Sunday, November 9, 2025, Diversity that Unifies, Ephesians 4 7-16
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
· Diversity is another buzzword today.
Context
Context
· Unity does not mean uniformity.
o Just as there is diversity of a kind in the Trinity, so there is diversity in the church.
Our Generous King (4:7-10)
Our Generous King (4:7-10)
7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
· But, —a continuation of the previous thought by expanding on the means by which Christ brings the church into unity with Himself.
· Not surprisingly, it is a work of grace—God’s kind and glorious gifts to ill-deserving sinners.
o This grace is not saving grace, nor sanctifying grace—it is grace for ministry.
· Given to each one of us—God gives us grace to serve.
o Because these gifts are grace-given, we should not envy the gifts that other have.
We are blessed to be a blessing. We should seek how we might best use the gifts we have been given.
· 1 Timothy 6:6 (ESV)
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain,
o Each one—This echoes vv. 4-6 and its repetition of the unity of the church by explaining that this one church works according to each member’s service.
Each one of us, being members of the body of Christ, ought to be a contributor to and a participant in the unity of the church. Each doing our part by exercising the gifts we have been given by the Holy Spirit.
· These gifts are given by the sovereign will of Christ, according to His graciousness, not because of any merit in us or in the works we do.
· Paul offers evidence for his statement, that Christ has given the church, and each of its members, gracious gifts.
o He quotes an OT passage; Ps. 68:18.
o Notably, Paul’s quotation seems to diverge from either the Hebrew or the Greek translation of the Old Testament
· Psalm 68:18 (ESV)
18 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.
o Is Paul wrong? I would offer that Paul is offering a Christological interpretation to this text under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
§ He is following this prophetic Psalm to its logical conclusion.
o The original psalm anticipated the day when the Messiah would conquer his enemies and take his throne.
§ He would receive the spoils of victory in that day.
o Paul is positing that this psalm has been fulfilled in the death, resurrection, and ascension.
§ He has defeated His enemies and sat down to rule over His kingdom.
· He has received his reward.
§ So now, Jesus is distributing gifts, blessings, out of the riches of what He has received to the very captives He has set free.
· Acts 2:33 (ESV)
33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
· Is Paul justified in interpreting Ps. 68:18 in this way? Verses 9-10 serve as Paul’s reason.
o Jesus, the Son of God, ascended to heaven. How could this have happened if he had not first descended.
§ The wonder of the Christian faith is that, unlike many of the other religions of the world, we do not ascend to God or godhood, but rather, our God descended.
o Philippians 2:6–8 (ESV) says this of our God.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
o Jesus humbled Himself to rescue us out of our trouble.
· We often fail to properly take account of the significance of the ascension of Jesus to heaven, as we do the cross and the resurrection.
o Because it is in the ascension of Jesus that we see the ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ in our lives.
As deep as his humiliation was in his incarnation, so much higher is his exaltation in His ascension.
· Because of his victory, Jesus was exalted above all things, above the highest heavens, in order to bring His victorious rule to the furthest corners of creation.
o To fill all things, as we read earlier in Ephesians 1:22–23 (ESV)
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
o He is our Great High Priest and our intercessor.
· Today and eternally, Jesus rules over, watches over, cares for and defends His Church.
o And through the church, whom he graciously gifts, He fills creation with His glory.
We often look at our life in the church in terms of our success at fulfilling the Great Commission. How are we doing at winning souls to Christ? How are we doing at deepening our level of discipleship? How many missionaries can we send? While these are valuable aims, they fundamentally fail to account for the truth that Paul is exposing here. Jesus has won the victory already, and He gives us everything necessary to accomplish everything He desires and has set forth for us do…all of it.
· To that end, He gave a great many gifts to each of us.
Diverse Gifts (4:11-12)
Diverse Gifts (4:11-12)
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
· The NT speaks of the spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit in 5 different places: Romans 12, two places in 1 Corinthians 12, in 1 Peter 5, and here in Ephesians 4.
o About 20 different gifts are listed overall, only 4 of them here.
o Paul restricts his description here to the gifts that Christ has supplied for the unity and maturity of the church…gifts in the form of people.
§ The gifts listed in Ephesians all have to do with the teaching ministry to the Church.
· Because Jesus primarily builds up His body by instructing it in the truth about Himself and His works.
· 1 Timothy 3:15 (ESV)
15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
o Consistent instruction in God’s Word keeps the church rooted and grounded in the truth.
· The first two are foundational to the church: Apostles and Prophets.
o The Apostles were those who were especially commissioned by the risen Christ to found the church and begin the process of spreading the good news to the ends of the earth.
§ These 12 apostles were unique in their authority, and their message was recorded in the canonical texts of the New Testament.
§ Though we all are apostles of a sort, sent out into the world, we do so by building upon the foundation laid by the apostles and the prophets (Eph. 2:20)
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
o The prophets in view here are the prophets who communicated the message of God to the New Testament church.
§ There was a large degree of overlap between the apostles and prophets, and their message is also recorded in the New Testament Scriptures.
§ Prophecy as forthtelling, or new revelation from God is no longer active in the church.
· God’s revelation is complete in the Old and New Testaments.
· 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (ESV)
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
· Hebrews 1:1–2 (ESV)
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
§ But believers do speak prophetically when they faithfully expose and apply God’s Word afresh as the Church has need.
· The second two belong to the church for all time: Evangelists and Shepherd-Teachers.
o Evangelists are not the only ones who are gifted to share the gospel, but they are especially gifted to share the gospel with people in a way which brings the gospel into new places.
§ It is by the work of great evangelists throughout time that the church has grown and spread in regions previously lost in darkness.
Great evangelists of the past, such as George Whitefield in the Great Awakening or Billy Graham. Peculiarly gifted evangelists.
o Shepherd-Teachers are roughly synonymous with vocational pastors, elders who are specifically gifted and called to labor in preaching and teaching in the church.
· 1 Timothy 5:17 (ESV)
17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
o They are worthy of double honor because of the importance their role plays in the ongoing unity and maturity of the church.
· Pastors don’t just preach the gospel like an evangelist, but they take personal interest in the spiritual health of the members of the local church.
o Pastors should be shepherds after the example of the Good Shepherd.
§ To know the sheep and to lay down their lives for them in sacrificial service.
· Colossians 1:24 (ESV)
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Recent movement in the American church has been based around a culture of consumerism. Seeker sensitivity. Being pleasing in the sight of those we desire to come in.
· Why has God given these people to the church? For the church?
o It’s not so that we can bask in the adulation of the people as they gaze upon us in awe of our giftedness.
o Rather, what has been laid upon the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastors is to make the church ready and fit for duty.
· Equipping is the word chosen to represent making something or someone fit for the purpose they were made for.
Basic Training and AIT aims at this very idea. Desire to be a soldier, watching a lot of military movies, and being confident do not make a good soldier. Rather, every aspect of our training is meant to strip away what would hinder our ability to accomplish our mission and adding the skills and training which would contribute to its success.
· Jesus has provided these teachers to the church to make it ready to be the church. To pursue public, visible unity with God and with one another through faith in Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
· I would draw your attention to the fact that Jesus didn’t set apart pastors and other ministry leaders to dothe work of ministry, but to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.
Ministry isn’t a spectator sport, for the select few. Nor is it a train where the masses sit as passengers until they reach their destination, drawn by the engine (leaders). No, it is the work of the church to do the work of the church.
An orchestra where all members play their part together in harmony.
· This is the Work of ministry—carried out by men and women who have been transformed and are being perfected into the image of Christ.
The gospel is credible in no small part because it comes from people whose lives are being transformed by grace.
· The ministry is building up the body; spiritually strengthening the saints.
o The focus is always on the quality of our spiritual life, not the quantity of our members.
We will always serve the goal of growing the membership of this church best by serving the spiritual health and strength of the membership of this church. (Healthy growth goes deep in order to grow wide)
· Therefore, by understanding that Jesus Christ has equipped the church with a variety of gifts according to His grace, and that those gifts are to be used to build up the church, we come to see the end of our work.
What are we aiming for here at FBC? Is it to maintain the building, our presence on this corner?
A Glorious Goal (4:13-16)
A Glorious Goal (4:13-16)
13 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,
14 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 in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
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.
· Spiritual maturity is our goal…Paul gives a threefold description of spiritual maturity.
o Unity of the faith/the knowledge of the Son of God—
§ The faith is not an experience, feeling, but a message…the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Too many churches are geared toward the sanctification of the individual believer rather than of the unified church together.
The church is not a confederation of believers who happen to be headed in the same direction.
We are a family, united not around an organization or building, but around a purpose.
§ We anticipate the day when all the various disagreements will be resolved and all the church is in full agreement about the teaching of the apostles and of the unique claims about Jesus Christ.
· There can be no unity other than around our shared head.
· When Christ is preached week by week, we grow in knowledge of Him who surpasses knowledge.
o Our eternal pursuit is to know Him.
§ We grow in our knowledge experientially; through receiving the Word; through serving one another in love.
o Mature manhood—
§ There is a corporate idea to manhood here, that we would be the kind of people God desires us to be, exemplified in Jesus Christ, the perfect man.
· Mature manhood is a measure of our Christlikeness.
· To be a Christian is to be increasingly conformed to the image of the second Adam.
· It is a return to our ordained pattern in creation—dominion over the earth as God’s image-bearing “priest-kings.”
· Colossians 3:10 (ESV)
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
o Measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—
§ God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ means that we are destined to be like him.
· 1 John 3:2 (ESV)
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
§ Glory is in our future. We will lack nothing of either godly character or obedience, as we do now.
· Christlikeness has a result that is of great importance to us. There are many dangers, toils, and snares that we must traverse on our journey home.
o Immaturity is dangerous to the individual and to the church. The immature are vulnerable, like a boat adrift in stormy seas.
· Tossed to and fro…
o Seafaring requires great skill…as those who make our home by the Great Lakes, we are all too aware of the dangers the seas pose.
I remember sailing with my dad on Lake Charlevoix as a boy. We had a little sail boat. Watching him sail was like watching magic. At times the boat leaned so far over, that I was sure we would capsize, yet each time, he brought it under control and the boat would fly through the water. Had I been alone in the boat, I would not have fared so well.
o The dangers of spiritual immaturity are that we will lack the proper anchor for our faith and practice.
§ Doctrine—false teaching.
§ Human cunning—false teachers.
§ Deceitful schemes—false works.
Falsehood is sometimes obvious—The prosperity gospel, often presented by showmen/hucksters. They sell the lie that life should be comfortable if only our faith is powerful enough. (The storm is your fault)
At other times, it is less obvious—The face of this error is found in many scholarly places, where the inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture are subtly undermined. (Cutting the anchor loose/ “Did God really say?”)
We must make sure to increasingly root ourselves in Christ through the ministry of the Word. Holding fast to the apostles’ teaching. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only sure anchor for our faith.
· Paul concludes his statements on the way we all contribute to the unity by pursuing maturity.
· How do the spiritually mature act? How might we measure our level of commitment?
· Speaking the truth in love—
o In contrast to the cunning, craftiness, and deceit of the fallen world, we must be people who exemplify the truth.
§ This means that we must be people who are honest in our speech in general, but especially in the way we confess the truth of the gospel.
o But we must not do so in a calloused or cold way—The gospel is offensive enough already; we don’t need to help it along.
§ We must tell the truth in a way that shows our great care for one another.
§ Love must never be separated from the truth; that is the way of moral degeneracy.
· What is the goal of our loving honesty?
o That we would continue to grow. Grow up in every way into Him.
§ Our overriding desire should be that we would become more and more like Jesus Christ, our Head.
o We must remember that we have great need of what Christ provides as the source of growth.
§ Himself—our peace.
§ His Word—our provision.
§ His Spirit—our promise.
Conclusion
Conclusion
· Our gifts are not chosen by us but given by our Savior to serve the church.
· These gifts are not always equal, but they are all of use.
· Because they are gifts of grace, there is no room for us to be proud or boastful in them.
o They are to be used in humble service of Jesus Christ and His church.
§ This is our duty in response to His grace.
· Not every believer is gifted for spiritual leadership, but those who are must be diligent in their teaching.
o God’s Word is essential for the unity and maturity of God’s people, together and individually.
o The saints are to be so equipped because they are the ministry of the church.
§ We believe that all God’s people are given a priesthood, we all have a responsibility to contribute to the church according to our gifts.
o The professionalization of the ministry into the hands of a select few is a threat to the purity of the church.
· When only so-called “gifted” leaders do the work of the ministry, the church may grow in number, but not as often in maturity.
o Christlikeness is our goal, at all costs.
