As I mentioned, our text tonight is taken from 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 in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the head, that is, 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. This morning, it was part one on the Great Commission. I left off at the conquest. What does it mean when the disciples ask Jesus their last theological question before the ascension, now is it the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus answers by saying, It's not for you to know the times and seasons that the Father has appointed, but go to Jerusalem and wait there for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and he will empower you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. And what Jesus was telling his disciples at that point is, yes, it is a conquest, indeed a conquest of the whole earth. It's not driving the Romans out of Palestine. This is a conquest of the whole earth. Christ the King spreading His dominion, but not through sword, but through the power of the Spirit working through the Gospel. And so this evening we're going to see from Ephesians 4 how that works out. What happens after Jesus is ascended. What the apostles could only have known in retrospect after Jesus ascended was that now only through that ascension, only by His leaving them, Could he conquer heaven, cast Satan out of paradise forever? That deceiver, the one who accuses the brethren day and night, that prosecuting attorney, cast out of heaven forever, and Christ takes his seat at the Father's right hand, the place of all power and dominion and authority, where even now he intercedes for all of the saints to the very end. And so that's our focus this evening. What is happening now that Christ has ascended? It's not an unproductive time where Jesus is sort of just waiting to come back. There's this interim period where we're just sort of hanging on. It's a productive interim. It's a wonderful thing that Jesus didn't accomplish everything he is going to accomplish in the first coming. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here tonight. There might have been a handful of Jewish disciples around Jesus who would have been saved, It would have been spared the last judgment. But not us. The gospel would not have reached us. This is a wonderful delay. A period in which the Holy Spirit is convicting Jews and Gentiles of sin and of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And all of this is happening because Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father. The place of all authority and power. We don't want Jesus on earth right now. We want him to return when he's through, when he's finished his work. But we need him in heaven interceding for us and the Holy Spirit leading the ground troops as that word goes forth and conquers the ends of the earth. If you're taking notes, probably the best way to think about this summary tonight is to draw a line down the middle and on one side put the Old Testament and on the other side put the New Testament. And really, the three same headings, the march, the victory, and the enthronement. Because as we'll see, Paul, not surprisingly, since it's based on Psalm 68, is following the pattern of this psalm in treating the march, the victory, and the enthronement in Ephesians 4. So first of all, the march of the king, beginning with verse 1 of Psalm 68. This was one of the songs that was often sung at the annual celebration of the law of God, the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. At that annual celebration, there would be a procession to the temple and the people would sing as if they themselves were that generation that brought the Ark of the Covenant into the temple for the first time. And so it's really a hymn celebrating, commemorating the entrance of the Ark of the Covenant for the first time from the wilderness period of Israel into the stable presence of God in the midst of his people on Mount Zion. And so we read, first of all, verses 1 through 10 of Psalm 68. May God arise, may his enemies be scattered, may his foes flee before him as smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away. As wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing praise to his name. Extol him who rides on the clouds. His name is the Lord and rejoice before him. Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads forth the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. When you went out before your people, O God, when you marched through the wasteland, see, this is the history of it, marching through the wilderness from Sinai to Zion. When you marched through the wasteland, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain before God, the one of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. You gave abundant showers, O God. You refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor. The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it. Kings and armies flee in haste. In the camps, men divide the plunder. Even while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold. When the Almighty scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow falling on Zalman. Mountains of Bashan are majestic mountains. Rugged are the mountains of Bashan. Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever? The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train. You received gifts from men, even from the rebellious, that you, O Lord God, might dwell there. Jewish scholar John Levinson points out that there is an obvious transition in the Psalms from the God of Sinai to the God of Zion. Especially in the prophets, God is identified not as the God of Sinai, but as the God of Zion. And there's a reason for this, because even Levinson, a Jewish scholar, concedes that Sinai represents a relationship with God that is provisional, temporary, restricted to one nation, the people of Israel. Conditional. It's conditioned on Israel's obedience. And God, during this period, dwells outside the camp because the people are unholy. The people do not keep his law. God dwells outside the camp in his wilderness journey with his people. He leads them to the promised land, but he dwells outside the camp. So the God of Sinai is the God of pilgrimage, the God moving his people along, The nomadic God who won't sit still for very long but keeps his people moving towards Zion. Zion, however, represents everything that is permanent. Everything that is universal. That Abrahamic promise that in Abraham and his offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. It's not just restricted to the nation of Israel. And it's not temporary, it's eternal. And it's not conditioned on Israel's obedience, but conditioned on the obedience of the greater son of Abraham, who will fulfill all of its conditions. And in Zion, God doesn't dwell outside the camp, on the fringes. God dwells in the midst of his people. So Zion takes on a cosmic significance, a sense of personal relationship, a sense of closeness and intimacy with God that Sinai never held. The march of the king across the desert from Sinai to Zion is prominent throughout Israel's memory, throughout Israel's history. It's picked up again and again throughout the Psalms. And then we move to the victory of the king in verses 11 through 30. It's interesting, the NIV doesn't really bring this out as as clearly, but the Lord announces and great is the host that proclaims it. But it tells us that while the mighty men slept, the Lord did the work, the Lord gained victory and the women were gathering the spoils. What a picture that is. This isn't exactly Independence Day. This isn't exactly something that we can be proud of. You know, this is a day when the mighty men of Israel were asleep. And God was active. God was the military general. God was showing his right arm is powerful. And so while the mighty men slept, the women gathered the spoils. The women were out there taking all the loot and dividing it among the tribes of Israel. That inheritance that was the bounty of God's victory in the desert. Leading captivity captive, ascending, giving gifts to and receiving gifts from even his enemies. Crushing the head of the enemy. Harking back to Genesis 3.15 which promises the day when the son promised to the woman will crush the serpent's head. One day after that happens, after the serpent's head is crushed, God will dwell securely with his people forever in Zion. This is the king, the psalmist tells us, who daily loads us with benefits. Isn't that a wonderful phrase? Think about that. Who daily loads us. Here, here's some more. Wait, this is too much. Here's a little bit more. He daily loads us down with benefits. The God who loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation, from whom alone we receive escape from death. Later, when Jesus is engaged in his ministry, you recall in Luke 10, the return of the 70. They are sent out on a mission. They're sort of like those dividing the spoil while the religious leaders slept, as it were. Right under their noses, Satan is being bound, Satan is being cast up, cast out. And the 70 return to the Lord after Jesus has pronounced the woes or judgments on the religious leaders. And they breathlessly report to their Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your 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. See, this isn't about some sort of crazy practice where you bring in snakes and scorpions and jump on them. This is this is about this is apocalyptic imagery about the enemies that Psalm 68 talks about being trampled. Ultimately, the enemy of Satan, sin and death being destroyed, his head crushed. Jesus said, 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. This is the greatest benefit of Christ's victory. This is the whole purpose of his kingdom. This is the greatest gift with which he lavishes us, namely the gift of Christ himself with all of his benefits, the gift of salvation. As the captain of salvation, Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry marched from Sinai, fulfilling that law to Zion, leading captivity captive, and no longer does God dwell outside the camp, But as we heard this morning in adult Sunday school class, the word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, dwells in the midst of us now. In Psalm 68, it says that Sinai is now in the temple because when they brought in the Ark of the Covenant, it really was God himself entering the sanctuary. So associated was God's presence with that little box, with the law of Mount Sinai in it, that it said God has entered the sanctuary and Sinai is in the sanctuary. That whole mountain is squeezed into that little box. But how much greater it is that Jesus Christ, the true temple, has entered into the true sanctuary, the everlasting sanctuary that he's made that march from earth to heaven in conquest. Entering with his own blood. And now we turn to our text, Ephesians 4, where we also see this pattern of the march. Paul begins by talking about the march in unity, walking in unity. Paul says that we're as one person, one body, the body of Christ walking. He's already told us that we were chosen in Christ as one body before the foundation of the of the earth. He's told us that we were redeemed by Christ as one body, that the spirit calls us into one body and baptizes us into one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And all the walls between Jews and Gentiles are broken down as he now takes from two peoples one flesh for his son, one bride for the groom. It's interesting that Paul starts out by saying that he is a prisoner of the Lord. Isn't that interesting? Now, again, think of Psalm 68. God is victor. You would not expect Paul, if he's about to expound on Psalm 68, to begin with identifying himself as a prisoner. Now, wait a second. No, I'm the victor. In Jesus, I'm the victor. Well, indeed he is, because he says, I am the prisoner of the Lord. Now, Caesar probably wouldn't have taken very kindly to that. Caesar liked for his prisoners to know that they were his prisoners. Paul won't give him that. Paul said, no, you're not the one in charge of my life. No, I'm a prisoner of the Lord. And therefore, 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. It's a gift that God has already given us. This unity that we have in Christ is the result, not of something we have worked up, something we have put together, a scheme that we have crafted ourselves. It is because of one Lord, one faith, one baptism by one spirit. It's that objective unity that we have in Jesus Christ that grounds Paul's command for us to pursue that unity, To preserve that visible unity. That unity is anchored in what Paul has talked about in the first three chapters. Election, redemption, the calling of the Spirit. All of that is God's work. All of that is pure promise. God has accomplished this. But precisely because we have that in Christ already, Paul says, spare no effort. In fact, the force of the participle is very strong. Don't leave any rock unturned. Do everything in your power. Make it a priority in your corporate life as a church to preserve that bond of unity, which you already have in Jesus Christ. We are one in Christ. Therefore, let us walk together according to this high calling. And then there's the victory also in Ephesians 4, As Paul draws on Psalm 68, his victory here again distributes the tribute. He refers to the ascension of Christ, he who descended far lower than anyone else ever has, even to hell itself upon the cross, has ascended higher than anyone has ever ascended before. There's a little bit of a polemic here because the Jews of Paul's day, many of them at least, believed that Moses had ascended. The bodily assumption of Moses was a sort of folk tale that people believed in. And Paul here is saying that he ascended far higher. He went deeper into judgment than Moses ever did. And he ascended higher than Moses or anyone else might have ever ascended. And that's why he has the name above every name and all authority in heaven and on earth. And yet again, he's not just sitting there waiting until it's time to come back. He's reigning and dividing the spoils. What is Jesus doing right now, even as we're sitting here tonight? Jesus is disposing of his income. Jesus is pouring out his inheritance upon his saints. He's dispensing his gifts. And all believers share in the inheritance of the saints that Paul speaks of in verse 1. The gift of grace and the calling to which you have been called. That's everybody. Everyone shares in the grace of election, redemption, and calling as Paul has discussed up till now. But the gifts, plural, he's speaking about here, distributed by Christ in this particular passage, in his ascension, refer to the gifts of officers in the church. He gave pastors and teachers and apostles and prophets and evangelists. And verses 7, 8 and 11 all repeat the reference has been given Christ's giving. He gave. It was he who gave. You think that he's trying to make a point. We're on the receiving end. The church is on the receiving end and Jesus Christ is dispensing the wonderful bounty of his tribute. And now it is primarily through the ministry of word and sacrament that he is distributing the spoils of his victory. Paul says that in his ascension and he led a host of prisoners captive, again quoting Psalm 68. He gave gifts to men. And now here, Paul actually changes, well there's a discrepancy at least, between Psalm 68 and Paul's citation here in verse 8. Paul changes the Old Testament reference. Instead of receiving gifts, God's giving them. In Psalm 68, it says that God received gifts, even from his erstwhile enemies. But here in Ephesians 4, Paul says he's giving the gifts. A lot of reasons have been given for this. I would just argue it's because of the change in redemptive history. It's the change in what's happening here in this case. It's different from that case. In that case, you have even Gentile kings surrendering to Yahweh, the great king, who obviously has conquered this land. But in the New Covenant, it's by dispensing the tribute, by giving away the gifts, that God conquers and saves his people to the uttermost. Interestingly, the Jewish Targum on the Psalms reads for Psalm 68, You have ascended to heaven, that is Moses the prophet. You have taken captivity captive. You have learned the words of the law. You have given the law as a gift to men. Now, I don't know if Paul was going off of that. He certainly knew it. That's not inspired scripture. That's an interpretation of scripture. But it seems conceivable that Paul is monkeying with it quite a bit. Because Paul says in his ascension, unlike Moses, He ascended higher than anyone has ever ascended. It is Christ's ascension, not Moses' ascension, that has secured this victory. Even if Moses has ascended to heaven, as later tradition held, Christ has ascended far above all the heavens, he adds in verse 10. And his gift is not the law, but rather grace, in verse 7. So Paul moves around the parts. God is the one who is on the giving end. We are on the receiving end. It is Christ who has ascended far above any place of authority and power to which anyone else has ascended. And his gift of grace is what is highlighted here. He ascends Mount Zion with captives in his train to be installed as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. His filling of the whole cosmos that Paul talks about in verse 10 refers not to his physical presence, but to the extent of his dominion, not only in his divine omnipresence, but in the power of his Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus can say, as I mentioned this morning, and lo, I am with you even to the end of the age because his spirit is with us and wherever the Holy Spirit is present, Christ is present. Wherever the Holy Spirit exercises his power, wherever the Holy Spirit is raising those who are spiritually dead, it is Christ who is accomplishing this by the Holy Spirit. Many of us are familiar with birthday celebrations where we have pinatas. And our kids just celebrated their birthday. They had a little pinata and with about the 10th strike, the candy went everywhere. And that's the image, I think, that fits with what Paul is talking about here in Ephesians 4. What happens with the ascension of Christ? The piñata is burst and all of the gifts come tumbling out. We're being rained, we're being showered with gifts because of Christ's ascension. Paul says that these gifts that he's given are permanent offices in the church. Of course, we would argue that the offices of prophet and apostle are obsolete now because the period of writing the canonical scriptures, as well as being authorized to do so by having been in the presence of the risen Christ or having heard the word audibly given to you by the Lord, as was the case with the prophets, is now over. But not the work of completing the building. See, Christ is the cornerstone, but the end time sanctuary is now being built. The stones, the living stones are being built together. And Paul has an architectural metaphor here for the body of Christ. It's a building that the Holy Spirit is completing. And so I'm taking issue here with the NIV when it says that these ministers were given for the purpose of equipping the saints for the work of ministry. So it's an understandable translation, but I go with the older translations, not because they're older, but I think they're more accurate. The verb here is to complete, not to equip, although it can be translated equip. In other places, it's translated complete, and I think it fits with the argument that Paul's making here. The goal of the ministry of word and sacrament is to complete the saints, to build them up through their service of ministry. So here's the argument. The giver is Christ. The gift is ministers, the prophets, apostles, and now the evangelists, the pastors and teachers. These offices are given for the perfecting or the completing of the saints so that we may walk, may march together as one person, as one body, as we make our earthly pilgrimage. They are given for the purpose of completing or perfecting the saints, doing the work of ministry, building up the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, and maturity, the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ. You see, those goals are all the work of the ministry. Now, this is not to eliminate the spiritual gifts that he is pouring out on all of the saints. He is indeed equipping all of the saints, but he's equipping all of the saints with other gifts through this ministry of the word. Those other gifts are mentioned in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. But here what Paul is especially focusing on is that ministry of the word which is the fountain through which the Holy Spirit distributes all of the other gifts throughout the body of Christ. So that we will no longer be tossed back and forth with every wind of doctrine. So that the whole body may be built together in unity. Doctrine doesn't divide, at least good doctrine. Good doctrine unites, holds together, preserves. And good doctrine is meant for mission. Because these gifts that Christ is distributing, these wonderful gifts, are poured out on the church, not so it can hoard these riches, but so that it can distribute these gifts to the ends of the earth. Precisely because this ministry is preserved in the church, the whole body is made a cloud of witnesses to Christ's triumph, grounded in the gospel that they're privileged to share with their neighbors each day. On this basis, Paul says, we're ready for the march. Because Christ has conquered in heaven, we are now trailing behind the Holy Spirit and his word in that earthly conquest. Therefore, he says, no longer walk as the Gentiles do. In the futility of their minds. Ignorant of Christ's victory, Paul says, they give themselves over to every vanity, to every stupid thing, to every evil practice. But believers, he says, have put off their old self and have put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, he says, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Make the best use of your time because the days are evil. Instead of losing ourselves in self-indulgence, believers are called to come together in worship. He says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then finally, the return of the king. Yes, Christ the king is returning. Right now he is dispensing the spoils of his victory, and one day he will return to gather his prize. 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 be everything. That's the ultimate goal. We're living in the parenthesis between the ascension and the return of Christ. Between the exodus and the conquest. Christ has already conquered heaven, but is in the process now, by his word and spirit, through us, of conquering the earth with the gospel. That's why the Westminster Confession declares, the Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government at the hands of the church officers, distinct from civil magistrates. 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 penitent sinners by the ministry of the gospel and by absolution from censures as occasion shall require. What a remarkable privilege it is for us to be living in these times, to be living beneath that shower of such a rich inheritance, And to have those spoils divided and distributed to us all as we have need. The New Testament describes not only apostles, but the ordinary ministers and elders as representative officers entrusted with ministerial authority. Paul tells Timothy to make sure that the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. And so all of this is not to serve the private interests of private people in the body of Christ, but rather to once again underscore the fact that we are first and foremost recipients. We come to church to receive. We come not first of all to do something, but to have something done to us and for us by God. Christ's ascension and reign at the Father's hand gives us the authorization to go confident as his ambassadors that whoever receives the one whom I send, says Jesus, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives him who sent me. The embassies are not opposed to each other. We haven't cut off contact. There is no more a situation of war and hostility. Rather, the embassy is open. The embassy is of grace. This is the day of salvation as God reconciles sinners to himself. Now we have the authorization to tread on serpents. Every time, tomorrow, you have an opportunity to talk to somebody about Jesus Christ, you're treading on serpents. That's what Satan fears. Satan doesn't really fear what happens in Washington. For Sacramento, as important as those issues are for our temporal welfare and for the good of our neighbors. Satan doesn't get all up in arms, really, about the threat even of the sword, persecution. Satan spends all of his time trying to distract us from distributing the goods. That word above all earthly powers, even now, is pulling down strongholds and extends Christ's realm through his gospel. In the light of that, let me quote to conclude from Hebrews chapter 12. Marvelous assurance that we have. The writer to the Hebrews is writing to urge Jewish Christians, particularly, not to go back to the shadows of the law. not to go back to Sinai now that the heavenly Zion has appeared. Therefore, he says, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And then in verse 18, you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm referring to Mount Sinai. To a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they couldn't bear what was commanded. If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear. Now, you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. And to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be thankful. And worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you address us from the heavenly Zion through that mediator and high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ. And because of him, we can bear your voice. Because of him, it is not dangerous for you to dwell in the midst of us. For he has borne our guilt outside the camp in order to dwell in our midst forever. who shall separate us from his love? Shall death or tribulation, famine or nakedness or sword? No, in all of this we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For we are convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor anything in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from your love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.