"Christ Ascended = the Church's Provision" Part 8

Christ Ascended and the Church’s Provision in Ephesians 4

We thank you for giving us your Son, Jesus Christ, that we have the promise that freely with him you will give us all things that we need. You have demonstrated your love toward us in a most undeniable fashion.

May we not live in anxiety or in fear. May we come to you confidently in Christ, knowing your love for us, so that your Holy Spirit would guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, giving us a peace that passes all understanding.

I pray, Father, that you would help us here this morning to listen carefully to your Holy Scriptures, to think about Christ in a very clear and defining way. I pray that you would have your way in us, that your will will be done in our lives through your Word.

We ask now that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that we would worship you in truth, that you would illumine the text that you have inspired, that we would lay hold of what you say in repentance and in faith.

May we rejoice this day, for you have given us your Word and you have made it clear. We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 8, or chapter 4, this is part 8 of the sermon, but this is Ephesians 4 verses 7 through 16.

For several weeks we talked about the first part of the passage in which we examined the gift that is given, the gift of the Holy whom Christ has given, and now we're looking at the grace given to each one of us in verses 11 through 16.

I invite you to stand in reverence to Christ, who is 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 who ascended far above 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 into all aspects into 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. The other day I watched on YouTube someone create a bronze axe, and listen to the sound right there, just watch the process. A bronze axe. To make a bronze axe, he started with an axe.

To make an axe, he started with an axe. He had two wooden frames, filled with wet sand, and he placed the axe in between them and made a perfect mold, a perfect impression of this axe. He then carefully parted the two halves of his mold, carefully extracted the axe, and put it back together again.

He had left two holes on the top side of his mold, two holes to two pipes, and he removed the pipes, and so he had two holes through the sand into this mold, into which he poured a mixture of copper and nickel, and he made a bronze axe.

When he parted the two halves of his mold, there it was. It looked awful. It was covered in all sorts of impurities, and there were two bars sticking up off of it where he poured the molten mixture down the holes, and so he sawed those off, and he polished it, and he sharpened it, and what's left?

What was the final step? Cutting down a tree, of course, and it worked very well. It's a telling thing that to make an axe, he had to start with an axe. In the same way, I think Paul speaks about the pouring forth of the Spirit into the lives of Christians, that Christ's grace through the Spirit has this effect upon us, that we would be brought together into the same place and then formed into Christ's shape.

To make the church, to make Christians, God begins with Christ. It is into his mold that we are made. He is the defining shape of humanity. He is the image of the invisible God. To be born again means to be born again into the second Adam.

It means that by the Holy Spirit, we are then pressed into the mold of Christ himself. As we read in our text, each individual part and joined, forged into his body. As we think about the remarkable promises of verse 13 and fold those in to the rest of the passage, we should remember this motto, this theme that we've been looking at, that Christ's provision, that the church's provision flows from Christ ascended.

The church's provision flows from Christ ascended. He has given us the Holy Spirit. I'm beating an echo. He has given us the Holy Spirit who gives to us Christ and forms us into the shape of Christ. Grace is given to each one of us through the external ministry of the Word as the Holy Spirit empowers the proclamation of the Word, so then we are formed into the image of Christ.

Through the foundational work of apostles and prophets, through the formational work of evangelists, pastors, and teachers, through the familiar work of the Saints, the body of Christ is being built. You're going to get this because you're hearing it twice.

As we look at our verse 13 this morning, we get a sense of where all this is heading. Christ, according to the measure of Christ's gift, grace was given to each one of us. What is Christ up to? What is he trying to accomplish in our lives?

Nothing less than solidarity in him, and he gives us a standard to which we are to achieve, and that's nothing less than his own stature. Let's think about these things for a moment, and we need to be careful as we think about the word solidarity, as we think about the theme of unity.

There is much concern about solidarity and unity in Christendom today. There is much concern about why is it that the East and West remain divided, that the Latin and the Greek Church, the Rome and Constantinople couldn't get along from long ago, and that they are not united.

And then what about this rift between the Protestants and the Catholics, and why can't these things be reconciled? Not least the problem of looking at all the Protestant denominations and the split between them and so on and so forth, and it seems that there are divisions and splits and schisms and splinters all over the place, and there's a great concern and a great campaign for unity, for solidarity, for a coming together, and the end of all this ugly division.

We need to be very careful when we think about those things. We need to be careful about looking at all the Protestant denominations, about prescribing to unity for the sake of unity. We need to be very careful about calling for solidarity at the expense of orthodoxy.

As R .C. Sproul warned, we should not kill truth in the streets for the sake of peace. What we find in our passage is that true solidarity, true unity, comes through a proper understanding of the truth, and that this is not something that is unachievable, this is not something that is impossible, but it's something that is put right in front of us as a real and true genuine anticipation, a true hope.

Christ gives solidarity to his church. Look at verse 13 again. It says, "...the building up of the body of Christ will continue until," when? "...until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.".

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. The completion of the building up of the body of Christ will occur when there is this unity of the faith, when there is this unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.

And so necessarily then, completion of the body of Christ, the completion of the church, entails all of us until we all attain. We've just heard about different servants that Christ has given to the church.

He has given apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, but these by no means can't make up for the majority of the church. And so they are to equip the saints, and the saints in their ministry and their work of service take up the Word of God, and they together help build the body of Christ.

So not just the servants, not just the saints, but all of us together, we all must be unified in the faith, unified in the knowledge of the Son of God. This is Christ's objective in his ascension, that he might fill all things, and he gives us his Holy Spirit and builds up the body so that we would all attain to this unity.

Christ's building will not, therefore, have bricks missing in the walls. We all must attain to this unity. Christ's victory parade of saints will not have any gaps in the line. The wedding feast of Christ will not have chairs empty at the table.

The building up of the body of Christ necessitates that no member of his church, no part of his body, no sheep of his flock remain outside of this Spirit's sanctifying work through the external ministry of the Word.

Not a drop of Christ's blood was wasted on the cross. And like a master smith, Christ pours all of his precious purchased people into the mold, his own mold, that we all together would be forged into his image, the image of the invisible God.

There are many individuals in a church, many parts to a body, but completion of this building is necessarily a communal matter, until we all attain to the unity. What is this unity? Well, all you have to do is read verses 1 through 6 of Ephesians 4 to see what kind of unity is being talked about here.

The facts of our unity are in verses 4 through 6. There was one body and one spirit, just as you also were called into one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who was over all and through all and in all.

Those are the facts of our unity. The acts of our unity in verses 1 through 3, that we are to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called. How? With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So there's a unity that we have, and there's a unity that we are going to attain. There's a unity that we have now because of the objective realities of one Lord, one God, one faith, but then we're going to be growing in this unity.

How? According to our knowledge of the Son of God. There's a unity we have now, but there's a unity yet to be achieved. And this is a recognition that the work is not yet done, that there is more to happen.

But this unity is not achieved by brute niceness. Be nice. It's not accomplished by rote humility. It is not accomplished by well-policed tolerance. Unity, we find in the text, is preserved through the forming character of Christ himself in us, and this unity is increased, indeed will be fully attained through our growing faith in Christ, in our increasing knowledge of Christ.

For this completion will be when we all attain to the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God. Unity of the faith is a real possibility because there is one faith. There are not many faiths.

It says so in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 5. There's one faith. There is one truth of who is the Savior, who God is. There are not many truths and many faiths and many variations. There is just one. Look at it for yourself.

There is one body, one spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. So unity is indeed possible because of the oneness, the objective unity that we see here in verses 4 through 6.

What is the faith? To better understand the faith, you can look near the back of your Bible to Jude, Jude verse 3. There's only one chapter in Jude, so it's easy to miss, but in Jude verse 3 we hear a very important admonition.

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

From whence was the faith handed down? Dearly beloved, the church's provision flows from Christ ascended. Christ has handed down the faith. He has handed down the gospel. He has handed down that essential set of beliefs that define who we are as Christians.

Jesus Christ himself has handed down the faith and he has given it to us for us to earnestly contend for it, for it is only in this faith that there will be unity, that there will be solidarity. The faith is what is critical for us to believe about Jesus Christ, what we must know about the Son of God.

When you read there in Ephesians 4 and verse 13 of the unity of the faith, the explanation for what the faith is, is right after that. The unity of the faith meaning the knowledge of the Son of God. There is a faith that is your faith.

I believe in Christ. I have faith in Christ. But there is the faith, the objective set of information that is necessary for us to know about who Christ is and who God is. And this is the knowledge, this is the knowledge of the Son of God.

It is the full understanding of who Christ is. Orthodoxy, right belief about who God is, only comes through the revelation of Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.

John 1 18. The only way we know who God is, the only way we know what what God has to say to us, is through Jesus Christ. So Christ gives solidarity to the church. Solidarity and unity. How is this achieved?

It is not done by the lowest common denominator. It is not achieved through minimalistic beliefs. It is not achieved because we all have bumper sticker fishes. And it's also not achieved through mystical and ecstatic experiences that give license to all manner of deviance.

If we want to have unity in the church, if we really are concerned about why there's so many denominations and so many splits and splinters and schisms, if we really desire unity, if we want solidarity, then we are told what that means and what that looks like right here in the scriptures.

And it is a unity of the faith, the knowledge, the epigenosko, the full understanding of the Son of God. That's where unity is. That's where unity is. Well Christ gives that to us because we need it. We need it.

A house divided against itself cannot stand, Christ said. We need unity. We need solidarity in order to do the things that he has called us to do. And he also gives us a standard. This unity, this solidarity, this growth in the knowledge of the Son of God, to what degree does this occur?

It is to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. So Christ gives a standard to his church. So I was watching this bronze axe being made as the molten copper and nickel were being poured into these two holes in this wet sand.

Its glowing form slowly filled the cavity, the mold held firm by these wooden frames. An axe had made the shape so there is no other form for this molten metal to make other than an axe. Christ, in his incarnate redemption, has made the shape.

There is no other form the new humanity can take other than Christ. To be redeemed by Christ guarantees we will be renewed by this same Christ. Every wave of sanctification that breaks upon the shores of our lives flows in from the ocean of our justification.

The righteousness by which Christ satisfies the Father is the righteousness into which Christ sanctifies his flock. And the day will come when we know sanctification to the degree of our justification and that, my friends, is our glorification.

We have that hope set before us. Now all of us, together, by the Spirit's empowering of the external ministry of the Word, all of us together are being made into a mature man. It's a very male word, man.

So don't be offended ladies, the guys around here are still trying to figure out how we're the Christ. Just stick with it. But Christ was the one who made the shape. So we're being made into his mold, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Christ is the most human of all, the perfect human, the veritable human. Everything that God wants of us and demands of us, those who made in his image, is accomplished in Jesus Christ. All of it. So notice that the body of Christ is being built up to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Now we've seen this word measure before. It's at the very beginning of our passage in verse 7. This term in the Greek is metron, which we would derive our term metric. We thought about the metrics of Christ's gift, the immeasurable metrics in Ephesians 3, 18 through 19.

The breadth, the length, the height, the depth of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. So we see here that we're being built up to the measure of the stature which belongs to Christ. As we think about Christ's loving gift of the Holy Spirit, we've already pondered this ineffable truth that the Father sent the Son to speak the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

At his baptism, at his anointing, the Heavenly Father gave the incarnate Son, the Holy Spirit, without measure. And at Christ's ascension, at his session, Jesus Christ also gave his church the Holy Spirit without measure.

Elijah's mantle fell on Elisha. Why? So that we would be built up into the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Herman Bathing writes, the ascension of Christ necessarily results and proves its authenticity in the descent of the Holy Spirit.

How do we know Christ ascended? Because the Holy Spirit descended. Just as the Spirit first consecrated and perfected Christ through his suffering and raised him to the supreme summit, so now he must in the same manner and by the same means shape the body of Christ until it achieves full maturity and becomes the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Our provision flows from Christ ascended. He has given grace to each one of us according to the measure of the Holy Spirit, and it is through the Spirit that Christ has given servants to the church to equip the saints for ministry, the ministry of the Word, to the building up of the body of Christ.

That building involves all the saints and sees its completion in the unity of our faith in Christ, and that Spirit-filled knowledge of the Son of God forms us into his mold, a mature man according to the fullness found only in Christ.

And I think it's worth emphasizing that the building up of the body of Christ through the ministry of the Word, through the Scriptures, results in a unified understanding of the faith and thus a genuine spiritual maturity.

Let's break that out into three thoughts, one about maturity, one about clarity, and one about unity. Maturity. The body of Christ will be fully built when we all attain to the unity of the faith, when we are all in full possession of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, matured to the measure of Christ's full stature.

True maturity. That's why even the Apostle Paul said, not that I have already obtained it, or that I have already become perfect. I press on that I may lay hold of that for which I was also lay hold of by Christ Jesus.

I've not attained it. I've not achieved it. I've not arrived. No. This means that you and I, we remain in need of equipping. We remain in need of edifying. You and I are not done being discipled or being disciplers.

If any of us here think there's little more to learn of Christ, then we must have learned very little of Christ. Calvin says, to the Son of God alone, to the Son of God alone, faith ought to look. On him it relies, in him it rests, and it terminates.

If faith proceed farther, it will disappear and will no longer be faith, but a delusion. Let us remember that true faith confines its view so entirely to Christ that it neither knows nor desires to know anything else.

How can any of us here think that in this life we have come to the end of the fullness of Christ? Now individually, pridefully, we might think that we may have arrived somehow, one or two of us perhaps, but the text necessarily humbles us with the group language.

If my brother and sister in Christ has not yet arrived, then I certainly have not, for my attainment depends on their attainment. If my weaker brother has not yet attained to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the mature measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, then I have not either.

I have not grown enough to help him or grown enough in helping him. So maturity is not only an individual consideration. In fact, we ought to think of maturity and mature Christians, a mature church, in those group terms.

Secondly, a second word is clarity. After looking at this passage, seeing that the body of Christ entirely, the growth of the body of Christ, saying that that entirely depends on our growing faith in Christ, described as the knowledge of the Son of God, that should clarify the content of all of your discipling endeavors.

Do you want to help other people grow in Christ, to follow Christ? It is the work of all the Saints, so we're called to do. And here we are clarified about the content of all of our discipling efforts.

The books that we read, or the videos that we watch, or the content that we hear, or the teachers that we follow, all that we do in the name of being discipled or discipling others, all that we do in the name of growing into maturity as Christians, how much of that content is really about Jesus Christ?

How much of that is really about Jesus Christ? And I'm not talking about the Christs being bandied about by mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter and publish bestsellers sold at Christian bookstores everywhere.

I'm talking about the Christ revealed plainly and clearly in the Scriptures. You see, many today prefer a white, middle-aged, feminine Jesus. And many prefer a smiling, Western, prosperous Jesus. And many prefer a woke, social activist Jesus.

And we keep on making God in our own image. But to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this Word, it is because they have no dawn. Christ has given us apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, so that through the Scriptures established, extended, and expounded by the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be renewed into his image.

Jesus Christ is unfailingly, inherently, faithfully, clearly revealed in the Scriptures. Why go elsewhere? Why go elsewhere? Our provision flows from Christ ascended. The faith has been handed down to the saints.

He has given us the Scriptures. He knows what we need. He's an excellent provider. The third word is unity. We see that the building up of the body of Christ is towards unity. This is a real unity in the knowledge of the Son of God.

And we must be careful as we take up this challenge in Ephesians 4, that all the saints are equipped for the work of ministry. All the saints are equipped to speak the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, prayerfully into the lives of others, and thus build the church.

Since we all have that calling on us, is what we're doing, is it towards this kind of unity? The way that we encourage others in the Scriptures? The way that we share the Word with others? Is it really towards unity?

Because there is this concern that we find again and again in the New Testament of worthless argumentation, that often under the pretense of discipleship and under the shroud of defending the faith, many choose to wrangle words, and many suffer shipwreck.

You ever see a word wrangled? I've seen a steer wrangled. Friends of ours from Tennessee, Team Ropers, they knew how to wrangle steers. Three seconds after they leave the chute, they've got a lasso around the horns of this steer, and they have pulled this steer plum sideways.

The steer did not intend to go that way, but it ended up that way. And many times in the Scriptures, there is a temptation in our personal pride to take a word in the very clear teaching of Scripture that's going this way, and all of a sudden make it go this way, and it was never supposed to go that way.

You know what happens when you do that when you're on a ship, and the ship's supposed to be going this way, and all of a sudden you make it go this way when it's not supposed to? It's called shipwreck.

And many people have gone this way, and they have taken the words of God, and they have wrangled them, and they have suffered shipwreck. Paul warns Timothy about those who fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, meaning they really truly believe that they're doing the right thing.

Is what we're doing in discipling, and teaching, and taking up the Word of God, is it really towards the unity of the faith? Towards the unity of the full understanding of the Son of God? It's worth asking, because we want our discipling efforts to bring others closer to Christ.

Not to us, or not into the camp of approval of our ideas, but to Christ. I've only been a pastor for, I don't know, 11 years, but the guys I talk to that have suffered great conflict in their churches, very often it's because there's some other idea being pushed, some other agenda being taught about, some other focus that's being lifted up on high that everybody should pay attention to, other than Jesus Christ.

We can't afford to put anything or anyone on high other than Jesus Christ. So when we disciple others, we're taking up the Word of God that clearly, unfailingly reveals Christ, and pointing others to Christ there in the text.

And if I'm not doing that with the Word of God, I'm using the Word of God improperly. I have no authority to take up the scriptures, and take some passage, and beat you over the head with it, and make you follow dietary laws, or make you believe some sort of conspiracy theory.

I've got no authority to do that. Christ has the authority. He has all authority in heaven and on earth, and this is his word revealing him. I take up the scriptures to show you Jesus, because he's King of Kings, and he's Lord of Lords.

The church's provision flows from Christ Ascended. He provides us solidarity. He provides us the standard to which we are to grow and mature. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. Psalm 118 .22 says he's our cornerstone.

He is the basis for everything that we believe. And you know what? He's also the topstone. Zechariah 4, there's this vision of this prophecy of what's going to happen when finally they get the temple rebuilt.

And it's been a long struggle to get this temple built. And they talk about this great stone that's going to go to the very top and be the top stone that's going to weight down and anchor all of the roof, so it's finally completed.

And it has to be taken up a great earthen mound that they call a mountain. And as it goes up, the prophecy is they're going to shout, grace to it, grace to it, as it goes to the top and then anchors everything in the roof, and the temple will finally be complete.

Well, Christ is our topstone. He's the author and the finisher of faith. He's the one who has begun it, and he's the one who will finish it. And we should shout glory to him, glory to him, for he completes us.

When we are anchored in him in this way, verse 14, we will no longer be infants in a typhoon of lives. Let's close the word of prayer. Father, I thank you for our time together in your Word. I pray that you would clarify, clarify our understanding of how it is that you would have us grow in Christ.

You've given us this life. We want to take full advantage of the grace that you have given to us. May we trust the effectiveness, the form, the provision of what you have given to us in your Word. May our unity really be in Jesus Christ and our understanding of him.

May we eagerly seek to bear with one another in all humility as we look to Christ. We pray these things for his sake.