his humiliation.

We need to understand them both together. The truth is it was by the merits of Christ's condescension that he earned the glories of his ascension. In other words, he could not ascend to victory if he had not won the deadly fight.

And he could not give the Holy Spirit to his bride if he had not purchased her by his blood. So Christ's gift given in his ascension was the gift that he earned deservedly in his condescension. So we need to pay attention to the depths of his humility if we're going to appreciate the heights of his exaltation, of his glory.

Let's be clear in what the Spirit says here in the second half of verse nine, that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. Certain traditions will read this as Jesus going to hell, Jesus going to Hades, but there's nothing in the context or in Paul's writings or in the rest of the scripture that would support that claim.

It's important that we say that, I'm not trying to start controversy, I'm just saying if we ignore what actually is here, we're gonna miss out on the meaning of the gift that Christ gives to us. And what it means for us.

It's gonna be hard to square the fact that Jesus goes to hell when he dies for a time, when he turns and says to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. Just hard to square any other result than Christ being with his newest convert in heaven after he dies.

Also, the lower parts of the earth is just in contrast to the heavens and Isaiah 44, 23, in rejoicing about sin and those who live on God brings. We notice from the text that although there's contrast, it's not the exact same scale, is it?

The lower parts of the earth are in contrast to Christ when he ascended far above all the heavens. Now, if it said far below all the earth, we might consider the metaphysical orientation of hell, but that's not really there,.

It's just the lower parts of earth.

I think it's important for us to recognize.

That all we're saying, all that Paul is saying, all the Spirit is saying is this,.

That Jesus had to descend to live where we live to save us lowly sinners in the lowly places where we live before he ascended above all the heavens to give to us this gift, this grace by which we live.

It's about the incarnation. It's about the incarnation. And Ephesians 1, 22, 21 is the same picture that after Christ was raised from the dead bodily, his incarnation, the fact that he lived and he died and he was raised, he went on to glory.

Philippians 2, 6 -8 is the definitive passage. Paul writes of our example in humility, who is Christ, who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, period.

Nothing about hell or Hades. This is about his incarnation. This is about his humility. William Plummer writes about this song, Philippians 2, 7 -8, he says, this here is an outline of our Lord's humiliation, which has long been the wonder and the joy and the song of angels and the redeemed.

The whole of our Lord's history on earth was one series of acts of self-emptying and humiliation. It's about the incarnation. What we're talking about here, what Paul is saying, it's essential for us to remember before Christ ascended, he had descended into the lower parts of the earth.

We have to take that into account. Let's make a full account of Christ's lowliness so that as we learn Christ, who is the truth, we will be delivered from the typhoon of lies, that we will be delivered from thinking too highly of ourselves, that we will be delivered from the lies of the world.

That would lead us to self-advancement.

And self-aggrandizement, and if we understand the gift, we will, by the Holy Spirit, engage in the lowly work we're called to for the glory of God. Let's make a full account of Christ's lowliness as we begin with his conception.

When we hear the phrase, the lower parts of the earth, we ought to remember the miracle of the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin Mary and conceiving miraculously of her own humanity and her own womb, Jesus Christ.

If you listen to the psalmist carefully in Psalm 139, David, if you listen to David carefully, you'll hear him write of his greater son, Jesus. He says, for you formed my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, in the depths of the earth.

That's his poetic expression of the womb. And this is true of Christ, is it not? Before Jesus Christ descended, he descended into lowliness. God the Son took on human flesh in the incarnation, conceived by the Holy Spirit, he lived in the lower parts of the earth, a true and real infinitesimal human being in Mary's womb.

He came into the world as we do. He came in a lowly manner to save sinners in the lowly places where we live. The lowliness of his conception, the lowliness of his birth, he was born homeless, outside, and exposed.

It was awful. Mary was so weak and wore down from giving birth, and from the journey, the travel that she had to endure, nine months pregnant, from Nazareth to Bethlehem, she couldn't even keep holding her baby.

Joseph could not get her inside. All Luke says is that there was no room for them in the inn.

That's all it says.

There's no stable in the Bible. There's no cave that they're hiding out in. There's no nice, warm, torch-lit, polite, non-stinking, clean animals. This is an awful birth. Joseph has to push the donkeys away from the overcrowded inn's feeding trough, drag it over to Mary.

He tries to clean it up the best that he can. Mary wraps her infant Jesus in cloths to protect him from the poking straw, from the parasites crawling everywhere and the outdoor elements. I can't imagine doing anything other at this moment than sobbing at frustration because I can't provide better for my wife and this special child that I didn't even father.

And you think, with all the attention.

That heaven is giving this miraculous child, with all the messengers from heaven.

And all the promises of redemption and shalom,.

You'd think the sovereign on high would provide a little bit better for his son. It is this lowliness that's essential. It's a lowly birth in a lowly place, all with the aim to save a lowly people. He was born to die, to save his people from their sins by his blood.

Consider his growing up. Jesus grew up for a time as a refugee. He was just another dust and sweatcake toddler of an immigrant family fleeing violent tyranny. Joseph and Mary and Jesus hid in Egypt until Herod died.

And they avoided Judea when they moved back because his son would surely honor the death mark placed upon Jesus. They moved to Nazareth, which was a good idea to hide out. Small village, about 500 folks, one spring of water, not going to expand, well off the Roman road, a humble place with a bad reputation, no school.

So as a child, Jesus grew up a refugee, a refugee nobody from nowhere. But the child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom and the grace of God was upon him, Luke 2 .40 says. Luke 2 .52 says, Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

So as he grew, he did so patiently. He understood more than anybody else around him. But in his case, knowledge did not puff him up. It weighed him down. As he increases in strength and in stature, the day would come when these would be extended to their uttermost in his suffering and his crucifixion.

And as he increases in favor with God and with man, that trajectory has only one destination, him suspended as the mediator between God and man. Satisfying sacrifice. Consider the lowliness of his ministry.

Many times we encounter the massive crowds following Jesus, clamoring for more bread, more healing, more miracles. And in today's man-worshipping culture, that crowd looks like success. That crowd looks like exaltation.

But for Jesus, it was lowly work.

And it was very often lonely work. Having been baptized by the outlaw preacher John the Baptist, Jesus wandered about as the outcast teacher, a continual troublemaker in the eyes of the religious world.

And the authority pounded incessantly by their plots and schemes. His own mother and brothers thought he had lost his mind. And very often to escape the pressures and the problems, Jesus would go to an unknown area just to abide with his heavenly father.

You can hear the lowly and difficult character of Christ's earthly ministry as he responded to certain folks. The scribe came and said,.

Oh, I'll follow you teacher. And Jesus says what?

Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Indeed, Jesus Christ is God with us. Emmanuel. As Emmanuel, he was in the trenches of spiritual warfare. He was with the beggars in their slums.

He was with the oppressed in their sorrows. He was with the disabled in their pain. He was with the leper and the Gentile in their isolation. He was with the dead in their tombs. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Christ's lowly ministry descended even farther into lowly suffering. Surely our grief he himself bore and our sorrows he carried.

And by his scourging, we are healed. He was oppressed and afflicted. Christ descended in his incarnation to live fully human, fully human in his conception, in his childhood, and in his ministry, and he suffered as one of us, but it's more than that.

He suffered as the one for us. Our ascended Savior, Lord and King did not deliver us from a distance. He did not hold us at arm's length. He had to be made like those he came to save so that he would prove a merciful and faithful high priest in offering himself as a satisfying sacrifice to God.

That's why Hebrews 2 ,10 says it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the offer of their salvation through sufferings.

And that suffering was unto death. Christ died the worst death known to man. He was crucified not as a common criminal, but as the worst of criminals, the lowliest of scum. He was brutalized by the Romans and he was betrayed by the Jews.

He was scorned, scourged, stripped,.

And staked out on a tree. There he hung, cursed by God for us. He was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Was there anyone ever more lowly than Christ?

Had ever a prince, had ever a king.

Come from such heights to such depths?

Had anyone ever come from the brilliant right hand of favor so far down, so far down to the forsaken eclipse of condemnation? There exists no sounding gauge in all the theology which may accurately plumb the depths of Christ's lowliness or fathom the descent of his grief as he dies on the cross.

What does this expression mean? He ascended, except in this, that he first descended. And what a descent!

The depths to which Christ dove.

To save the likes of you and I.

He was buried.

Jesus himself said this was gonna happen. He would be buried in the heart of the earth that we raised the third day. Truly he descended into the lower parts of the earth. This first crucial stage of his incarnation is marked time and again by his lowliness, by his humility, and by his descent.

He descended down into the darkness of Mary's womb, down into the straw of the feeding trough, down into the exile in Egypt,.

Down into obscurity in Nazareth,.

Down into the waters of the Jordan, down into the pains and miseries of humanity, down into the sufferings of his trial and crucifixion, down into the earth, that is burial.

Which means Christ Jesus is our mighty man.

He is like Benaiah who went down into the pit.

On a miserable day and killed the lion.

He is like Benaiah who went down to the mighty man of Egypt.

And slew him with his own spear.

He is our mighty man. He first descended to deliver us and lead captive to the host of captives and give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. What does this mighty man say to us, the one who has descended?

What does he say about salvation? What does he say about entry into the kingdom of heaven? No straight back man will ever fit through the gate of the kingdom. No proud woman with a head lifted high will ever be able to walk through, but it's the poor in spirit who are blessed.

The kingdom of heaven is theirs. The poor in spirit who say in the fullness of their being, I am bankrupt and I've got nothing that God needs.

I've got nothing to offer.

He's not impressed with me. This is how we enter.

Jesus says,.

Some of the little children are coming to me for us such as the kingdom of heaven. Look at these little children, they can do nothing.

But cause work.

They can do nothing for us. He says, but this is how we enter.

As a little children,.

I'm placing a little child in the middle of his quarreling disciples.

Of such are the kingdom of heaven.

Look at this little child. What qualifications?

What can he offer?

What can he do?

Entry into this kingdom is in the lowliest of postures, what we say, in repentance. I'll make a pile of all of my bad deeds, and I'm also gonna make a pile of all of my good deeds, and I forsake them all for Christ and Christ alone.

I've got nothing, but then if I have Christ,.

If I have Christ, I have everything.

Everything, salvation, I have everlasting life, I have God. As a captain, my uncle David, as a company commander, leading his first annual training,.

He had been offered an air-conditioned room,.

Which was customary for the commander to not camp out with his soldiers and their NCOs in the field. He said, no thanks. It was his privilege as commander to do that. He set it aside to diligently secure his men's provision so that they would be well-equipped and exhorted to dirty, exhausting work in the field.

Christ, although he existed in the form of God, did not require equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, not by losing his divinity, but by adding humanity. Laying aside his divine privileges, the privileges that he deserved, he takes on the lowly suffering we deserve to save us and activate us by the spirit and continue the work he began on earth.

Have we so learned Christ?

Have we so learned Christ to do lowly work? Truth is in Jesus. Truth is in Jesus. Son of man, do not come to be a servant, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The greatest in the kingdom, the one who wishes to be first of all, must be the servant of all.

He washes his disciples' feet, the last supper, the dirtiest, lowliest job and says to them, I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. And I tell you, there is a lot of dirty, lowly work to be done.

We were created in Christ Jesus for good works,.

Which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

And brothers and sisters, these good works are lowly works.

Lowly works.

There is lowly, dirty work to do in the home. Despised work by our society. There's a lot of sacrificing that goes on in the home. Mothers, you know that. Fathers, you know that. There's a lot of sacrifice that goes on in the home.

A lot of laying aside of personal privileges, things that we should demand. That parenting is not bullying, it's serving. There's lowly, dirty work to do in the home, abiding the tongue and respecting your spouse.

Loving others. There's nurturing to be done that takes far too much time out of the schedule. There is guiding to be done again, and again, and again, and again, and again. How often should we forgive our brother?

How often should we forgive our children?

How often should we forgive our parents? 70 times seven. There's lowly, dirty work to do in the church, serving one another, shutting the mouth to listen to one another. There is lowly, dirty work to actually, when we say, I'll pray for you, when you say, I'll pray for you now, right here, stop, I'll pray for you now.

There is speaking the truth in love, risking a relationship to say, I love you too much, I'm gonna serve, I'm going to see what I can do to help. There is lowly, dirty work to do in the church when we're sorrowing, but they're rejoicing, I will rejoice for those who rejoice, and when I'm rejoicing, but they're sorrowing, I will sorrow, I will weep with those who weep.

There is lowly, dirty work to be done in the church.

There's lowly, dirty work to do out in the world,.

And our labor to provide for our families, and our efforts to be good neighbors, and good citizens, and our service to our communities, and to our country, and in all things, speaking the truth in love, we do the lowly work of directing, not just our own humanity, but all the humanity around us toward the Savior for the world, Jesus Christ.

Sin is messy. People's lives are full of sin. It is lowly, dirty work to get involved with people who need Jesus. It is, it's not quick and easy. There is no televangelist recipe. There is no crusade 45 minute pill.

It is getting involved in people's lives, shining the light of Christ into their life. It is lowly, dirty work. Risking ourselves is lowly. Lowly work is loving work. Jesus said in John 15, nine, as the Father loved me, so I love you, and he did lowly, dirty work for us, and said, follow my example, and go make disciples of all the nations.

The Spirit is given for lowly work. Not only should we learn lowly work from Jesus, but we should diligently engage in this lowly work through Jesus. In this context of this promise,.

To each one of us, Christ was given.

According to the measure of Christ's gift.

Before we go soaring on cloud nine and say yes, bring on the spotlight, bring on the sparkle. Who are we following? Who did we learn from? It's Jesus Christ who first descended. What was the nature of that sin?

To save us, what are we doing? We need to diligently engage in lowly work.

Through Jesus Christ.

We have all the grace we need in Christ.

By the Spirit to do this work.

Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from his gift of the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing. So we can either do, here's our choices, we can either do lowly work for Christ by his Spirit, or we can do nothing at all, all on our own.

There's nothing in the kingdom, there is no act of service, there is no role in the church,.

In this world today,.

No matter how bright the spotlight might be, no matter how much attention there might be, everything we do, if it's eternal, if it's loving, if it's meaningful,.

Has to be lowly work.

What I do, I do right now by the grace of God, and that's all it is, and I'm doing it for the good of others, to the glory of God, it's lowly work.

It's lowly work.

We can only do high, mighty, impressive things when we do them on our own. We do them for Christ, and they're lowly, and they're loving, and they're eternally lasting. So let's rejoice. Let's rejoice and worship through our lowly work in Jesus.

If we are divested of the prideful lies, if we have learned Jesus and truth is in Jesus, then we see him as the one who descended before he ascended to give us the Holy Spirit. How did he do his work on earth?

He was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure. How are we doing our work on earth?

He gives us the Holy Spirit.

Do the work that he would have us to do, modeled after him, so when you sense that your work is lowly, when you sense your work is lowly, when you are up to your waders in the ditch, fishing out trash, when you are scraping awful things off the backside of a child, when you are washing dishes, when you are typing and typing and typing and typing away, when you have to listen to this person again.

About all this, all over, when you sense.

That your work is lowly, that's a signal. It's a signal.

Rejoice.

Rejoice.

You're following Christ. You're following Christ. Because that lowly service can be a sacrifice of praise to him. He did lowly work by the Spirit. He gives the Spirit to us, so we'll do lowly work.

We do it for his glory.

We do it for his fame.

This is a gift.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word. This reminder is so essential to us that he who ascended is the same one who first descended. The nature of this descent for our salvation, we cannot fathom the greatness of the love shown by Christ toward us.

Father, truly make us, remake us, renew us into the image of your Son, so that we too would be a people about lowly work to your glory. Help us to depend on the Holy Spirit to constantly look to him for the grace that we need.

To live as you have called us to live.

We pray these things for the sake of Christ with whom you are well pleased.