And my prayer for you is you
would do three things. One, is that you would indeed
hear the word of the Lord in spite of what I might say. Let
me repeat that. That you would indeed hear the
word of the Lord in spite of what I might say. The second
thing I want you to do is to make Ephesians part of your personal
study, part of your personal journey. Continue to read it
every few days, read through the letter, not just the portion
that we're going to be looking at. And then finally, learn to
hear and engage and listen for the word that you have already
heard as you've studied it through the week. Sometimes in our minds,
we think that because we live in an entertainment age that
we look at something and therefore we are to just be informed. We are to be in a dialogue with
each other. In a sermon or a lecture or a
speech, it is more than just hearing, it is also discussing
within your mind. We must always be studying, and
it's not just for the pastor, it is for the church member.
As we look at Paul's teaching to Timothy in 2 Timothy, we see
the requirements for the eldership. Must be able to handle the Word
of God. Must be able to teach. Well, friends, we see a depository
of those requirements in regard to the discussion of what a shepherd
or an elder or pastor must have. But these have been pulled from
all of the New Testament as instructions that are given and commandments
that are required for every believer, not just pastors. But we as the
American church, in some sense, we decided we want to make sure
that we do what needs to be done to entertain and to draw people
to the teaching of the Word. I do not find that prescribed
in Scripture anyway, anywhere. The Word of God will either do
one of two things. It will grow someone cold against
it, or it will bring and draw and break someone toward it.
And so with that, my prayer for you is that you would hear Most
importantly, what God is saying to you today. Be in a dialogue. What difference does that make
in my life? What truth is being told that I might worship God
in a fuller way? We are to be unified, but we
are also to be diverse, because each of us has been given what
we'll see a spiritual gift. And not only a gift, but some
of us are a gift to the church, as we'll look at next week. And
in this context, we look at things in such a way that we go to bold
extremes in our churches and in our thoughts and our lives
in America. For example, when we think of unity, it's very
easy to get caught up in the mindset that we all ought to
talk alike. We all ought to dress alike. We all ought to listen
to the same type of music, read the same type of books, have
the same type of Bibles. And the next thing we know, we
just a little clones. If we were to walk out, we just
sort of look like a bunch of clones walking out the door.
We ought not be that way in the body of Christ. One of the greatest
things that I see as a challenge to the church of the South is
the cultural diversity that is not existent in her sanctuaries,
in her congregations. Why is it? Well, because people
like their own thing. Well, that's wrong, according
to the Scripture. When we are segregated because we have a
different way of worshiping our God because of our culture, then
that is wrong. When we say that our way of worship
is the way our people worship, it's wrong. When we look at the
diversity of the world and we see in Revelation where it's
going to be one body, one church, one mind, one soul, one Lord
forever and ever giving praise to the Father, praise to the
Son, praise to the Spirit. Then why is it so frustrating?
Are we going to think we're going to have some black gospel and
some white choirs and some Spanish mariachi and whatever? We're
going to have some Punjabi? What are we going to be? No,
we're going to have one voice. What is the music going to be
like in heaven? Well, depending on what we like most is what
we expect. Some of us like to hear the Gaither Band. Some of
us like to hear the Brooklyn Tab Choir. Some of us like to
listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which is unbelievable.
They sing such Reformed songs, but are so lost. It's amazing. The first time I heard them,
I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm worshiping God. This is just amazing stuff.
Let me get that CD. I'm like, this is the Mormon
Church. They're singing the hymns of old. They're singing Reformed
messages, but they do not believe in Jesus Christ of the Bible
or the God of the Bible. So what is it going to be like?
We look at unity in such a way that we dismiss diversity and
we need to embrace people's diversity. One of the greatest things that
I loved about being in California is that we were a minority as
Caucasians there. We were not Asian and we were
not Hispanic. And so because of that, we were
a minority. And even in our churches, amongst
the membership of our churches, there were at least nine different
dialects of different languages, three dialects of Chinese that
were spoken in our church. And it was a beautiful opportunity
to hear people in their broken English sing hymns to the Lord,
to hear the Word of God. be taught and spoken and prayed
in Spanish while I preached in English several times. And it
was just an amazing thing. I love to see diversity in culture
because I believe it points to the gospel greater than any other
thing does. It points to the eternality of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, that he is not coming to save Americans and he's not
coming to save Africans and he's not coming to save Egyptians
and he's not coming to save Europeans and all these different little
nations and continents of people. He's coming to save people of
all nations and make them one nation. And that's the kingdom
of heaven. There will be no ruling governments except the Lord Jesus
Christ in the new world and the new kingdom. We do not believe
in nationalism as far as Jesus coming to establish national
eternality. America is going to be as much
Babylon thrown into the sea as Babylon was. And so therefore,
we have one thing to look for. So with that unity, we indeed
are one in the Lord. We have one faith and one mind
in Christ. However, this issue of our unity
is that we are also uniquely united, independently, individually. It is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction,
if you will. We ought to be alike, but we
ought to be alike in certain ways of service. We're different
in our giftedness. And so let's look here at spiritual
gifts. Look at verses 7 through 10.
7 through 10 of Ephesians chapter 4. I don't want to start with
that, let me just read starting in verse one and read down to
verse 10. Therefore, a prisoner of the
Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which
you've been called with all humility and gentleness and patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of
the spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one spirit,
just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your
call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of
all who is over all and through all and in all. 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 and saying he ascended. What does
it mean? But that he also descended into
the lower regions, which is the earth. He who descended is the
one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might
fill all things. Look at verse 11. And he gave
the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and
the teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry,
for building up the body of Christ until we all attain 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 and 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." Now,
there are about four messages in here. And so what I want to
focus on today is looking at the fact that Christ does indeed
give spiritual gifts to the church. And as we go there today, ask
yourself this question. What is my spiritual gift? What
is it? What is it that I've been endowed
with supernaturally by the Spirit of God, by Jesus Christ, at the
time of my rebirth, that I am now aware of and that I also
practice and fulfill? Now see, for most people, they
go, I don't have a clue. You know why we don't have a
clue? It's because we are starved with the Word of God, and we
are not given the foundation that kindles and ascribes and
determines these gifts. We're not given what is needed
to feed and mature ourselves, so therefore, then, we cannot
feed and mature together, much less each other. So, in preaching
of the Word, in the exposition of Scripture, We need to see
the fullness, the full counsel of God's grace, the full counsel
of the gospel so that we might understand that we are endowed
with spiritual gifts and that we do have a responsibility to
use them. So let's look at this. Grace was given, verse seven,
to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Now, with this, you might say
to yourself, well, I've taken a spiritual gift inventory before,
and I know that my spiritual gift is Scrapbooking. Well, I've looked all through
the scriptures and I don't see scrapbooking as a spiritual gift.
Oh, I know your spiritual gift is cooking wild game dinners.
I've yet to find that one. Well, my spiritual gift is cleaning
up the place. No, that's not there either.
Well, my spiritual gift is giving cards to people in the hospital.
No, that's not there either. There's no gift of harmarchism.
Now, are these things good and are they blessings to the church?
Absolutely. Let's cook together. Let's eat
together. Let's tend to each other. Let's send cards of encouragement.
Let's do scrapbooks together. Let's lick stamps together. Let's
pave roads together. Whatever it is we need to do,
let's do it together for the glory of God. However, we are
not calling those things spiritual gifts. Because I know a lot of
pagans who scrapbook together, who pave roads together, who
clean houses together, who clean lodges together, who clean churches
together, and who do all sorts of things together. So it's not
a spiritual gift to have these things. A spiritual gift is that
thing in which God has given you that empowers you to do something
that you could not do apart from Him in any shape, way or form,
and that someone who is not in the body of Christ could accomplish
on any scale. That's what a spiritual gift
is. And so I've taken many, many, many spiritual gift inventories.
In the first part of my ministry, back when I was in college at
Georgia Southern, I took a spiritual gift inventory at the BSU, and
I learned that I was a teacher, and I learned that I was a prophet,
and I learned that I had the gift of administration. And I
didn't know what that meant. And so I was a little concerned
about having prophecy as a gift, because that sounds too Pentecostal
for me, and I didn't want to deal with all that, so I didn't
tell anybody that one. But teaching, oh yeah, I can
get up and talk about anything to anyone anywhere. Just give
me a topic, I'll talk about it. Then all of a sudden I started
realizing that the gift of ministration meant that people wanted me to
do a lot of stuff. And that I was probably more of a Martha in
my head when it came to ministry than I was a Mary at the feet
of Jesus Christ. And so as I look through the Scripture, I don't
see that that's a spiritual gift, though I think if you are able
to do that thing, God can use it. But I don't think that someone
who is so disheveled that crap's coming out of the back of their
car and they open their door to their closet and stuff falls
in their head and they have to call the ambulance to come get
rescued to get them out, and all of a sudden they get saved
and their house is in order. I don't think it works like that. I think
if we're junky, we're junky. If we're neat, we're neat. Somewhere
between and we may work on that, but I don't think God endows
people with with with that type of stuff. And I'm not making
fun of you if you think your spiritual gift is administration.
I'm just saying that I don't believe I know a lot of administrative
people who are saying, so why do we say that that's a spiritual
gift? What is it? Well, so we're not
going to talk about all the different spiritual gifts today, but I
want you to ask yourself, what do you think yours is? How is
it that God has equipped you specially for the sake of growing
the church to maturity? And do you understand how he's
done that? Look at verse seven again, spiritual gifts. But grace
was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Whose gift is it? It's Christ's gift. Who does
he give it to? Each one of us. How? According
to the measure of his own gift. And so in this, how is it all
done? By grace. By grace. By grace you've been saved. By
grace God has gifted Paul to suffer. By grace He's called
him into the ministry. By grace God gives pastors and
teachers and evangelists and shepherds and all of these things
to the church. As you'll see, it's not the gift
of shepherding or the gift of pastoring or the gift of teaching.
It's the teacher itself which is the gift, as we'll see in
a minute. And so let's take this and break it down piece by piece.
The first thing we see is that it is given to us by the measure
of Christ's gift, by grace. Grace was given to each. And
so we see that grace is the gift, if I dare say, that keeps on
giving. It is the gift that saves. It is by grace you have been
saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. Faith
is not of your own doing. Grace is not of your own doing.
Salvation is not of your own doing. Repentance is not of your
own doing. All of that is of God. And it's not only in Ephesians
2, it's in John 3, it's in 1 John, it's everywhere. We know that
everyone who does believe on the Son has been given eternal
life by the Father through the Spirit before they knew that
they could believe. It is not a conditional thing
that if you believe, because many people believe in chapter
two of John's gospel, and Jesus did not believe them. It's exactly
what it says there. If we were to translate it a
little more loosely, Jesus did not entrust himself to them,
for he knew what was in the heart of man. No one had to tell him
what was in man. And so with it, we know that
it is the measure of Christ's gift That is grace that gives
us not only salvation, not only faith and repentance and holy
affections, but it is also at work in us to prepare us for
the united but unique challenge of being the body of Christ on
earth. So did you hear that? So God's grace saves us, snatches
us out of the domain of darkness, prepares us then for the presence
of God legally and uniquely by justifying us because of the
atonement, the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ where
He took our place to save us from the judgment of God. And
then not only does he save us that way, then he uses by grace
to equip us to continue to do the work for his glory that we
might be united for the sake of the gospel. And so this measure
of Christ's gift, let's look how it is measured. How is Christ's
gift to you measured? Well, it's measured by Christ. How is Christ measured? Christ
is measured when by an immeasurable scale. Let me just put it that
way. What does it say? The immeasurable riches, the
immeasurable power, the unsearchable riches, the immeasurable grace.
Christ cannot be measured. He's infinite. So therefore,
the gifts then are what? Infinite. They're immeasurable.
Now, that doesn't mean that we have an infinite expression of
these gifts. It doesn't mean that we can do everything we
want to do, that we have supreme power. But we know that God in
His power, what did we learn in the very last verse of chapter
3? For now to Him who is able to
do far more than we could ever ask, or what? Think. To Him be
the glory. in Jesus Christ and in the church
forever and ever for all generations. Amen. And so we say amen because
we know that God has accomplished and is going to do what he said
he would do. These gifts are given by Jesus
Christ to the church. They are his. He gives them. He gives them to only the church.
And so these gifts are His to give. They're not ours to take.
This is an important thing to understand. Most people think
in some sense they have to pray for specific gifts to be given
to them. This is a practice that only started in the middle to
latter part of the 19th century. Nowhere else in historical Christianity
has anybody begged God to give gifts. No one has gone into a
position to where they begin to call out, and that whatever
they ask for God to give them, then He gives them. God endows
as He has determined who will be gifted in what ways. And the
gifts are not greater than others. As we see at the close of this
text that we read today, what is it that we grow in? We grow
in the unity of love. It is the love for the brethren
that is the primary measure, that is the primary gift. That's
one gift that you've been given. But what about your unique gift?
We'll look further. These gifts are from the One
who reigns supreme, Jesus the Christ. He owns all things because
He created all things, and He who creates owns what He creates. Christ gives these gifts as He
sees fit by grace to grace one with the gift as the gift. You
know what I just said? I don't. I mean, I know what
I've tried to say, but I know what came out of my mouth is
very confusing to me. So what I want to explain is
that Jesus sometimes gifts his believers to be gifts. And that's that's one of the
primary things that we know. Well, I don't have a gift. What
am I doing? See what I'm talking about? What am I doing? What's
my gift? What's my magic? What's my power? That's not what
it is. Sometimes God empowers you to be the gift and that is
your gift. By grace, God has gifted me the
gift of ministry, Paul says. By grace, I suffer the gift of
suffering, so that I might what? What does he say to the Colossians?
I rejoice, therefore, in my suffering, for I pray that I may fill up
what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for your sake. In 2
Corinthians 4, what does he say? I'm crushed down, I'm perplexed,
I'm given over to death, but what? I don't die, I don't give
up, I'm not driven to despair, but for your sake. For your sake,
for the sake of the church, for Jesus Christ, I've been given
the gift of suffering. I have become the gift of suffering. And so sometimes we are the gifts. Well, we see the measure of Christ's
gift. He certainly gives them. And also we see that Christ,
when He gives a gift, it is surely received. Friends, don't think
that Jesus is holding a handout and hoping we'll take it. That
is not a sovereign God. It is not a sovereign God in
salvation. God does not hope and hope and hope and cross fingers
and arms and things and say, man, I hope they come. He draws
those and He seals those and He saves those who come to Him. And those who come to Him, Those
who He draws come to Him. And all that come to Him, He
gives to the Son. And all that He gives to the
Son, the Son will never cast out. That's called eternal security,
the preservation of the saints. And who is it that God calls?
Those whom He calls. How do we know who we don't?
How does God call through the word of God for faith comes to
hearing and hearing comes through the words of Christ in Romans
10, 17. And so the Christ gives the gifts
and the gifts that are given are received. These are not things
that can be sorted through and selected. Oh, I'm going to work
on that gift. I've actually been told that
before serving in a church. I won't tell you where. And I
was told by one of the staff there that, you know, you need
to work on this gift here. You need to work on this area
of your life. You need to pray for God to give you this gift
because you're failing in this area of ministry. You're falling
down in these things. Your ability to handle this stuff
is not well. So you need to pray that God
would equip you in that, even at the cost of some other gifts.
Now, why? Why? As a pastor, the only gift
I need is the gift of prophecy. The call of God to preach the
Word, that's what it means. By the way, just as an idea,
most people think prophecy means to tell the future. Less than
1% of the entire Bible's prophecy deals with future events. Less
than 1%. All the others are forth-telling. This is what God has said. Thus
said the Lord, the Word of God comes to the prophets and they
proclaim, The Lord has said... And here we go. It doesn't deal
with future events. It deals with what God is saying to us
now. And so the pastor, not getting the Word of God, but receiving
the Word of God through the text and making it his own and eating
it and devouring it and walking, then teaching those under his
shepherding. to walk with Him as He follows
the Word of God. That's what the prophet does.
That's what the shepherd does. That's what the person who is
to proclaim the gospel, is to teach the church, who is to feed
the sheep, are supposed to be prophetic at heart. That's what
it means. The Bible, I don't care what
kind of conversation you want to have, it is great. I love
the dialogue. I love the debate. I love to
theorize. But if it goes against what the
Scripture clearly says, we're wrong. And it's a good thing,
sort of like playing a game. It's fun, but it's over. And we're going to say, well,
we enjoyed that conversation. Now, the Bible says this, and
that's what's most important in the life of the church, is
what the Scripture teaches. We've gone away from the Scripture.
Robin even said it today. It's amazing how the Reformation
and so many people suffered and died during the Reformation to
bring the Bible back to the reading of the people. And when the Greek
New Testament was given by the confessor, to Martin Luther,
and he saw in Romans justification by faith alone in Christ. He
decided this is enough. I've had it. I'm not going to
tolerate it anymore. And he nails his 95 theses on
the wall of the chapel in Wittenberg, and so launched the Protestant
Reformation, not only there in Germany, but all over the world.
And then that Reformation pushed people out of Europe, their strict
persecution, and they came over to this new world that became
America. And now what is it, 260 years later, 250 something
years later? Now we've already seen in the
last hundred years a falling away from the Word of God, a
falling away from the reality of the power of God at our grasps.
We've fallen away from the grace of God because we've pushed the
Word aside. We don't want to hear people. We don't want to
hear people say, well, I wasn't interested in that. That didn't
appeal to me. We don't want to hear people say, well, you know,
we need to be careful how we preach because unbelievers may
not come to hear what we have to say. Folks, unbelievers aren't
going to listen to what you have to say anyway. You want to see
what happens? You want to see what happens?
And we sort of stumbled on this this morning, and we're going
through Luke on Sunday mornings, and Luke chapter 3. Luke chapter 3, here is this
man, this wild man in the wilderness that all of Jerusalem for 30
years has been waiting to see, and there he comes. in the wilderness,
he gets the Word of the Lord, and then Jesus comes and He's
baptizing people in the River Jordan. And the very first thing
we see in Luke's Gospel that John the Baptist preaches is
that he looks at the people who have gathered around to be baptized
because they've heard his sermon, they've heard his message, repent
and be baptized. And they stand around and he
looks at them and says, you brood of vipers. It's not about the baptism of
water, and I'm going to paraphrase here, it's about the baptism
of the heart. It's about you being in Christ Jesus. You bunch
of snakes. That was his first sermon to
the Jews who came to hear what he had to say. You think that
was very secret sensitive? I don't think so. I think it
was the reality of what God calls His Word to do. The 5,000 who
followed Jesus and traveled to Capernaum. To find Him, surely,
that they might be filled with the bread again. And Jesus turns
from them and says, You follow Me not because of the signs and
wonders that I do, but because you've got your belly full. Do
not labor for the food that perishes, but eat the food that endures
unto eternal life. Then He rebukes their heritage, then He rebukes
their forefathers, then He rebukes their hearts. And then He says,
You want the bread that lives for eternal life? Eat My flesh,
drink My blood. That's what's going to save you. I am the bread
that came down from heaven. And this guy's nuts. And everybody
left. Everybody that had been following him for weeks left
him. Forget it. It's a hard gospel. It's not
an easy gospel to say you're not in control of your destiny.
Jesus is the only one who saves, not man. But when he gives a
gift, he gives a gift that is surely received. Christ is the
ruler who ascended from the earth and who ascended from the grave
and is the all in all, which is why I chose that song today.
Jesus Christ is the all in all. That means that one cannot rescind
the call of God. They cannot push away the gift
that God has given them. They cannot say, well, I'm just
not operating right now. That doesn't work like that.
So what Christ gives is surely received. And also, I want you
to understand here in this text, what Christ gives is surely measured
and does have an extent, but that extent is measured by the
measurement of Christ. Christ gives gifts. He gives
roles. He gives to the church leaders
and equipers. And each one has a role. Each
one has a job. Each one has responsibility as
a steward. And that role and that calling
has an extent to it by the grace that God has given you. And He
doesn't give you immeasurable grace, though it is immeasurable.
All the grace of God is not given to us at one time. Can we handle
that? No, but as we need it, God's grace is sufficient. It
is an eternal thing, grace upon grace upon grace. And so our
gifts are measured by the grace that God has extended. So if
God's asked you to serve in a capacity of teacher, then teach and you
will be given the grace to teach. You'll be given the grace to
swallow your pride and to stand before men and women and say,
thus saith the Lord. God's called you to serve and
to minister. God's called you to be an evangelist and you will
be given the grace to be an evangelist. You will go and you will go in
the power of God. But most importantly, I want
you to understand that what Christ gives is surely for His own glory.
This goes back to the full nature of what Ephesians is about. That
we are to live as the church to the praise of His glorious
grace. The reason that Christ saved the church, the reason
that God created all creation and provided redemption for mankind
through Jesus Christ, is so that He could be praised and worshipped.
God wants to see His work in front of His eyes that He might
be pleased with what He's done. For only the work of God pleases
God. For only the work of God is worthy
to be praised. Only God's own face pleases Him.
Only God's own Son pleases Him. So we who are unworthy of that
grace, who are in Christ Jesus, God looks at me and He does not
see a worthy saint that needs to be worshipped. He sees a worthless
sinner who has been saved by His grace. And now I stand before
Him as a reflection A reflection of His good work. And He is pleased. So this gift is for the glory
of God. The diverse gifts are for the
united maturity and support of the one body, the one church.
Listen to Ephesians 3. Of this gospel, I was made a
minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given
me by the working of His power." Friends, we know that the power
of God is at work already in the church. And we who are gifted,
we who are gifts, we are all uniquely given opportunity to
serve one another for the sake of God's glory. Paul was given
the gift of God's grace as a minister of the Gospel, as a minister
of suffering, as a minister of proclamation, as a prophet, as
a teacher, as a servant. And this was an endowment or
a call, and this is the gift. Then Paul becomes the gift. What
gift do you see in your life? How are you a gift to other people?
Christ gives gifts to all men. When I say that, not just saying
male, all men and women, all mankind who are His, all those
in the church do receive gifts. At the time of conversion, you
are endowed with a call. You're endowed with a gift. What
is it? Are you a worshiper? Do you not believe that worship
can be a gift? Are you one who is an encourager in the sense
that you are encouraging through the Word of God to show people
what worship really is throughout life, not just on Sunday morning
on the row or the pew or the seat or the stage, but most certainly
through every aspect of our being? Christ gives some gifts specifically
to others, and sometimes He gives the service as a gift. For example,
sometimes when you may get a gift, let's say a computer, and you
have several other people living in your house, it may be your
computer, but it's set up and the family can enjoy the gift.
There may be a house that you've been given, and that house might
belong to your daddy, but when you live in it, you get the benefits
of having that gift to be a part of your home. These are terrible
analogies, but I think you get the point. And the concept is
that we who are the gift, even though it might be our giftedness
or God's gift for our giftedness, it is not for us, but it is for
others to benefit from. Each one is gifted in many ways
and all ways for the sake of the body as a whole. We who are
truly in Christ indeed receive what Christ has given to us and
we know it. We seek it out. We mature in
it. We move in the body and among the body for the greater good
of the body to the glory of God. Look at verse eight. Therefore,
it says when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and
he gave gifts to men and saying he ascended. What does it mean?
But that he has also descended into the lower regions, comma,
the earth. He who descends is the one who
also ascended far above the heavens, that He might fill all things. So the final question I want
to answer as we close today is this. Why and how does Christ
gift the church? Why and how does Christ gift
the church? Well, answer number one is by
His authority. by His authority. He is the One
who owns heaven and the universe by His own creation. He has become
then like the creation by coming and being born from the womb
from which He created. And He lived before men, and
He lived before the Father, holy and righteous. And now Christ,
who created all things, subjected Himself to creation. He put himself
in the hands of sinful men that it might be fulfilled that he
would die for the sins of many. And what Paul is doing here,
and I don't want to get into a lot of technicalities, but in Psalm
68, verse 18, he somewhat quotes this, but doesn't. And when Paul
is doing in Ephesians chapter eight and nine and ten, as he
is specifically chapter eight, I mean, verse eight of chapter
four and Psalm 68, 18, he's sort of mentioning this, but he's
changed it a little bit. Now, what I want you to do is
not feel sick about Paul. Psalm 68, 18 says it this way.
You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train,
and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that
the Lord God may dwell there." This is a psalm specifically
dealing with God, the Redeemer of Israel, who put and stomped
out the enemies of Israel. What we know is in Jewish tradition,
when a king came home from battle in victory, he would be given
gifts. And then he would also share
the spoils. He would share the spoils among
his generals, among his peoples, but he would also be given gifts
as homage, as appreciation. Jesus, then, in Ephesians chapter
4, verse 8, gives gifts. We see that he's not receiving
gifts, but he's giving gifts. But we also know that God receives
gifts in the inheritance of the saints that he creates for himself,
for his own purpose and for his own glory. Jesus gives gifts
to the church. Jesus, even in His victory and
reign, gives grace upon grace. We know that Christ is the giver.
He came to earth to die, to be a slave, to be obedient unto
death, to live holy, to subject Himself as like the creation. And now we see that the Psalm,
as Paul is referring to it, he's not changing it. He does have
the liberty to change the text, but he does have the liberty
to express using that text that's familiar and express the reality
of what Christ has done as the victor. And this Psalm 68 is
specifically talking about God as victorious over His enemies.
Now in Ephesians 4, Paul says that that is talking about Jesus
who is God. Jesus who is God. There is no
measure to the measure of Christ's grace to mankind. He is faithful
to save. He is faithful to empower. He
is faithful to equip. He is faithful to employ. And
He is faithful to establish His church. In Philippians 2, we
hear Paul talking about the faithfulness of Christ in his mind. and being
found in human form, He humbled Himself in becoming obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has
highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above
every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every name should bow
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."
And so we know that Christ gives gifts to the church by His authority,
and again, the redundancy for His glory. Christ is always glorified in
the working of the hearts of men. He's always glorified in
salvation. He's always glorified in service
to each other. He's always glorified. What did
Jesus say? By this they will know that you
are My disciples, that you have love for one another. And what
is love? John, in his first epistle, teaches
us what love is. We love the brethren. We lay
down our life for the brethren. We do not hold our heart. We
see our brother in need, but we close our heart toward them
and we have the world's goods. John says that we are not of
God. We are not of God and the love
of the Father is not in us when we close our heart to those in
need. Those brothers and sisters in Christ. We give what we have
to give and we help each other. We love each other. We also know
that God is glorified in the gifts of the church. He's glorified
through the preaching. He's glorified through the serving.
He's glorified through the praying. He's glorified through the unity
of the church working together uniquely to build itself up. Each person in the body must
use his or her gift. And if they don't, then the body
is sick. The body is not unified. The
body is not maturing. It is stagnant. It is limping.
It is coughing. And we must not only be right
and solid in our walk with Christ, but our walk includes our giftedness. The walk includes our service.
You hear pastors and they get upset about this and they say,
you need to serve, you need to serve, you need to serve, you
wicked people need to serve. And they get off on this stuff
and then they pass around the list of who wants to sign up
to serve. Everybody signs up. And a few
months later, he's doing the same thing. You bunch of liars,
you don't follow through. Let's see, because people serve
out of guilt rather than calling. If you're not called, you can't
serve in that area because you're wasting your time and you're
hurting the body. What is your gift? How are you
using it to build up the body? How are you using it to build
up the church? Friends, your gift is not useless and it is
very needed. Your giftedness is needed in
the body of Christ. Why? Look at verse 13 of this
text we're in for. Until we all attain to the unity
of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature
manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
So how do we measure our maturity when we look just like Jesus?
We've not even gotten started, Church. So we ought to be exercising
our giftedness so that we might be growing to that measure. You
know, when that measure is going to take place? When the sun comes
back. So we continue to work until we die. We continue to
serve until we die. We continue to be a gift and
exercise our gifts until the day God brings us home. Why should
we mature? Why should we always be working
to mature and to be sealed and to be close and to be unified,
though we are uniquely gifted? So that we no longer may be like
children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried around
by every wind of doctrine. Friends, there's some stinky
winds of doctrine being perpetrated in America today in the churches.
There's some horrible, apostate, heretical teachings that are
going out in the name of missions to third world countries. And
people are teaching them that they can change their destiny
by changing their attitudes, their minds or their words. And
you cannot do that. You cannot change apart from
the gospel of Jesus Christ. We'll look at this in more detail
next week. As we use our gifts, we are unique. None of us are
going some of us may have the same gifts, but we will not exercise
them the same way. We will not use them, we will
not be called to equip. All of us may be gifted in areas
of prophecy or shepherding, but we're not all going to be a pastor.
Some of us may be gifted in evangelism, but we're not all going to be
evangelists. But some of us, all of us are for sure gifted
in some way. Some of us are gifted in ways
that we have not yet to recognize and prayerfully through our understanding
of the rest of this letter, we will know our gift. We will see
it. That's why it's important that
you read it on your own, that God may speak to you. If we do not
exercise our gifts, we do not glorify God. We do not glorify
God when we do not do our part. We do something that is apart
from the substance of God's grace that He has given to us. How
do we connect to each other? How do we build up each other
up when we're disconnected and broken? How are we building when
we ourselves are broken? How are we connecting when we
ourselves are disconnecting? You know, one of the gifts of
grace that God gives the believer is a love for the brethren. And that's not even a gift, that's
a fruit of the Spirit. A love for the brethren, that's
one of the foundational things Jesus himself says, you measure
it by your love for me and you measure it by your love for the
brethren. And a love for the brethren means you want to be around the
brethren. You want to spend your time dealing with Christian things
and Christian doctrine and loving one another and keeping with
one another. How do we grow to maturity when
we fail to obey God in the simple aspect of our existence as a
people? What we've done, churches, we've allowed, and not saying
necessarily we, but the church as a whole, has allowed Satan
to deceive us. We've put a corporate slant and
a cultural ideal on being the people of God, and we've organized
it in such a way that it looks no different than any other club
or institution that the world has. And we fail to display the
glory of God in his manifold wisdom as it commands. The purpose
of the church is for the Ephesians 310. We fail to do these things.
And therefore, God's image is tainted and his name is defamed
among the nations and among the church. Christ gives gifts as
a reflection of his victorious headship over all things. Therefore,
when the church eliminates gifts. Abuses the gifts or creates new
gifts to suit their own fancy, what we do is what they do, rather,
is they blind the gospel and we do not live a life of worship
for the glory of God. Foundationally, we'll look at
this a little next week, too. There's three things that I've
already decided to show you next week. All gifts come from and to a
complete end, which is the Word of God. Our giftedness, no matter
what it is, it comes from our study in the Word of God. We
are encouraged and equipped and given the grace we need to continue
to work in it. And then as we are the gift, as we are gifted,
and as we give grace to others, we do so by pushing them back
to the Word. I'm going to tell you, it's a full circle. You
cannot counsel people without the Scriptures. You cannot encourage
people without the Scriptures. You cannot empower people without
the Scriptures. You must study the Scriptures. Doctrine and
worship and wisdom and service all come from God's Word, back
to God's Word, for God's glory, by God's Holy Spirit. God's grace
is given as we study to show ourselves approved workmen. You
notice it says workmen. Some people think that working
more causes them to be an approved workman. No, studying causes
you to be an approved workman. We must study to show ourselves
approved, to be a workman for the gospel, a workman for the
church, a gift to the church. We are approved slaves when we
study the Word of God. The faithful believer should
know that the gifts of God are not for the pleasure of man.
It's not for the pleasure seeking segments that are found in most
what we call spiritual gifts inventories. But they are supreme
and divine gifts that endeavor to build up the body. And in
building up the body, they build to the glory of Christ to all
the world. They display that glory. Ask
yourself this question. How does my life exemplify the
power of God? How does my life exemplify the
power of God. Please do not answer that with,
well, I don't smoke and drink and cuss and dance and rob and
steal and lie and hate. Pagans can do that. Pagans can
dress right and talk right and act right and give right. Matter
of fact, more unbelievers are philanthropists in this world
than believers. Did you know that? So it's not our morality. Jesus
came to save us from our morality for crying out loud. We must
be holy. So how is the power of God exemplified
in our lives? How is it exemplified in God?
How is it seen? How is it displayed and proclaimed? Not just in your passive obedience
to a moral standard. That's not what God's law does.
It is a teacher. Matter of fact, when you seek
God's law for what it is, you know for sure you have never
kept it ever. And sin, as we looked at Romans
7 yesterday, becomes very evident. And then temptation becomes even
more evident. It's amazing how you don't want
to do things until you realize you shouldn't. Another thought about the gifts
of the ministry is when we think of our giftedness, we all not
think of it. I've said this a few times in
the last few months, we should never think of our giftedness
in our service as administration. Listen to this of ideals or philosophies
or programs or organizational feats. Well, my ministry is to
clean the toilet. No, it's not. That's a service. It's not a ministry. There's
no such thing as a toilet ministry. Unless you're taking toilets
with bibles in them to someplace that don't have toilets. You
know what I'm saying? And I'm not making fun. I'm trying to
change our verbiage. Our vernacular has gotten really
screwed up. Semantics are important. We call things ministry that
is not ministry. Now, we may do it in the spirit
of ministry when we minister to others while we clean toilets.
That's great. We ought to. But that's not the point. The
point is, ministry is always two people. It's never an abstract
organized event or strategy. Never. It is not ministry to
do an organized event. It's always two people. How am
I serving people for the glory of God, for their good, with
the gospel? It must partner with the gospel.
Acts of service, apart from the gospel, is dead service. Acts of service, apart from the
gospel, is a dead gospel. Acts of benevolence, apart from
the gospel, is dead benevolence. You see that? Some of us might say, well, just
don't do any of it. No, that's not where we ought to go. We
ought to know that as we are going to do what we know in our
heart we should be doing, that the primary thing that we do
is take the gospel and not only just to the lost, but specifically
to the church. Do we serve? Everybody's excited
to go for a couple of weeks someplace and serve some people that aren't
like them in this godforsaken heat someplace across some big
pond or some mountainous terrain in the middle of some desert
where there is no toilets. But we aren't even serving those
sitting next to us in church. That is blasphemous. That's awful. Let's just all
of us keep that in mind. Ministry is always about people.
Therefore, when we allow so-called gifts to become about stuff and
doing rather than building up the people of the church, we
are believing the lie that the world has given us. And remember
that the world is passing away. Finally. We've been given gifts
and we will be held accountable to use these gifts. If you would
turn to Matthew 25, I'm not going to read all of it. Look at verse
14. Matthew 25, 14. I'll give you
the gist. Verse 14, here's this parable,
Jesus giving this example. A man going on
a journey and he called his slaves and entrusted them with his property.
He gave each of them different talents based on their giftedness. And we know that. Verse 19, we see after a long
time, the master of the slaves came to settle the accounts and
the first one came with five. And he brought five. He doubled
his money, doubled the talents. You deliver me five and I've
made five. And he says, well done, good and faithful servant.
Enter the joy of your master. Listen to that word, church,
please. And he also had the two talents come forward and deliver
me two talents. And here I have two talents more.
And the master said, well done, good and faithful servant. I
will set you about to enter the joy of your master. Verse 23.
Look at verse 24. He also, who had received the
one talent, came forward. See, one gave five and one gave
two, and those people doubled their talents. And the one he
gave one came forward saying, Master, I knew you would be a
hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you
scattered no seeds. So I was afraid. And I went and
hid your talent in the ground here. Have what is yours. But
his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I would reap where
I have not sown and gather where I had scattered no seed. Then
you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at
my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest.
So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten.
Verse twenty nine, for to everyone who has more will be given. And
he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away. It's the second time we've
heard that in a few weeks, isn't it? We'll be taken away and cast
the worthless servant into outer darkness. In that place where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, friends, let me
let me give you some. I don't have time to talk about all this.
It's a point. The point is, we will be accountable
for what God has gifted us with. We need to look inside. Those
who have been called of God unto salvation first will be regenerate. They'll be saved. They'll be
reborn. They will have a change of heart. They will have a change
of life, mind, soul, affection, passion, vision, mission, purpose,
service. All of this will be changed.
Those whom God has called will have a hunger for holiness. They
will hate sin. They will fight a battle over
sin in the mind. They will strive for righteousness.
They will have a desire to study the Bible. They will have a desire
to share their wealth and the world and to share their faith.
They will have a desire to know more and more and more and worship
more deeply with every fiber of their being. Those whom God
has called will have a gift. They will desire to know it and
to use it and to grow in it, to secure service and serve and
serve for the benefit of the church, for the glory of God.
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all
we've asked or think, according to the power at work within us,
to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout
all generations, forever and ever. Amen. If we really believe
that church and we really are called, we will serve not our
own intentions, but the intentions of others or the needs of others. We will consider ourselves less
and less often as we do others. We will understand that the divine
affection that the body has for each other will be there without
fail. We will strive to serve and to
multiply our service in the lives of as many people we can over
and over again until we die in the sake of serving. And we understand
that we will empower those around us to serve by grace through
our service to them by teaching them and sharing with them the
gospel and encouraging them in the faith, not silently doing
a job like Martha, but powerfully getting up off the floor like
Mary. and worship Him and wonder. Therefore, what we learn in Matthew
25 is that if someone does not use the gift that he thinks he
has, he may very well not be called of God at all. Because Jesus here in Matthew
is saying that His children surely use and multiply their gifts,
and that those who do not are not His. Where did He say that?
He took that wicked, lazy servant and He threw him in hell. Throw him into outer darkness,
where there will be gnashing of teeth and wailing. That's how Jesus describes hell. God doesn't throw His children
into darkness. He snatches them out of darkness.
And He gifts us with a gift. So what are we doing? If we are
not serving, this is a wake-up call. Many people will not be
interested in how we operate here because we do not establish
administrative functions and organizational events and call
it ministry. But as God has equipped you and
called you and you come forward and say, God has called me to
do this, then by golly, we'll put our hands on your head and
we'll thank God for your call and we'll walk with you, those
who are called to follow you and walk with you and serve with
you. And then when you say, I'm done, then it's done. When you
step down, we don't go, oh, now who's going to do this? No, that's
not the way it works. We don't say, oh, I think it
would be cool for us to have ABC ministry. So let's start
it. Now, who wants to lead it? And
we spend 90 percent of our time with unregenerate people who
are hoping that they can please God and they feel guilty, but
they really don't want to do it. Or even regenerate people
who feel guilty and then do it anyway, but they really don't
want to do it and it's unto no service. And everybody's miserable. And all the preacher can do is
hope that nobody comes in his office because he's crying. You
think he's studying, he's weeping. I hope nobody bothers me about
the problem with the food program. I want to teach the Bible. I
want us to love each other and to serve each other. And I don't
have an answer for them on how we're going to come up with the
$50,000 to keep the ministry afloat. Let's start a campaign. No, we can't study the Bible
this next six weeks. We've got to do a campaign on
raising money. Turn to Nehemiah and Malachi. I'm sorry. So do we use our gift? Do we
know our gift? Do you want to learn how to be a part of the
body and be gifted in service to the body? Then pray. Pray that God would give you
a heart that was in tune with His. Ask Him to show you. Ask Him to help you study the
Word. You need wisdom. James 1 says,
ask for it. And then when you receive it,
walk. Do not get blown off course again. You've been given wisdom.
Now walk in it. Where do we get wisdom? from
the Word. How about our friends? If the
friend gives you the Word, then take their wisdom. If they don't,
don't call them again for wisdom. Seek after the Lord. Seek after
His grace while He's near, while His grace is near. Repent and
believe the Gospel. Be empowered by the Word of God
and fall in love with Christ over and over and over and over
again to the very end of age.