"Christ Ascended = the Church's Provision" Part 2 May 20, 2018 AM

chapter 4. Here in a moment we will read verses 7 through 16.

I'd like to begin with a word of prayer. Father we come before you this morning and we give you we give you thanks.

You're the one who brought us here. You're the one who has brought us thus far.

There is nothing that we have been given which has not been given from you.

And every good and perfect gift comes down to you our Father. Father of light. With you there is no variation.

There is no shifting shadow. Indeed you are a good God. All you do is good.

I thank you for speaking a true and faithful word. For communicating it to us that we would know how faithful you are.

That not the smallest letter or the smallest stroke of a letter is wasted or capricious.

But you have spoken faithfully. And you have refilled yourself abundantly, thoroughly in your

Son Jesus Christ. As to him we look this morning. For it is in your

Son Jesus Christ, the beloved, you are well pleased.

And I ask this morning that as we look at your word, as we look at the text, that we would see many reasons for your good pleasure in Christ.

And that we too would be the amen of heaven on earth. And that we too would be greatly pleased in Jesus Christ.

We pray all these things for his sake. Amen. Well last week we began studying in Ephesians 4, verses 7 through 16.

It was a passage that I had assumed that would be a great one -off for us, a one -week break from Jeremiah.

And I have just been in awe of the power of this passage, the promises that we have in this text, the assurances, the hope that it gives.

And I can't get that out of my head or my heart. So we are here as long as the

Spirit wants us to be here. Christ will shepherd us through this passage as well and do his work in our lives.

And last week we were in verse 7 and the good news is today we're going to finish verse 7.

So we're not going to be very ambitious. But last week we talked about how the gift of Christ, Christ's gift is an individual gift to each one.

It says to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And it begs the question, each one, what about you? What about me?

Salvation is not in a group. Grace is not withdrawn from the treasury of the church.

It is grace to each one worth considering.

Also, this is an undeserved gift. It is the basic definition of the word grace. It is the idea that what

God has done for us in Christ is absolutely undeserved, unmerited, nothing based on who we are or what we have to do, entirely based on his pleasure in Christ.

And it's an immeasurable gift. It says that to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And if you're wondering about the metrics of the gift of Christ, if you read in Ephesians 3, the chapter just before, the dimensions are without measure.

So it's an immeasurable gift. Well, again, this morning, let's give our attention to Christ revealed in Ephesians 4, 7 -16.

And remember that his ascension means our provision. If you would stand with me, please, as I read this text, and let's receive the word as a message from our

King Jesus. 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 our Lord. Please be seated. Wednesday night after church,

I happened to be by myself heading home, long commute from the west side of the building to the east side of the building.

And as I approached the mailbox, I saw something odd going on. The front door was open, and there was some multicolored mesh bag in there, and there was some book jammed in behind the box, between the box and the post.

So I went over to look at it, and when I looked inside, there were these liquefied popsicle tubes.

You know, you throw those in the freezer and snip the end, and the kids push it up, and they eat their popsicles. A whole bag full of those, liquefied, of course.

It was hot out. And then there was this hardback edition, incredibly well -illustrated edition of The Velveteen Rabbit.

And I knew exactly who it was from. It was none of you all. But because you all just gave your gifts here, and said, could you pass this on to Becca?

And I said, of course. It was Joanne and Philo Gravett over here on the corner, our neighbors.

And they're always dropping things off with the kids, and they were heading out of town, didn't have time to connect with us. So they dropped off the popsicles and the book, and I knew exactly who it was from.

I knew the giver by the gift. I know the gift by the giver.

Some gifts are like that, right? Gift comes, gift is given, you know immediately who it's from.

And that's the way it is with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and Christ who gives him. What an immeasurable gift.

What an immeasurable gift. So undeserved. So needful.

For each one of us, made in the image of God, that we would be indwelt with the

Spirit of God. What a perfectly paired gift that Christ, who is the truth, would give to us the

Spirit of truth. Indeed, we know the giver by the gift, and the gift by the giver. And this is exactly what we need.

We need truth. We need truth. Jesus' prayer for us in the garden, to his

Father. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

It is only by the truth of Jesus Christ, it is only by the truth that is in the word of Christ, that we're going to be set free from the slavery to sin,

John 8 tells us. Without Christ's gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives, without his truth being powerfully made effective in our lives, by the

Holy Spirit, we are exposed to the continuing disaster of Satan's schemes.

We need truth. It is considered audacity today, arrogant audacity, to say of anyone's sincerely put statement that it's a lie.

We live in a day where the only heresy left is calling anything heresy.

Everything is up for grabs. We allow thieves disguised as servants of righteousness, dressed according to their master

Lucifer, to rob us of the ability to discern and to know what is truth and what is false.

But Christ has given us a gift. He has given us the

Holy Spirit, so that we will know what is truth, so that we will no longer be infants in a typhoon of lies, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, inundated by the schemes of the enemy.

Christ has given us a gift. He is Christ's gift. Notice that in verse 7.

Not only do we have an individual gift, an undeserved gift, an immeasurable gift, but also a personal gift.

He is Christ's gift, in verse 7. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of whose gift?

Christ's gift. What is this talking about? This gift is none other than the person of the

Holy Spirit. How do we know this is the gift in mind that Paul is writing about?

This is what Jesus said. He said, when I ascend, when I go to be with the Father, I will send to you, under the comforter,

I will send to you the Holy Spirit. That's the context that we're in. Verse 8 tells us exactly what we're talking about in this passage, the ascension of Christ.

So we know what the gift of Christ is and that he has sent us the Holy Spirit. You can look it up at the end of Luke and all the way through John and the beginning of Acts.

But in John 16, verse 7, Jesus explains to his disciples, it is to your advantage, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

What Christ wants to say to us, what Christ wants to accomplish in our lives, through his word, he does now through the

Holy Spirit. Verse 13 of John 16, but when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Isn't that good news? He will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come.

He will glorify me that he will take of mine and will disclose it to you.

So as the Spirit of Christ indwells us, he also illumines the word of Christ to us, so that we know

Christ and commune with Christ by his Holy Spirit whom he has given to us. To put it in a different way,

Christ's gift to us is the Holy Spirit who gives to us

Christ. Christ's gift is the

Spirit who gives Christ. This is the ministry of the

Spirit. Christ is at the right hand of the Father. So how is it that we may be in communion with him?

He gives us the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit would give us

Christ. This arrangement is spelled out for us in chapter 3 of Ephesians.

Look back there at verse 16. It says, Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, that he would grant you the

Father, God the Father, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his

Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Do you hear the arrangement made by the triune God that you may have communion with him that you may be in fellowship with your

Creator, that the Father has arranged for the Spirit to indwell you so that you may be indwelled by Christ through faith.

I think we need to recognize where Christ is. If we don't understand where Christ is right now, what state in which he reigns even now, we're not going to understand the role or the purpose of the

Holy Spirit. Away with the superstition that Jesus is wandering about, lonely, lowly

Jesus, wandering about because he's homeless, he has no place to go, and he's always knocking on all these random doors saying,

Won't you please let me in? And that we, by magical incantation, if we repeat the sacred words with some degree of sincerity, that we, by our power, we say,

Yes, O needy Jesus, I will invite you into my heart. Where is

Christ? He is ascended. He's at the right hand of God, and he reigns, and his name is above all names.

He is King of kings, and he is Lord of lords. And it is by his power and his victory that he sends us his

Holy Spirit, that we may be alive, and that he may indwell us by the faith given to us in the

Holy Spirit. We may be in true communion with Christ, but by the Holy Spirit.

You and I are not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is doing the work of Christ. We need to recognize the indivisibility of the work of the second and the third persons of the

Godhead. Romans 8 verses 1 and verses 9 and 10.

Here's the language of salvation. Here's the language of what it means to be saved.

Here's the language of what it means to be alive. Romans 8 verse 1.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Mark that.

No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No condemnation from God. No condemnation from Christ, who is the judge of all men.

No condemnation that is effective from anyone from Satan to society. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And then verse 9. You are not in the flesh, but in the

Spirit. In Christ Jesus. In the

Spirit. If indeed, the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the

Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, yet the

Spirit is alive because of righteousness. That's the language of salvation. You in Christ, which means you in the

Spirit, which means the Spirit in you, which means Christ in you. That's the language of salvation.

How do we know we are forgiven and redeemed? How do we know that we are accepted before the presence of God because we are in Christ and in the

Spirit? How do we know that we're alive? From where do we get the power to live this transformed life?

Because the Spirit is in us and Christ is in us. To say it again,

Christ's gift to us is the Spirit who gives to us Christ. A very personal gift.

Bavinck says, in and by the Spirit, in and by the Spirit, Christ himself comes to his own and lives in them.

As conversely, believers by that Spirit exist, live, think, and act in Christ so that indeed

Christ is all and in all. That's Colossians 3 .11 says. Now, Paul is fixating the attention of the

Ephesians on the gift that Christ has given us, the Holy Spirit. He has assured them of the principles of unity in verses 2 through 6 of chapter 4.

And then begins to talk about how we're to live in this unity. Not uniformity, for we have diverse expressions of grace from God in our lives.

We're supposed to be working together like those in Nehemiah's day, working together to build the city. We are working together to build the church.

But how is it that this work will continue? How is it that this unity and this working together will be preserved?

How will we be made effective? It is by the gift of Christ. But verse 14 says, without this gift, without the

Holy Spirit doing his work, we are infants in the typhoon of lies. But Christ's gift to us is the

Spirit. This helps us with discernment. This truth helps us with discernment and it challenges our stewardship.

Do you think it would be rather odd if somebody decided to write a book and publish a book about how to write a book? The book is the how -to on books.

And they have a lot of good principles and guidelines and pieces of advice about how to write a book and get it published.

And then they violated all of their guidelines and principles and pieces of advice throughout the entire work.

Do you think that's strange? I think it's strange, if not downright suspicious, that there swirls so much confusion and rages so much conflict around the theme or the topic of the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who is the

Spirit of truth, who unites us to the person of truth, that we would live in the church as the pillar and ground of the truth, worshipping our

Heavenly Father, who must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

He is not a God of chaos and confusion, is he? Whose work is that, by the way? Chaos and confusion, to confuse and to obfuscate.

Whose work is that? It's not Christ's work, it's Satan's work.

The deceptions, the chaos, the continual divorcing of Christ from the

Spirit, the instinct today of running away from the

Scripture, calling it insufficient, unclear, unhelpful, and we're going to find these varied and strange teachings, no matter that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We are going to find varied and strange teachings, anything new and fresh. We're going to do something different.

The deception goes so far as to say that unless you engage and experience the chaos and confusion that others do, you do not have the

Spirit. I think it's a wonderfully clarifying matter to us to see that the

Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are inseparable in their work. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are inseparable in their work.

He is the

Holy Spirit, so guess which direction He leads you? Towards holiness.

He is the Spirit of truth. Guess which direction He'll lead you? Not to confusion, not to obscurity, not to guesswork.

He'll lead you to truth. He's the Spirit of Christ. Guess what direction He'll lead you? To Jesus Christ, His supremacy,

His sufficiency in your life. When all manner of claims are made, either in the name of Jesus or by the power of the

Holy Spirit, how do we know what's true and false? When the Spirit works, He does so in agreement with the scriptures

He Himself inspired. Every word that He superintended with the very truth of God.

He will work in our lives in a way that reveals Christ, whom He glorifies. And when

Christ works His will in our lives, He will do so through the Holy Spirit, who authored God's word that sanctifies us.

Discernment, folks. Discernment. We know the gift by the giver and the giver by the gift.

We know the gift by the giver and the giver by the gift. And this is vital for us to understand.

When we say that our provision flows from Christ ascended, His gift is none other than the

Holy Spirit, who gives us Christ. That helps us with discernment, helps us with some clarification.

There's more to say as we go through this passage. But the second thing I think it helps us with is stewardship. Stewardship. This is the

Holy Spirit. He is given to us by Christ.

He is a gift from our Savior, our reigning King. He has given the

Spirit to us. Do you understand that? What a precious gift.

I don't remember the occasion, but I do remember the gift. Calvin and Hobbes were working with some modeling clay.

And I think Calvin must have slaved over his present for several minutes before he ended up with what he wanted to give to his parents, an ashtray.

Hobbes sanguinely comments, your parents don't smoke, of course. But Calvin insisted this was the exact present.

It was the perfect present to give to his parents. He said a personal gift, a homemade gift, communicates so much more than a store -bought gift.

It says that you took the time to carefully make them something personal. It says you need a bigger allowance.

In absolute contrast to the cheap, thoughtless, and useless personal gift

Calvin gives to his parents, Christ's personal gift is perfectly tailored to us.

We are made in the image of God. We are those in whom God breathed the breath of life.

And we can only live in that image, therefore, by His Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit from Christ truly supplies our deepest needs, and it costs

Christ everything. As He gave Himself, so He gives the

Spirit. The first atom, life was breathed into Him.

The second atom, life is breathed out from Him for our life.

The Spirit is a precious personal gift from Christ. The giving of the Spirit was the first request

Christ made when He came to His Father's side after His ascension. The Spirit is the firstborn of mercies and ought to have priority in our lives.

Do we know that the Holy Spirit is God co -equal in glory with the Father and the Son? Do we remember that He prays for us, that He indwells us, that He comforts us, that He preserves us many thousand times from sin and disaster, though we're not even aware of the danger?

Do we value the Holy Spirit and treat Him accordingly? How's our stewardship of this gift from Christ?

I forget who told the story, it was a professor or a preacher in my seminary chapel, but he wanted to give a really nice gift to his mentor, who had played a huge role in his life, more than most mentors ever would.

And so he went to a jewelry store to look for a pen, because his mentor always was scrambling, trying to find a pen.

They were always chewed up and half broken and coffee stained. So he said, I'm going to go get my mentor a nice pen.

So he goes to the jewelry store, underneath the glass he sees a few options, but senses perhaps there's something just a little bit nicer that I want to see, so he asks an attendant about it.

Soon finds himself in a back room with a manager, who begins to roll out the black cloth.

And he thinks, I'm in over my head. He did see some nice 24 karat gold pens encrusted with diamonds, but ended up going for something under the glass, with a warranty and extra ink cartridges, you know, gussy it up a little bit.

He goes to his mentor's office and he shares with him the reason why he's giving this gift, and they have a wonderful moment.

He gives him the pen and begins to give some instructions about, you know, how to take it apart and put the ink cartridges in.

Realizes, oh, I left those in my office, I'll be right back. Goes to get the warranty paper and the ink cartridges, comes back in and is horrified to find his mentor stirring his freshly poured coffee with a new pen.

Somebody gives us a very expensive gift that they're very invested in.

There is this expectation that we will treat it accordingly, that we will be good stewards of what they have given to us.

Is that not also true of Christ's expectation of us? Are we not charged in the next chapter in Ephesians to be being filled with the

Holy Spirit? And how liable are we if we're warned that we're infants in a typhoon of lies, if we do not steward the gift

Christ has given to us? Make the most out of it. John Flavel, who was a, probably

Flavel, I probably butchered that. He was an English Presbyterian minister in the 1600s.

He says this, See that you do not abuse the Spirit whom God sent from heaven at Christ's ascension to supply his bodily absence among us.

The Spirit is the great pledge for his care for and tender love to his people.

Now take heed that you do not vex him by your disobedience or grieve him by your unkindness or quench him by your sinful neglects of duty and abuse of light.

Oh, deal kindly with the Spirit. Obey his voice. Comply with his designs.

Yield up yourselves to his guidance and conduct. He's the gift from Christ.

Who gives us Christ? How are we to be stewards then of Christ's gift?

How are we formatively stewarding the grace given to each one of us? The grace according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Primarily, initially, we have to do something to understand who this is that Christ gives to us.

We must understand the gift if we are to make the most of the gift he gives to us.

You know, the cliché, the shame of the Bible on the coffee table covered in dust that never gets used.

It's almost just as shameful for us if we pass our eyes over the words and never do any kind of diligence to seek to understand who it is that Christ has given to us.

To grow in the truth of the scriptures, the truth of Christ. We should actively seek to understand and actively seek to employ our many graces in Christ.

The graces that come from the gift of the Holy Spirit. My grandmother gave a cruise to my wife and I.

A cruise trip for our honeymoon. It was very nice of her.

And when I got back, she wouldn't know all about it. She would have been severely disappointed if I told her,

Yes, it was a great cruise. We had a great cabin. Did you know, Grandma, that you can stay in your cabin all seven days and never come out?

Have all your food delivered? It was a motion and it was a little small and often dark.

But it was a great cruise. Christ gives us the gift of the

Holy Spirit not so that we'll stay cooped up in this little ground zero of obedience and never, ever go exploring.

He gives us the Holy Spirit to do great and mighty works in this world.

And I think we actively steward the gift by thankfulness. Thankfulness, which keeps us in a humble state of dependence.

By understanding the preciousness of the gift of the Holy Spirit and by actively seeking to employ all the grace and power

God promises through the Holy Spirit, that we will be a thankful people always looking to Him in gratitude.

Also notice it's a completed gift. And here's the verb, verse 7. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

It was given. Commentators call this a past divine passive, meaning something that God alone could do for us and He did it at a certain point in time.

It was given. This is a completed gift. No assembly required. No needed tools.

No absent batteries. No confirmation codes needed. This is a completed gift.

In fact, the immeasurable metrics of Christ's gift have already been established in the glory of His accomplished work.

He has been raised and has ascended to the right hand where He sat down and His enthronement communicates

His achievement. Grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Spurgeon says, the voice of the ascension is, it is finished.

It is finished. Bovink says, after Jesus died and was raised, it became much clearer to His disciples that the kingdom

He preached, the kingdom with all of its benefits of forgiveness, righteousness and eternal life, was acquired by His suffering and death and that He has been raised and glorified by His Father precisely to the end that He would apply these benefits to His own.

How? He gives us the Spirit who gives us Christ. He acquires the kingdom by His humiliation.

He applies the kingdom by His exaltation. He does this by giving to us the Spirit. Notice the past tense of this.

Grace was given. Paul's assuming the salvation of his readers at this point.

I don't assume the salvation of those

I preach to. You must be born again.

Jesus said that Nicodemus, the most religious man of His, the most religious, the most well -educated religious man of His day, professor of professors, teacher of Israel, someone who had been living in the temple, living in the scriptures,

Nicodemus, who in our day would have three

PhDs and be in Oxford, he's saying to Nicodemus, you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you're born again.

Have you been born again? Has His grace been given to you? Has your life been changed, transformed by the power of Christ?

Has the dry, dusty, cracked wadi of your life been inundated by the flash flood of new life?

You've been born again. Have you come to Christ in repentance and faith, turning away from everything you are, trusting

Christ alone? Have you made a pile of all of your bad deeds and a pile of all of your good deeds and fled them both for Christ alone?

We are to behold Christ, the righteous, the beloved, the one with whom God is well -pleased.

He suffered upon the cross. He was scourged. He was scorned. He was shamed by men.

He suffered upon the cross, bearing our iniquities, enduring the just wrath of a holy

God for our transgressions. His own call is this.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.

There's a verse in the hymn that says, Let not conscience make you linger. Let not conscience make you linger.

Conscience that says, I'll never be good enough for God, or I'm not good enough yet for God.

I have to get things in order before I come to Christ. The conscience that says,

I'm already identified in a Christian family. I'm already associated with the church.

People already think I'm a Christian. I guess they're right. I would hate to disappoint them.

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream.

All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.

This he gives you. This he gives you. Tis the Spirit's rising beam.

Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would be at work in our hearts. I know,

Lord, that there are some, this gift has not been completed in their life. They do not know your life.

The temptation, Father, is to pretend. But, Lord, you know.

Help them to know. Lord, I pray that you would give us a growing joy and confidence in this gift of the

Holy Spirit. That we would look to him and know all our needs supplied in Christ.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to live lives of discernment and good stewardship as we live in awareness of this gift from Christ this

Holy Spirit who gives Christ to us. We would know you and live for you.