Our sermon text this evening is going to come from Ephesians, the book of Ephesians chapter 4. So, I would invite you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. We'll be considering verses 7 through 16 of Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, starting in verse 7. This is God's holy and inspired Word. Let's give our full attention to it now. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you were asked the question of does God or is God concerned with the spiritual maturity and the unity of His church, how would you answer this question? Have you thought much about this question of, is God concerned with you growing in spiritual maturity and unity among one another? And I'm sure you would respond to that question with a resounding, absolutely God is concerned with our spiritual maturity and our unity among one another, because we see that laid out for us through many of the Scriptures. But then there's this follow-up question. If that is so, then how does God demonstrate this concern for our spiritual maturity and our unity with one another? Has God promised in specific ways to cause you to grow in spiritual maturity? Has He promised to unify us through any specific means? And here in our text this evening, we find those means by which God has promised to grow us in maturity and also to unify us in the spirit of the bond of peace. And as those questions are laid before you, I do want to remind you of the several passages in the New Testament Scriptures especially that speak of both the establishment and the growth of the Christian church. Growth in what, you might ask? Well, in both spiritual maturity and unity, we are growing together as the body is being built up in love. Our Lord Jesus in Matthew 16, 19 tells Peter that he would build his church on the rock and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He continues by saying that the keys of the kingdom would be handed over to the church, and then several portions of the New Testament are given over to how the church ought to function properly, how the church ought to be governed, how we together as a body should be growing with one another in both unity and maturity. Our passage clearly teaches us that God demonstrates his concern for our maturity and our unity with one another by giving specific gifts to the church, giving these gifts of offices who are then tasked to care for you as his people. The point of our passage is this. I want you to catch this. This is the point, is that the ascended Christ gives gifts to his church to unify the body and to grow the body in spiritual maturity. That's what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4, verses 7 through 16. Jesus establishes his church as he said he would on the sure foundation of his person and his work. This is then proclaimed by the apostles and the prophets, and the work continues today through pastors and teachers. The question we want to ask of the text this evening is God does demonstrate this concern for us, but how does he do it? We want to ask the question of how. Does the text reveal to us how he cares for us and our maturity and unity? And the answer is a resounding yes, He does by giving gifts to His church. And we want to answer that question by working through the text and looking at three things. We want to see first the ascended giver. Who is this that cares for us? Who is it that gives gifts to His church? That's the ascended giver. And then what are the gifts, the apportioned gifts that He gives to the body? And finally, what is the accomplished fruit of these gifts. The ascended giver, the apportioned gifts, and their accomplished fruit. So first, let's consider the ascended giver. Who is it that gives these gifts? And to set the stage for a bit for who the ascended giver is, Paul spends the first several verses showcasing really the authority of Christ who is the only one who is able now because of his ascension, he is the only one that is able to now pour out gifts on his church, and he does that gladly. This is our ascended Lord who now bestows gifts upon his body for the sake of their spiritual nourishment. And this is important because Paul wants us to understand that these gifts that are poured out to his church are in some way attached to his ascension. That's what's happening in these first several verses. He is really saying because Christ has ascended, he now pours out gifts upon his church. What Christ accomplishes in his resurrection and ascension now is a result of the gifts being poured out. In other words, because he's ascended, gifts are given to us for our good, which is why Jesus can comfort His disciples in Matthew 20, verse 20. Remember, after He gives the Great Commission to go and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that He had commanded them, what are the final words of Matthew's gospel? What does Jesus say to them after giving this command? He says, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. He can say this because in his ascension he would pour out the Spirit and give gifts to his people. The disciples, as you know, they come to find out that what Jesus means by being with them is very different from what they had experienced in his earthly ministry. They seem to be a bit afraid when he is leaving them. Jesus was leaving, and you remember that it was, he was telling them that it was even better, John 16, 7, that he would go, that the Spirit would be poured out on them for an empowerment of earthly ministry. It was better for Jesus to go because in his ascension, he completes his work as the great high priest, as we looked at this morning. He sits down at the right hand of the Father, and He bestows gifts upon His people as the triumphant Savior. This is what Paul is getting at in these first several sentences of our passage. The Holy Spirit would testify to the work of Christ and empower the church for gospel ministry. This is how the church grows in maturity and unity. Well, in the first several verses of Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 6, Paul is emphasizing the unity and the spirit of the bond of peace. He's saying that we are unified together. We are called to one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all is what he says. Now in verse seven, there is a bit of a shift. He speaks of the unity that we have with the body, and now in verse seven, he's going to speak about the diversity of gifts. Because as you look around, if you look around among the body here, you find that there are many who are not like you. There are many who have been given gifts that are different than yours. That's why the text calls us a body. And then what does it say? That the body is built up together as all pieces are working in harmony together. We are united in Christ by the Spirit, called to one faith, but we are also described as a body. Each member of the body receiving gifts according to the grace given to them is what Paul says. According to this grace given, Christ pours out gifts for the sake of the whole, for the sake of us to use them to build one another up in the faith. In fact, Paul is making this expressed point that diversity of functions, diversity functions for the end of unity. Because we are diverse, we can be unified, working together. The diversity of the gifts in the church serves the greater purpose for the unity within the body. You have all received gifts, dear Christians, to serve one another and to build up the body of Christ is what Paul is saying in verse 7. But what I want you to see, what I want you to focus on here is that the gifts given are attached to the ascension. There is an accomplishment happening in the ascension that allows Christ to now pour out his gifts. So, we see that Paul moves seamlessly from verse 7 to 8. He first says in 7 that we've been given gifts according to the measure of Christ, but then in verse 8 he's quoting Psalm 68 speaking of the ascension. And you know Psalm 68 is a triumphant song that expresses God's glorious victory over His enemies. Upon His great victory, Psalm 68 ends with His loyal servants in His courts, and verse 35 of Psalm 68 tells us that Yahweh distributes power and strength to His people. And now Paul is picking up that same psalm, this language here to say, this is Christ your Lord, who is the triumphant one, who now gives power and strength to his people. Upon his great victory, Christ now pours out gifts. And you know that one of Paul's great concerns in the book of Ephesians is this conquering of sin and death. He is bringing this up again and again to show that Christ conquers sin and death, and in that conquering, he now pours out gifts. He descended in his incarnation. He accomplishes the work given to him, became obedient to death, even death on a cross, and he rose again conquering sin and death, ascending to the right hand and giving gifts to his people. Philippians speaks of what Christ receives at his ascension. In his ascension he receives all power and glory as God bestows upon him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. You see this is what Jesus receives in his ascension and then it's going to tell us what is poured out in light of his ascension. Like the great warrior king of Psalm 68, Christ is the triumphant Savior. Christ is the triumphant Savior who at his glorious victory pours out gifts. And we're going to consider more about what these gifts are that he pours out specifically in our passage this evening. And then in verse 10, we see a further connection between his gifts and his ascension. So look there with me at verse 10. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he, listen to this, might fill all things. So this phrase, this last phrase in verse 10 helps bring that further connection between his ascension and pouring out gifts because you see when he ascends he pours out gifts, he pours out the Spirit that He might fill all things. And now He fills all creation in and through His people by His Spirit, namely the church. You see what Paul is doing here? He's showing this connection between the ascension and the gift giver. We've all received gifts from our ascended Lord, and you know that we can find a number of these lists in Scripture, right? Romans 12, 6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4, speaks of these gifts. But we want to keep two things in mind when we consider these lists, the list that we have here and those in other places. It's first that we want to recognize that not any of these lists in and of themselves are comprehensive. So we can't go to either one of these lists of gifts and say, these are all the gifts that Christ gives. We have to take in account all of them. And second, it's important that we recognize that the list that we have here in Ephesians 4 is a very specific set of gifts, which is what we are going to explore in our second point. We want to consider his apportioned gifts. What is Paul speaking about in Ephesians 4? These gifts that he lays out for us. So in verse 11, Paul zeroes in on these specific gifts, these gifts of the Word. They are Word-based gifts, in other words, meaning that these gifts are specifically given to the church for the purpose of advancing the ministry of the Word. They're not given to every single individual in the church, but rather they're given to the church by way of the office in which is being held in the church. What I mean is that there are offices held in the church that are given for your benefit, but you all don't fulfill the office that is given from these word-based gifts, but it is for your benefit because Christ, by his Spirit, grows you in maturity through these word-based gifts. Men who are rightly, who are qualified, are then called by God to the work of ministry. They are the ones who fill these offices. Through the help of the Spirit, your pastor is commissioned to serve you, to care for you, to pray for you, and to nourish you through consistent, weekly, faithful preaching from the Scriptures. And by that, people of God, you grow in spiritual maturity and unity with one another. And as he does this, again, by the power of the Spirit, you together are blessed by the ministry of the Word. He, recognizing that he has no power in and of himself, but it's only by the help of the Spirit that he is able to faithfully proclaim the word to you, rightly knowing his place as an under shepherd to our great chief shepherd, Christ Jesus. Your pastor does not carry authority in and of himself, but only in as far as he rightly proclaims God's word to you. His task is to present Christ to you and get out of the way and allow you to glory in the magnificent Christ that we have. This is the word-based gifts, and this is their purpose. Look with me at verse 11 to find out what these gifts are. I've said a lot about what happens through them, so let's consider the gifts in and of themselves. Verse 11, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers. There's been a lot of discussion about this list, as you know, in the history of the church, but I really want to make it easy for you by just breaking it into two categories. This list is made up into two categories, one, extraordinary, and two, ordinary. That's how we consider this list, extraordinary and ordinary. He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, and some as evangelists. These are extraordinary offices. And what I mean by that, what the text means by that is that these men received direct revelation from God, direct communication from God for the purpose of writing Scripture to build a foundation upon which the church as a whole would be built. It was extraordinary because God spoke to them in an extraordinary way. And then you have the ordinary pastors and teachers by which the pastors and teachers rely upon the foundation that has been laid out already, proclaiming the word. That is their role. Those in the office of evangelists were associated with the apostles as they were commissioned to carry on the work that was laid down by the apostles. You can think of Timothy as a great example of one who is fulfilling this role of evangelist. Paul begins the work in Ephesus, and then Timothy picks it up and carries it on in Ephesus. The extraordinary offices, this is important, were given for a specific purpose, a very specific function in a particular time in history for a definite purpose. And throughout Ephesians, Paul is working with this metaphor of a house. He is saying that the house is built upon what? A foundation. In Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20, he tells us that that foundation, the church, is being built on the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. And you builders here or those, any of you who live in a house or this building in and of itself, when the foundation is laid, is another foundation necessary? No. The foundation has been laid. The house can now be built upon it, and the house is built upon it by the Spirit, through the Word, as your pastor expounds Scripture to you, and the church is built up. These offices of pastor and teacher continue today. Christ gives these offices and then calls men from within the body to fill them, to build up the body through the ministry of the Word. So you see the differences between the extraordinary and the ordinary. That's how we ought to understand this list. These men are tasked with preaching and teaching the Word as a means of grace to grow you as the members of Christ in spiritual maturity and unity, to unify you in the faith. As individuals of Christ's body grow in maturity, they are brought into further unity. You see how this works, is that God gives gifts to the church. They proclaim the Word of God to you. You grow in spiritual maturity, and in your growth of spiritual maturity, you're growing together in unity. One thing built upon another, and as you grow in maturity and unity, you are then able, the text tells us, you are equipped to fend off false teaching and the attacks from the evil one. So we've seen thus far that the source of these gifts is the ascended, the triumphant Lord Jesus Christ. And we've considered those specific gifts that He's given, those Word-based gifts for the building up of the body into spiritual maturity and unity, the advancement of the ministry of the Word. Now, what's the fruit? Well, we've talked a lot about it. It's maturity and unity, excuse me, but let's see what Paul is saying. This accomplished fruit is our final point this evening. Our ascended Lord portions out gifts to the church for the purpose of care, to protect you, and to nourish you as the body of Christ. Take a minute and just let that sink in. Consider that. The great care that your God has for you, that he would appoint offices to be able to proclaim his word, to rightly divide his word and preach it to you, that you would grow together. How great a God we have who cares for us in such a way that invites us to worship him twice on every Lord's Day, to come to his house and to expect him to speak. This is the God in whom we serve. These word-based gifts, these offices are given for three things. I want you to see three things that these offices are given for. One, they're given to equip the saints. The result of these offices is to equip the saints. Equip them for what? Well, they are to equip the saints to identify and reject human cunning or craftiness by deceitful schemes. You are being equipped as you hear the Word of God, as you know the Word of God, as you meditate on the Word of God, you are being equipped to fend off false teaching, to no longer be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. That is the accomplished fruit, that you would be sure and steadfast in what has been proclaimed to you. That's the result. One, the result to equip the saints. Second, the work of ministry. These word-based gifts your pastor and teacher has been given to the work of ministry, to labor on your behalf, to seek the Lord on your behalf. And third, for the building up of the body. So to the ministry, to the work of the ministry, and as they do that, the body is being built up. These are the two purposes, to the work of ministry and for building up the body. As they fulfill their task of ministry, the body is built up. ministers of the word are to labor in preaching and teaching until paul says see what he says there we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the son of god notice what he says about the role of the word-based gifts they fulfill the task of feeding and nurturing the saints that you would grow in maturity that you would come to be mature and the fullness of God. We're welcomed into the body by grace through faith, but as we're welcomed in, we're welcomed in as spiritual babes who are in need of milk. But as we grow, we're attaining to the fullness of Christ, as Paul says, and we're able to eat solid food. How does this happen? What are the means? It's the word-based gifts. These word-based gifts are given for you. The body grows together as we come into a deep-rooted conviction of the riches of Christ through preaching and teaching. It sounds ordinary because it is. It sounds mundane at times because it is, but something is happening here. You are being nourished as the Spirit applies the Word to you in and through the preached Word. As the Word of God is rightly divided and faithfully proclaimed, it pierces the heart and discerns the thoughts and the intentions of your heart. It changes you. Even now, brothers and sisters, it changes you because there is power in the Word proclaimed, the Spirit taking that Word and applying it to your hearts. You may be thinking or asking, but I don't always feel it. I don't always feel that change happening, or if you're really honest with yourselves, you may be thinking church at times, the preaching at times goes a little bit too long, or it's boring. If we're honest, we reckon with that because it is ordinary. But praise the Lord that He has given these ordinary tasks, these ordinary offices for your spiritual benefit? Do you come expecting God to speak in His Word, by His Spirit? Do you come with this great expectation that He would meet us? We as His people and He as our God, as He cares for us, as the Word is faithfully proclaimed. You are growing in faith as you are confronted with the law of God. In light of your unrighteousness, in light of your holiness, you're driven to a need for Christ, your Savior. As you are exposed by the law and your inability to keep it, your faithful pastor applies the balm of the gospel showing you that your right standing before God is not according to how well or how good you keep the law, but rather your faithful pastor as he expounds the scriptures is pointing you to the only one who kept the law perfectly, the ascended Christ Jesus our Lord, keeping the law but also triumphant over sin and death, ascending, conquering, pouring out gifts. As you rest in the accomplished work of Christ, you are then able to see God's law as a guide through the lens of gratitude of how you ought to now live as a Christian. It's no longer a burden for you to be kept to earn your own righteousness, but it now leads and guides you by the strength of the Spirit to live this life of faith, putting to death the old man and bringing to life the new. And you are spurred on as the Word is preached. As the pastor in the ordinary gathering of the weekly worship service expounds the Scripture to exalt Christ and to show your great need for Him, you are changed into the image of Christ. This is what preaching does. Paul continues to expound in our passage on the fruit that is produced by the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Word, and he explains that as you're built up in unity and brought to maturity of Christ, you are, remember, no longer tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. But no, you're able to stand firm on the sure foundation and resist human cunning or deceitful schemes from the devil. That is the fruit, that you have a deep-rooted conviction. You know who Christ is, and you know who you are in Him, and you know what His Word says. Therefore, you're able to resist. instead of being moved by human craftiness, verse 15, you speak the truth in love. Again, the fruit. You speak the truth in love, growing in every way into Christ who is the head. Look with me at verse 16. Verse 16, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. You see, Paul is finishing his thought here now as we've approached the end of the passage. It sounds a lot like verse 7. He's finishing his thought in a similar way as he laid out for us in verse 7, speaking about each member receiving gifts according to the grace of Christ. So I want you to see the structure of this text. Verse 7 speaks about every believer, the gifts they have received. Verse 16 speaks about every believer, the gifts they have received, and in the middle, verse 11, gives us these word-based gifts. And I think the reason is because these word-based gifts are serving the greater purpose of you growing in the gifts given to you, according to the grace that has been apportioned to you by Christ Jesus our Lord. Both of these things, you receiving gifts, the gifts being given in the offices of the word-based gifts are for the sake of building up the body. And so he is finishing his thought from verse 7 as he has just expounded on these specific word-based gifts. Each member having their own gifts and growing in their gifts as they are led by pastors and teachers who expound the word to them. And as we are all growing together, the body is functioning properly. We long to bear one another's burdens. We long to love one another well. We want to be patient with each other. We want to persevere with one another. We want to endure with one another. We want to point each other to Christ. That is the fruit of a mature and unified body. the body functioning properly when we are all doing this. And as we conclude, we come back to this question. I hope it's been clear from the text. This question, remember, how does the ascended Christ unify His body and cause them to grow in maturity? How does He do this? Well, the ascended giver, the triumphant King of Psalm 68, He apportions gifts to His church for the advancement of the ministry of the Word, and these gifts accomplish the fruit of spiritual maturity and unity. This is how He does it. How does He grow you? He gives you the gift of a pastor to lead and to teach, to nourish, to pray for you, to care for you, to run after you when you're running astray, to love you. I want to end by considering Paul's prayer in chapter 3. I think there is a connection between this prayer in chapter 3 and then what he is saying in chapter 4. I want to just consider this as we come to a close. He says this in chapter 3 verse 14, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. You see, that's Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church, and then he moves into the gifts that are given, because in these gifts, the conviction, the ability to have the comprehension of the love of Christ is how that happens. Paul prays that we would grow in maturity into the fullness of God, but did you catch how it happens. It happens as we are strengthened to comprehend, to understand, to come to a deep conviction of the breadth and the length and the height and the depth to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. You, Christian, are strengthened in your inner being as you come to a deeper comprehension of the love of Christ. And it's delivered to you through your pastors and teachers who preach the Word, the Spirit then applying that Word to you. Pastors and teachers who serve you and nourish you and protect you and care for your soul. The ascended Lord gives the word-based gifts to the church, that the saints would know the love of Christ and thus be strengthened with power in your inner beings, comprehending the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of Christ's love that surpasses knowledge, which serves the purpose of growing in the fullness of God, growing in spiritual unity and maturity. Praise the Lord for the gift of pastors to us as His body. Let's pray. Father, we come with thankfulness in our hearts knowing, Lord, that You have apportioned gifts to Your church, these Word-based offices by which You nourish us spiritually, by which You cause us to grow in maturity and thus in unity with one another. We ask, Lord, that You would help us to be thankful to you for giving us these gifts, thankful to the men who faithfully serve in these offices. Lord, would you keep these men who are serving in the offices, keep them dedicated, keep them focused on the task at hand to rightly divide the Word and to proclaim it to your people. We're thankful that your Spirit takes this Word, that it doesn't depend on us and our strength and ability, but your Spirit is the one who illumines the hearts and the minds of your people, applying your Word to them. We are thankful for him and his work on our behalf, and we ask, Lord, that you would strengthen our faith by the Word that was proclaimed this evening, that we together would be growing in spiritual unity and maturity. It's in the name of Jesus and for his sake that we pray. Amen.