Our scripture reading this morning comes from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 4, beginning at verse 1. As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says, when he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. What does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of doctrine and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Jesus Christ. From Him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. It's always difficult trying to decide exactly what to do when you're guest preaching. When I have two sermons, one this morning and one this evening, it's just enough to make you want to do a series, but not enough to actually think you can pull it off. A whole series through Jude, a small section of scripture perhaps, but what I thought I would do instead is this morning and this evening focus on the period in the history of God's redemption where we find ourselves as a church in God's purposes. That period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming. This is that long period of waiting between Christ's ascension and his return in glory. So this morning I'll focus on the ascension and Pentecost and we will place ourselves, find ourselves on this map in God's history of redemption. But first of all then, the ascension of Christ, the significance of Christ's reign here and now for our purposes. for our good, for the benefits of Christ's kingdom. On a cold November afternoon in 1095, Pope Urban II roused peoples of Europe to come before his palace in Rome and to hear his speech as he rallied the troops for a new crusade to retake the Holy Land, one of many crusades in the Middle Ages. He said, if you must have blood, because they were fighting each other, bathe in the blood of infidels. That was his sermon for the crusade to the Holy Land. Ever since the disciples themselves, when Jesus was taken up in the ascension into glory, asked Jesus, before you go, now is the time when you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel. The church has always tended to substitute itself for its ascended Lord. It's easier to do that because you can see churches. You can see movements of Christians in the world making a difference. But where is this Christ? Where is this Jesus who has ascended right at the very moment where he achieved the most for us? He seems to have departed. And so the church often seeks to fill that gap, to fill that void, to see itself because it is the body of Christ as the head and not only the members. Ever since the ascension, the church has a tendency to ask periodically, now is it the time that you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel? But the church's only king and only head is in heaven where he continues his ministry as prophet, priest, and king. His departure generates all kinds of fruit for our good and his glory. He is reigning in heaven now, subduing by his word and spirit all of the enemies who, as Psalm 68 tells us, flee before his retinue, Flee before His royal procession. What a wonderful picture we have there in Psalm 68 of God's march in the wilderness. God called His people out of exile in Egypt, out of tremendous difficulty and hardship. He led them through the desert to Mount Sinai where He gave them His law. And then, Mount Sinai was only a way station to something far greater still, Canaan. Mount Zion and as God marches as his processions are seen one of the great phrases of Psalm 68 your processions are seen it's not just something that goes on behind the scenes it's something that people actually see witness to as people worship as they process to Zion God's holy hill and so So Psalm 68 begins with that march of the king, with his kingdom behind him. Arise! Let your enemies be scattered. Sinai, as I mentioned, is just a way station en route to Zion. And that's where the nations are scattered. Once Israel reaches that land which God had promised to Israel, God leads them in royal procession to take the place that he has made as a covenant sanctuary for his people. In the words of Jewish scholar John Levinson, Psalm 68 records a march of Yahweh from Sinai, a military campaign in which the God of Israel and his hosts set out across the desert. But Levinson goes on to say, which is very interesting for a Jewish scholar to say, That Sinai isn't the end of the story, but just a way station between bondage in Egypt and full conquest at Zion. He says one of the great differences that you find in the Sinai traditions of the Bible, the Sinai passages, and the Zion passages, is that Sinai depends on the faithfulness of the Israelites themselves, while Zion depends on the inviolable promise of a sovereign God. Levinson even points out that, as here in Psalm 68, for example, but also Psalm 86 and there are other examples, there's a transfer term. Even in the passage, God is called, in the beginning, the God of Sinai, and at the end, the God of Zion. This is the God who leads us from the desert mountain to the mountain in the land where there is milk and honey flowing abundantly for the people of God. And in the Zion traditions, says Levinson, there will emerge something almost unthinkable in the case of Sinai. an unconditional divine promise that somehow above all the vicissitudes of human disobedience God himself will arise and scatter his enemies one day and save his people. So Zion takes on a cosmic universal role that Sinai never did. Not only Jerusalem, Levinson concludes and not only the land of Israel but even the people of Israel can be designated as Zion we see the march of the king but also the victory of the king as he is enthroned this is not just a walk in the park this is a march with a goal with a destination an end point leading captivity captive ascending giving gifts to and receiving gifts from even his enemies the text says crushing the head of the serpent and dwelling forever in Zion. Are these not the themes that we find so richly developed throughout the New Testament as well? Going all the way back to the promise God made to Adam and Eve that the heir of the woman would crush the serpent's head. This is the king who, as the psalmist says here, daily loads us with benefits. The God of our salvation. The picture here is of a conquering king, a general who has defeated a powerful enemy, has defeated an army, and has taken the spoils and now divides them. And these poor people who have fought at his side, who have been in his retinue, these poor people are loaded down so that they can barely walk with gold and silver and all kinds of precious metals and stones. We think about Psalm 68 throughout the life of Christ, throughout His procession from the desert of His temptation all the way to the cross and through the cross to the resurrection. We think of, in the middle of that story, the return of the 70 in Luke chapter 10 records that victory march as this retinue grows. The 70 return with joy. You remember? They are amazed that the serpents, they can tread upon the serpents and not be killed. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy. They're amazed that they can speak and bind the demons, and the demons even obey them in Jesus' name. And Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. And so as the captain of salvation, Jesus Christ, in his earthly ministry marched from Sinai to Zion, leading captivity captive, marching all the way down into the depths, into the bowels of hell itself and releasing its captive prisoners. And so that's what Paul has in mind when he's writing Ephesians chapter 4. He quotes Psalm 68. He's thinking about Psalm 68 as he's writing this psalm. There is a march here. There is a march that Paul describes here as walking in unity. Walking as one person. This is the march in which we are now engaged. Unlike Psalm 68, Ephesians 4 lacks a lot of the martial military language, but it's all here behind Paul's argument. First of all, it begins with Paul's recognition that he is a prisoner of the Lord. Isn't that an interesting statement to begin with here? he is a prisoner of the Lord. He's about to tell us about the King of kings and Lord of lords who has ascended to heaven, has conquered, and now is dividing the spoils of his victory among his people, and Paul introduces it by saying that he is the prisoner of the Lord. What a wonderful thing to be a prisoner if you're a prisoner of the Lord. It was ultimately not Caesar who had the last word over Paul and his life, nor Satan, but the Lord. Even in prison, as he wrote this epistle, he was a prisoner of the Lord because Christ was king. And therefore, he says, we are to walk worthy of the calling that we have received with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And this new covenant discipleship that he is enjoining here is in sharp contrast to the murmuring Israelites on their way to Canaan, where they questioned God's purposes and questioned God's promises. And they did not bear with long-suffering toward each other. The image now in chapter 4 is that of a single body walking toward its goal, raised from death to life. And in our own experience, we find that when one part of our body doesn't work, other parts of the body compensate for it. You know how that works often with stroke victims. One part of the brain compensates by wiring for some of the work that the other part was doing. Paul says that's what it means to be the body of Christ. It's not each man for himself and God for us all, but trying to figure out where the body is the weakest and compensating. That's what the body of Christ does. But this unity is a gift because of Christ's ascension. That's what Paul says here. And it's very important. If we miss this, we tend to think unity is something we create. Unity depends on us. But Paul's argument here is that the unity of the body of Christ comes out of the reign of Jesus Christ, his achievement, his accomplishment, having conquered all of our foes that would divide us. That unity is already lodged in God's election, redemption, calling and sealing that Paul talks about in chapter 1. It's also seen in the breaking down of the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile so that now we are one body in Jesus Christ as Paul says later in chapter 3. And now he says, diligently preserve that bond of unity. Not ours to create, But to visibly see and enjoy and experience that unity, we have to work hard to be long-suffering and loving toward each other, to bear each other's faults. And that's why the force of the participle here suggests not just preserving, but really the force of what Paul is saying here is spare no effort. Work very hard at this. Don't overlook this. This is a very important thing. Make it a priority of your corporate life to maintain the unity of the Spirit. So the king not only saves, he preserves the body that he has saved through his current gift-giving reign. He pours out his gifts. That's what he's doing even now so that if Christ had not left us, we would not have our high priest in heaven ministering for us, interceding for us at the right hand of the Father, nor would we have a king in heaven ruling and subduing his enemies on earth by his word and spirit. This enthroned king, Paul goes on to say, has dispensed the tribute by making us witnesses to him and sending us out to distribute the spoils to the ends of the earth. And now Paul quotes Psalm 68. In the incarnation, the Son of God descended into the depths of the earth, and now He ascends above the heavens, far above all power, rule, and authority. Paul really, the picture he's painting here is the starkest possible contrast. He says, this Jesus Christ went lower than anyone has ever gone. And higher than anyone has ever ascended. No one has gone into the depths of God's judgment. No one has ever sensed more deeply the forsakenness of God. No one has had to bear the wrath of God as this one bore it. No one was so humiliated. No one was so undeserving of what he received at our hands. He descended into humiliation more deeply than any human being has ever done. And yet he has ascended above all power, rule, and authority. He has been given the name above every name, whether in heaven or on earth. And Psalm 68 speaks of this sovereign being brought gifts. Well, that's what happened in the ancient Middle East. The great king would be brought a tribute, like a tax. It would be a way of saying, I am the lesser, you are the greater. We are now your people, and so we come and we bring you our tithes. We bring you a percentage of our commerce. But what's really unique here about Ephesians 4 is Paul changes that. Jesus, of course, did receive gifts from Gentiles, Gentile kings, when the three kings came and gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But not now. He's not receiving the gifts. He's the one dispensing them. He's the one pouring out the gifts. All believers share the inheritance of the saints, the gift of grace, and the calling to which you are called that he refers to in verse 1. All believers share this equally. There is no greater or lesser degree of the inheritance among the saints. All of us share together as co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Not only do we all share the same inheritance together with each other, we share exactly the same percentage as Jesus Christ himself. We're not just co-heirs with each other, we're co-heirs with Christ. However, beyond the gift that we all share in common, Christ, as the gift-giving king, has poured out gifts, various gifts, Paul says, being distributed by Christ in his ascension, referring specifically to offices in the church. None of these is for private use. None of these gifts is given for the private good of the person who has them. That's why it's very interesting there, the translation doesn't bring this out as powerfully, but he gave gifts, some prophets, some apostles, some evangelists, some teachers. It's not that he gave them gifts, it's that he gave us gifts by giving us prophets and apostles, pastors and teachers. Isn't that amazing? When you think about what happens when a ruler conquers another power, the first thing you think of is not, how can I dispense all of the spoils of my victory on the people who are my enemies, the people who opposed me in that war? And yet that's exactly what our ascended king does. His mind in his ascension was on assuming that throne so that he could not only crush the serpent's head but so he could pour out all of his rich blessings on us. The ascension is the pinata of eternity. It burst open all of God's gifts and Jesus showers them on us even today. Verses 7, 8, and 11 repeat the reference has been given, Christ's giving. He gave gifts, and it was He who gave. You think He's trying to tell us something? The church is on the receiving end here in this relationship. We are receiving gifts. Even when we give our offerings, we are simply responding. We're not putting God in any debt because there is nothing we can give God. In His ascension, He led a host of prisoners captive. There's the image again of this royal procession. As he goes along, as he marches along, the enemies who fight against his reign actually become liberated captives in his train, part of the retinue leading into the heavenly sanctuary. As I say, Paul's translation here is slightly different from Psalm 68. When he quotes Psalm 68, he gave gifts to men. Whereas Psalm 68 said he received gifts from his enemies. How are we to explain this? Is this a authorial license? Can he do this as an apostle? Perhaps it's because now the times have changed. Now we actually have. Jesus Christ ascended at the right hand of the Father. And now it's not a matter of bringing tribute to God, but God bringing tribute to us because of the ascension of Jesus Christ. That's entirely possible. One other strong possibility is that Paul here is quoting an early Jewish targum of Psalm 68. Early Jewish gloss on Psalm 68, which read, You have ascended to heaven, Moses, the prophet. You have taken captivity captive. You have learned the words of the law. And you have given it as a gift to men. Wow, that's different. Here you have Moses ascending. and Moses distributing the law to the nations as the spoils of his ascension. Now, it may well be that Paul is quoting an earlier variant of this Targum with that particular phrase in mind, but one thing that's absolutely clear is that he doesn't have Moses' ascension in mind here. Whatever the stories may have been about Moses and his ascension, Paul says, this Christ has ascended far above all the heavens. Moses may have ascended, according to the legends, into heaven. This prophet, priest, and king ascended above the heavens. And his gift is not Torah, but grace, he says in verse 7. He descended lower and ascended higher than anyone before or after Him. He ascends Mount Zion with captives in His train to be installed as King of kings and Lord of lords. His filling of the whole cosmos in verse 10 is the consummation of this marvelous reign of Christ. We read in verse 10, He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. That's our King. He doesn't fill the whole cosmos in His natural body. He fills it in terms of His power, in terms of the jurisdiction of His kingdom. There is no part of this cosmos that is outside of the rule of our King. Now, that's very odd to say that when we turn on the news or we read the newspaper. We think about events as they are today, but it is absolutely the truth. Right now, he is reigning so successfully that a church exists on every continent in the world. A church exists in Saudi Arabia. A church exists in Islamabad, even where people have to bend their necks to the sword sometimes, because Jesus Christ is King. And the gifts that he gave were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. It's very interesting. There are references to the act of shepherding throughout the New Testament, But the only time you have the noun shepherd here, when it's not referring to Jesus Christ, is here in Ephesians 4. It's the only passage where a shepherd, not just the act of shepherding, but a shepherd, the office of shepherd, is referred to someone other than Christ. Now, we could take a lot of time and go into the translation of this passage. The short version of the explanation here on Ephesians chapter 4 is very important for us to understand because it's marvelously liberating when we think about Christ's sovereign reign at the Father's right hand. Most of our translations, including our pew Bibles, the NIV, the one I'm reading from here, NIV, most of our translations have here He gave some to be prophets and apostles, pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. But for a variety of reasons, I don't think that that is the best translation. We have great reason to go with the authorized version and the older translations at this point. When they translate this as he gave some apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the perfecting of or for the completion of the saints. In other words, the giver is Christ, the gift is ministers. Prophets and apostles are no longer around, but evangelists, pastors, and teachers certainly are. And so complete here is what is intended by the verb that is used, rather than equipping. He's not gifting the church by equipping all of the members for the ministry of word and sacrament and discipline. Rather, he's giving a gift to the church, the gift of word and sacrament ministry, the gift of pastors and teachers, so that the whole body will be built up. These are given, Paul says, for the purpose of one, completing or perfecting the saints, Two, doing the work of ministry. Three, building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, and maturity, the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ. All of that concerns the ministry of the Word in the local assembly. You see, even here the church is on the receiving end of Christ's work. This is marvelously liberating. We come to church, certainly with other gifts. There are other lists that Paul has elsewhere when he's not focused on the ministry, the ministry of the Word. Hospitality, charity, giving, so forth, all kinds of other gifts. But the crown gem of Christ's reign is the Gospel. And what a gift, Paul says, that he has ensured that there will always be an office of dispensing the spoils of his victory in this world so that we can be receivers when we come to church. So often, in many churches around the country, a lot of the churches I grew up in, we were not, first of all, receivers. We were, first of all, doers. We came to get our marching orders. We came to the homeroom, coming back to find out what we were supposed to do. That's not the point, Paul says here. There are lots of things to do, and he's going to talk about them later. But for now, he says, first of all, be a receiving church. This is the time to receive the gifts so that you will be equipped for that work. So God has given ministries in the church. He has given pastors and teachers, in particular, for the upbuilding of the body so that the whole church is served by Christ. Even though he is ascended, even though he is at the Father's right hand, seems separated from us by who knows what great distance. He is as near, Paul says, as the word which we preach. Christ serves us. Precisely because this ministry of the word is preserved in the church, The whole body has made a cloud of witnesses to Christ's triumph. Grounded in the gospel that they're privileged to share with their neighbors. On this basis, finally, Paul says, we are called no longer to walk as the Gentiles do. Stop marching in their direction. Stop marching in all of these other processions. No longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. You know the show about nothing. This is going nowhere. Ignorant of Christ's victory, they give themselves over to every evil practice, Paul says. But believers have put off their old self and have put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So instead of losing ourselves in self-indulgence, Paul says, start addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And so there is a new political order at work in this present evil age. It's not what Constantine imagined. It's not what the medieval crusader imagined when he cleaved the skull of an infidel crying out, Christ is Lord. It's a different kind of king and a different kind of kingdom. A king who showers even his enemies with gifts until he converts them to his grace. A king who has so much to give, he's not worried about scarcity. He's not worried about hoarding it for himself. For the time being, Christ's universal kingship hardly captures the world's headlines. For now, His reign is administered in a manner that is hidden from the princes of this age. And yet the goal toward which the body of Christ walks is nothing less than the vision of the One who ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things. That He might fill all things. That He might not be a footnote, but the point of the story. Already we've seen so much, brothers and sisters. Does it really grip us how much we've seen? Chosen in Christ. Redeemed in Christ. Christ is raised and rules even now from His throne in heaven. Beyond the reach of sin and death. Beyond the reach of corruption. Beyond the possibility of fall. And is now raising those who are spiritually dead to everlasting life. Already the two hostile enemies, Jew and Gentile, have been united in Christ in one body. But there's more to come, Paul says. He ascended far above all the heavens so that one day he might fill all things. We are living in that parenthesis between the ascension of Christ and the return of Christ. The ascension of Christ where he went to receive his glory that we do not see and will come again one day in the power and glory that all people will see. Westminster Confession declares, The Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of His Church, hath appointed a government in the hand of the church officers distinct from the civil magistrate. To these officers, the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed. By virtue whereof, they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by word and censure, and to open it unto all penitent sinners by the ministry of the gospel and by absolution from censures as occasion shall require. We've just seen an example of Christ's reign and the breadth of Christ's reign as delegates came back from synod. The ministry of word and sacrament is the beachhead that our King has secured in this fading evil age. Christ's ascension at the right hand of the Father and His reign even now authorizes us to go into all the world and preach the gospel because all authority in heaven and on earth has been entrusted to me. Let's pray. Our great heavenly Father, we cannot think of a king who rules so wisely, so graciously, so mercifully, so righteously, so justly, and so sweetly. A king who so comforts his people as a shepherd cares for his sheep. Father, help us to get a sense of that wonderful retinue behind the great king, that sovereign king. Help us to realize that it's not simply a static image of him sitting on a throne, reigning over all things, but that he is marching with captives in his train into that everlasting sanctuary. And as he walks, each step he takes up that hill, that party that marches with him grows and expands as chains fall off, as prisoners are set free. Thank you, Father, that we are among those prisoners. What a delight it is to be a prisoner of the Lord, to be taken captive by this king. And help us, dear Heavenly Father, by his rule and kingdom, to be liberated from all other lords who cannot liberate. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.