A couple of weeks ago the Worship Team sang “Glory in the Highest” for the first time during our response time. And as all of us on the Worship Team know firsthand, God did a tremendous work that morning. During our rehearsal time, we really struggled to be able to play and sing that song well. We had a difficult time getting all the various instruments and voices to fit together so that the song would be pleasing to listen to. But when it came time for us to play and sing during the service, it seems that God brought everything together. All the diverse elements – the guitars, the bass, the piano, the violin, the drums and many different voices came together as one. Although there were many unique, diverse elements present, they were united in a way that created a beautiful song that gave glory to God.
I think that’s a pretty good illustration of what Paul is teaching about in this first part of Chapter 4 of Ephesians. In order to properly understand this morning’s passage, we need to make sure that we understand the context in which it is written. So take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and let’s read verses 7 through 16:
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 teaching 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.
Ephesians 4:7-16 (NIV)
As Paul began chapter 4, we saw his emphasis on unity within the body of Christ. And so, particularly in verses 4-6, he stressed those things in that we have in common that allow us to be unified as followers of Jesus Christ. But, as we come to verse 7, while Paul is still dealing with unity, he is going to change his focus. How de we know that?
Hopefully one of the things that we’ve learned in our journey through Paul’s letter is the importance of connecting words and phrases such as “then”, “therefore”, “for”, “for this reason”, and the one he uses here – “but”. That little three letter word indicates that Paul is about to make some kind of contrast.
Paul has already hinted at the idea that unity does not mean uniformity. He acknowledges the uniqueness of each of his readers. But his emphasis up to this point has been on what they share in common – all the spiritual blessings he has written about in Chapter 1, the fact that God has brought them all together in the church in Chapters 2 and 3, and the seven “ones” that they have in common at the beginning of Chapter 4. But in verse 7, his emphasis changes. Not only does Paul use the word “but” to introduce this contrast, but for the very first time, he also uses the phrase “each one of us.” So there is a shift from the corporate to the individual, from our privileges to our responsibilities, from what God has already done for us to what He is doing through us.
Let’s read once again our passage for today:
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.)
Ephesians 4:7-10 (NIV)
This is another one of those passages that can be quite difficult to deal with. Verse 7 is actually pretty straightforward, but there are some significant difficulties that arise with the remainder of our text. As I researched this passage this week, I was amazed at how many pastors just avoided dealing with verses 8-10 altogether or who just glossed over those verses. And even one of my favorite commentaries on Ephesians barely mentions verse 8 and doesn’t deal with verses 9 and 10 at all.
But I believe that Paul wrote those verses for a purpose and it would be unfair to you and to me to completely ignore them. On the other hand, I don’t want us to get so caught up in arguing about all the possible meanings of what Paul wrote in those verses that it distracts us from the main point Paul is trying to make. As Denny so wisely reminded us in our Tuesday morning Bible study: “what’s the main point?” We definitely need to keep that in mind.
So here’s the plan of attack this morning:
• First, we’ll see how all these verses relate to each other and the main point Paul is making here.
• Then we’ll briefly look at verses 8-10 for the purpose of helping us understand how they relate Paul’s main point
• Finally, I’ll make a few observations about the implications of this teaching for all of us.
MAIN IDEA:
• Jesus sovereignly distributes His gifts to every member of His body
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
We’ll come back and look at the implications of this main idea in a few minutes, but for know, let me just make a few comments about each of the underlined words in that statement.
o First of all Jesus distributes gifts according to His sovereignty. Notice that Paul writes that each gift is given “as Christ apportioned it.” In other words, we don’t decide which gifts we get. Jesus determines what gifts each of us need in order to carry out God’s plans through the church. Jesus confirmed this principle Himself in the parable of the talents:
To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability...
Matthew 25:15 (NIV)
In this parable, the master, obviously a picture of God, determines what gifts He is going to entrust to each of His servants. And you’ll notice that He apportions those gifts based on the individual ability of each servant. But it’s interesting to me that there is no evidence that any of the three servants had any knowledge of what his true abilities or aptitudes were. But the master, who knows his servants intimately, is in a position to determine how to apportion the talents in a way that will facilitate the accomplishment of His purposes.
Paul has already alluded to this principle earlier in his letter:
Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
Ephesians 3:8, 9 (NIV)
In His sovereignty, God had given Paul a specific grace, or gift – to be able to preach the gospel message to the Gentiles. Paul didn’t decide that is what he was going to do. God determined that He would gift Paul with the grace he needed to carry out that purpose of God in his life.
o The second thing we see here is that these are Jesus’ gifts. Once again Paul uses a passive verb to make it clear that these gifts are not something that we earn or deserve or work for. These are not some character traits or abilities that we can develop on our own. Jesus gives us His grace as a gift.
o Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, it is clear that every member – each one of us – has been given gifts by Jesus. This ought to put to rest once and for all the idea that only the pastors or the church leaders are to carry out the ministry of the church. Within the body of Christ every person has been given a gift and therefore every person is a minister.
As we look at verses 8-10, it is crucial that we view them in the context of this main idea that Paul has just expressed. If we don’t do that, it’s easy to come up with all kinds of wrong conclusions that will actually draw us away from what Paul is teaching us rather than help us to understand it.
In verse 8, Paul quotes from Psalm 68 in order to confirm the deity of Jesus and to show why He is the one who is qualified to apportion His grace as He sees fit. But there are some potential problems with Paul’s use of that passage that we need to address. I think some of those issues will be quite apparent if we look at the Old Testament passage Paul is using:
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.
Psalm 68:18 (NIV)
It’s obvious from even a cursory reading that Paul doesn’t quote this verse very accurately. First, he changes from the second person (you), to the third person (he). As we’ll see in a moment, that’s easily explainable. But more troubling is the fact that the Psalm speaks of the receiving of gifts, not the giving of gifts, which is the main theme of our passage in Ephesians.
There are several reasons why Paul may not have quoted this verse accurately. First, we have to remember that Paul couldn’t just go to his bookshelf there in his prison cell and pull down his King James Bible and look up the verse or go down to the prison library and use the internet to find it either. So, like many of the quotations from the Old Testament that we find in the New Testament, the quotation is not always accurate word for word. I know that most of us can relate to that. How many times have you either been without your Bible or forgotten exactly where a specific passage is and you say something like, “I can’t remember exactly where it is, but I know the Bible says...”? And when you do that, my guess is that you often won’t quote that verse accurately word for word.
The other thing we need to remember is that Paul is using this passage from Psalms to prove that Jesus is qualified to apportion His grace as He sees fit. In doing so, Paul was obviously very familiar with the purpose of the entire Psalm. In its original context Psalm 68 is a picture of God’s triumphs in the past, including the exodus, and His entrance into His sanctuary in Zion. The captives that He takes are not Gentile foes, but rather rebellious Jews.
That gives us a good idea of why Paul uses the third person (he), referring to Jesus, rather than the second person (you), which very clearly refers to God in Psalm 68. In doing so, Paul is confirming the deity of Jesus.
There is also some evidence that Psalm 68 is based, at least in part, on Numbers 8 and 18 where God describes the Levites as being taken from among his people by God. I’m convinced that this key verse from Numbers 18 has particular relevance to what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 68:
I myself have selected your fellow Levites from among the Israelites as a gift to you, dedicated to the LORD to do the work at the Tent of Meeting.
Numbers 18:6 (NIV)
God says that he has received the Levites as a gift to Himself, but the purpose of that gift is for Him to turn around and give that gift back to His people in order to minister in their midst. Isn’t that exactly the point Paul is making here in Ephesians 4? Jesus has taken a people unto Himself, and then apportioned His grace to the individual members of that body so that He can give them back to the body where they can minister?
But Paul doesn’t just stop there. He adds a little more information to help us understand why He used Psalm 68 in that manner. So he writes:
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.
I’m completely convinced that Paul is writing here to support the way he used Psalm 68:18 in the previous verse. The point he is making is that although Psalm 68 points to God the Father as the one who ascended to His sanctuary on Mount Zion, that he is justified in using that verse to refer to Jesus because of the deity of Christ. And to prove that deity, he echoes what he has already written about how God has raised Jesus above all things:
That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 1:19-21 (NIV)
So verses 7-10 taken together show how Jesus has apportioned his grace among His people as he determines and confirm that He has the right to do that because He is God.
But because it is a widely circulated view, let me just mention one more interpretation of verses 9-10 that you may encounter in your study. Based on a passage from 1 Peter 3, there are some who believe that these verses describe Jesus descending into Hades between His death and resurrection and preaching to the souls who were in captivity there. Although that view was popular in the early church and is reflected in the Apostles’ Creed in the phrase “he descended into hell”, it seems doubtful to me that Paul would have attempted to make that point here, when he doesn’t address that issue at all anywhere else in his letter. But, as we’ve seen, what he has clearly described is the ascension of Jesus to a place that is above all.
THREE IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS:
I’m indebted to John MacArthur for his identification of these three implications for this passage.
1. Since they are sovereignly given, no gifts should be sought.
This is not the only place where Paul has made it clear that God determines how to apportion His gifts among His people. Look at this passage from 1 Corinthians:
But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
1 Corinthians 12:18 (NIV)
If God knows his purposes and plans perfectly and if He knows each one of us intimately, far better that we know ourselves, then why wouldn’t he be the one who should determine how to apportion His gifts among His people? When we seek out specific gifts, or probably even more commonly, get envious or jealous of the gifts that others have been given, what we’re really doing is questioning God’s wisdom. Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah:
How stupid can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you. You are only the jars he makes! Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it, "He didn’t make us"? Does a jar ever say, "The potter who made me is stupid"?
Isaiah 29:16 (NLT)
Our responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ is not to seek out His gifts, but rather to attempt to determine what gifts that He has already given to us. There are a lot of different things that we can do to discover our gifts.
I’ve found that the best way is to get involved in various areas of ministry and see where God seems to be using you most effectively. For me, that’s how I was able to discern that God had given me the gift of teaching.
Perhaps others of you may find it helpful to complete a spiritual gifts inventory. There is no one single test or inventory that you can trust to be 100% accurate, but if you use several different tools and look for common results, you may be able to at least narrow down your search. I’ve given you three websites that have on-line tests or inventories that you might use and if you’d like I also can give you a printed gifts inventory you can use:
http://www.elca.org/evangelism/assessments/spiritgifts.html
http://www.buildingchurch.net/g2s.htm
http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/
2. Since they come from Jesus, no gifts should be exalted.
Since they are Jesus’ gifts, we need to be very careful about trying to exalt ourselves as we use His gifts. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to look at some of the gifts that are more visible and give them more weight or more value. But God certainly never intended for us to do that. Again, in 1 Corinthians, Paul makes clear that all the gifts have equal value in God’s sight:
On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
1 Corinthians 12:22-25 (NIV)
As we’ll see even more clearly as we continue in Ephesians 4, the purpose of the gifts of Jesus is not to exalt ourselves or even the gifts themselves. Those gifts are not given for our personal benefit, but for the overall good of the body. And when they are used in that way, we don’t exalt ourselves or the gifts, we exalt Jesus who has given His gifts.
3. Since they are essential elements in God’s plan, no gifts should go unused.
I began this morning by describing how our Worship Team all works together to produce music that is pleasing and which glorifies God. So let me ask you a question? Which member of that Worship Team is the most indispensable? The obvious answer to that question is no one. All of the members of the team are equally important. And we certainly find that out when we have one or more members of our team who aren’t there. Our music certainly wouldn’t be nearly as good if we only had a bass, although Steve might argue with that, or if we only had a drum, or only guitars, or only a violin or only a piano. And I know it wouldn’t be nearly as good if mine was the only voice you heard. We need those other voices to drown mine out. The point is that the Worship Team functions best when all the members are using their gifts together. Again, Paul makes this same point in another of his letters:
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Romans 12:4, 5 (NIV)
And just in case you’re still not convinced of this principle, listen to the words of Peter:
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)
How many of you have ever been given a gift that you’ve never used? Perhaps that gift is still in a closet or in the garage or attic somewhere, or maybe you’ve “re-gifted” some of those items. If that’s the case, then that gift is absolutely of no value to you because you’ve never put it to use.
But since Jesus has given us exactly the gifts He wants us to have, there is no excuse for stashing those gifts away and not using them. And as Paul and Peter both make clear, when we do that, we not only cheat ourselves, but we also rob others of the benefits of our exercise of those gifts.
In a sense, the church is just like our worship team, but on a much larger scale. Jesus brings together unique and diverse people to whom He has given unique and diverse gifts in the church. And He blends together all that diversity to create a unity that is beautiful and perfect. But if we’re going to preserve that beautiful harmony, then each one of us must exercise those gifts that Jesus has bestowed upon us in His great sovereignty. And when we do that, God gets all the glory.
