So let's start by reading this text.
Apostle Paul writes in verse 7, "But to each
one of us grace was given according to the
measure of Christ's gift; therefore it says,
when he ascended on high, he led captive,
a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men."
Now this expression, he ascended, what does it
mean except that he also has descended
into the lower parts of the earth?
He who descended is himself also he who asc
ended far above all the heavens so that he
might
fill all things.
And he gave some as apostles and some as
pastors and some as evangelists and some as
pastors
and teachers.
Now that'll be where we'll stop for today
because as you're going to see, that'll be
all we need to look at as far as our text.
Now you know this, the New Testament is really
pretty evenly divided between, on the one
hand, what we are to do for Christ by living
in obedience to His Word.
There are lots of – and we've been seeing
this in chapter 4 so far – lots of
indicative
exhortations, commands that demonstrate to us,
a lot of that by the Apostle Paul, how
we are to live the Christian life in a way
that's pleasing to God.
So there's pretty – the other side, of
course, pretty divided what Christ has done
for us is the other side of that.
And there are many things that Christ has done
for His people that we don't even have
anything to do with, right?
Think about it.
So we could say that Christianity is not just
what we do for God.
Much more than that, it is a response to what
God in Christ has done for us.
And that gets right to the very core of the
Gospel.
And at the core of the Gospel, when we drill
down into the Gospel, what we are always going
to find right there at the core is the word
grace.
Note, where you find that here in our text,
starting in verse 7.
But to each one of us, grace was given.
The first word of the definition of
Christianity as a whole should always be grace
.
Obedience in the Christian life comes after
grace has been granted and in response to
grace from God, but grace alone by itself,
that's all of God, 1000%.
And as you know with grace, He initiates grace
in our lives.
He extends grace first so that more than
anything else, again, biblical Christianity
can be
defined if you had to just put an overarching
phrase, "God's grace."
The Bible knows a whole lot more about giving
than getting, right?
Because it's God's nature to give.
What did Jesus say?
It is more blessed to what?
Give than to receive.
And grace, by definition, it's an act of
giving.
Use no grace unless it acts in giving.
Look again at verse 7.
But to each one of us, grace was given
according to the measure of Christ's gift.
So grace gives and it gives in a measure that
is unmerited, undeserved, unlearned and free.
Grace is not something that is dependent on
the receiver of it.
Grace is only dependent upon the giver of it.
And in the big picture understanding, God's
grace is a self-donation given by Him.
It's not an object that He gives that is
important.
That's what it is.
It is Himself that He gives to us.
God's grace is God giving Himself to undes
erving sinners like all of us.
God so loved the world that He, what, gave His
only begotten Son.
Why is that an act of self-giving?
Because Jesus said if you see Me, you've seen
the Father, right?
I and the Father are one.
So God gave Himself in giving Christ.
He is the way, remember He said, that replaces
our lostness.
He is the truth that replaces our ignorance
and He is the life that replaces our spiritual
deadness.
What do you tell the woman at the well?
I am the living water.
If you drink this water, you'll never thirst
again.
So it's always self-donation with God.
It's always self-giving with Christ.
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9, "
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your
sake He became poor, so that you through His
poverty might become rich."
So God emptied Himself in Christ in order to
make all of us undeserving sinners rich,
not with money, but with eternal riches, the
riches that count.
And over and over and over, we see in the New
Testament these examples of God's giving.
And that's again what we see here in verse 7.
Look at it again of our text, "But to each one
of us, grace was given according to the
measure of Christ's gifts."
Now let me tell you just a brief word about
this whole text that we're looking at that
I just read when we started out.
We are going to see the gifts of Christ to the
individual believer.
And then in the middle of this text, in verses
8 to 10, we are going to see from Paul how
it is that Christ has the right to give these
gifts.
And then at the back end of this text, it's
going to be the gifts of Christ to the total
church, to the church in general.
So let's start with the gifts to the
individual believer.
Again, verse 7, "But to each one of us," that
's Christians.
There's no Christian that's left out here.
There is no such thing as a non-gifted
believer.
This is repeated in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians
12, "To each one of us, grace ends given."
And that's because it's always grace, right,
that we would ever get anything from God.
Gift or salvation or otherwise.
I quoted R.C. Sproul last time.
As soon as you start talking about deserving
mercy or God owing you mercy or grace, you're
not talking about mercy or grace anymore.
By definition, both are undeserved.
And then Paul says grace was given according
to the measure of Christ's gift.
And it's interesting, the Greek word for
measure here has to do with quantity.
To each one of us, we have been given a
measured out gift, a certain quantity, a
certain definition.
And in this sense, it's singular because
notice what it says, gift.
It says gift.
Now, theologians, commentators, squabble about
all this, but we don't need to squabble.
It's pretty simple to me, gift, but at the
same time, as it says singular gift, we know
that there are many areas or aspects of that
same giftedness.
Look at Romans 12, 6.
Romans 12, 6.
Notice we have gifts that differ according to
the, there's that word again, grace given
to us.
Each one of us is to exercise them accordingly
.
And then if you keep reading in that text, he
gives you some examples of these gifts.
Notice again, these are grace gifts.
You don't earn them.
They're freely given by God.
1 Corinthians 12, verse 4.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same
spirit, the Holy Spirit.
And then of course, we get the great example
of the church being one body made up of many
members.
Look there at 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12, for
even as the body is one and yet has many
members and all the members of the body,
though they are many or one body, so also is
Christ.
And he goes on to explain there in that text
how we are one body of Christ made up of many
members and the human body is the perfect
example.
All the members of our human body operating in
different ways to make up one functioning
body.
That's the perfect illustration for the body
of Christ.
That is how God designed the church to operate
.
Our bodies are feet, hands.
Everything does something different, brain.
Everything's doing something different, but it
all comes together to make up one functioning
body.
So this means we have all individually been
given a gift when you come to faith in Christ
and we can have different levels and
categories and aspects of forgiveness of gifts
that we're
supposed to exercise in serving to make the
body of Christ function properly in the world.
Some examples preaching, teaching, serving,
exhortation, praying, encouragement, giving,
mercy.
I mean we can go down a long list, but again,
first Corinthians 12, 4, there are varieties
of gifts with the same spirit and then first
Corinthians 12, 11, but one in the same spirit
works all these things distributing to each
one individually, just as he wills.
That's every single Christian comes under that
.
So it's the spirit's work to give out these
gifts and guess what?
Every Christian is like a snowflake.
There are no two Christians exactly, precisely
alike when it comes to giftedness.
Listen, some people have the same gifts, no.
If God can do that with fingerprints and God
can do that with DNA and God can do that
with snowflakes, there's no two alike and He
can do it with us and He has in the way
that each one of us have been uniquely gifted
to serve in His church and He blends us all
together in exercising these gifts to make up
one functioning church in the world, but
we get a problem in this situation.
We get dysfunctional when people in the church
want to make Christianity a spectator sport.
What do I mean by that?
Well, they just show up to watch it happen.
Serve me.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm going home.
When each individual Christian does not do
what God has enabled you to do and gifted to
you to do, when you don't exercise those gifts
, that, folks, is when the church is not able
to function in the way that God has designed
it to work.
If you want to bring glory to God with your
life, and if you're a Christian, that should
be your purpose in life above everything else,
it starts with you exercising this giftedness
that He is giving you, starts in your church,
ministering to one another, and then it r
ipples
out from there, praying for one another.
We do a great job of that here at Providence,
don't we, encouraging one another, serving
one another, helping one another in whatever
is needed when somebody needs help.
Each one of us has our own unique, individual
giftedness to contribute to the body of Christ
.
If I have something mechanical happen at my
house, you can forget about it with me.
It's got to be either Jordan, especially techn
ologically, it's got to be Jordan and her
giftedness to
fix TVs and Internet and all of that, or
something else I got to call a brother and say
, "Hey,
come help me."
It's just one example.
But after presenting this idea of individual
giftedness in verse 7, Paul wants to go on
to talk about the general gift that are given
in the church.
But before he does that, he stops.
And he does what we've seen earlier in Ephes
ians, he does like a parenthesis in between
individual
gifts and gifts given in general to the church
.
And in so doing, next, he's going to quote
Psalm 6818.
And let me give you the overview.
The point here, the biggest point is he's
showing us why it is that Christ had the right
as Jesus to give these gifts that we're fixing
to look at.
Look at verse 8, "Therefore it says, when he
ascended on high, he led captive a host
of captives, and he gave gifts to men."
That is a direct quote from Psalm 6818.
Now if you study Psalm 68, you will find that
it is a victory hymn composed by David to
celebrate God's conquest of what at that time
was the Jesuit city of Jerusalem.
And what you will further find if you go home
and study that Psalm tonight is really it's
a picture of God as a conquering hero.
So as the Psalm starts out, God sets out to
make war with his enemies.
And God wins, of course, because he's God.
He goes out to war and he's victorious.
And he comes back and it shows God, as it were
, verse 18, "ascending the hill of victory."
And he's got the spoils of victory with him,
and he's got the captives with him.
That's the picture.
And Paul, use of this here in Ephesians, tells
us that this is also a prophecy of Jesus
Christ.
And it's always interesting when you have the
New Testament revealing more depth to what
was originally written in the Old Testament in
a different sense.
And that's what we have here.
It's a picture of the great victory of Jesus
over Satan, sin, death, hell, and the grave,
as we're fixing to see.
Now, to add to this picture, imagine a king of
Israel and go out to the battling wind.
He came back to the city.
He would ascend the hill of Mount Zion, that
famous site in Jerusalem.
And behind him, there'd be two things.
There'd be the spoils of victory, the riches,
and there would be people.
And there would be slaves from that foreign
nation taken as a spoil.
Sorry, that's just part of history.
Most of history is filled with slavery.
And there would be a second group.
Notice it says here in verse 8 again, "He led
captive a host of captives."
Now with this Israel king, that would be
Israelites who were in prison of the nation
that he had
just conquered.
And he brings them out of that jail.
So the conquering king would have people from
the nation that they had just defeated and
his own people that he freed out of jail, out
of that nation's captivity.
And that picture is what Paul is seeing here
in Christ.
Now, stay with me.
When Jesus died on the cross, it was the most
major paradigm shift, we could say, both in
our world and in the spiritual realm that
there has ever been.
What looked like from the outside looking in
looked like a major loss at Calvary with
Jesus up there bleeding and dying in the most
hideous way ever invented for a human being
to die, crucifixion, was actually the greatest
win in human history, in reality, in the
bigger
picture as holy justice was satisfied in his
substitutionary atonement for all believers.
And again, after the resurrection and the
whole thing is completed, Satan's sin, death,
hell, and the grave are defeated.
Now, let's dig in a little further, and here's
where we get into differences of opinion
between commentators, theologians, pastors, as
to exactly what is going on here.
Okay.
I see Stacy nodding her head.
She knows what I'm fixing to get into.
Now first, instead of giving you all the
different views and keeping you here till 230,
I'm just
going to give you where I am right now
currently with this subject matter.
And I want you to know I am in no way dogmatic
about this.
If you can sit down with me with your Bible
and give me some scriptural evidence as to
why you think your view is more correct than
mine, I'm here for it.
I'm here to be convinced by your argument.
Now, you have to come with your Bible, not
just who you read or what you think, but you
come with your Bible and sit down and say, "No
, brother Philip, I think this means this.
We'll make a pot of coffee and I'll be glad to
hear it.
You might change my mind."
But for now, this is where I'm at, okay?
Here the cross.
Jesus ascended, as it were, the mountain of
victory, as we just talked about.
And behind him, he led captive, a host of capt
ives.
Other translations say he led captivity
captive.
That's Paul's idea here.
And let's just follow these next two verses to
see just what exactly Paul is meaning here.
Jesus comes back with these spoils and in this
situation it's gifts to give and captives.
Now Paul wants to explain who this is.
Who is this psalmist talking about?
Verse 9, now this expression, he ascended,
what does it mean that he also had descended
into the lower parts of the earth?
What is that?
That's quite a phrase, right?
So but notice first, the one who ascended in
verse 8, Paul is telling us in verse 9, this
same one also descended into the lower parts
of the earth.
Verse 10, he who descended is himself, also he
who ascended far above all the heavens
so that he may might fill all things.
Now you already know who this is, but just to
give you a biblical example, who is he
that fills all things, well we learned that
back in Ephesians 1, verse 23, which is his
body, the fullness of him who fills all and
all and in context to his that Ephesians 1,
20, which he brought about in Christ, okay?
So clearly we're talking about Jesus here.
Verse 8, and back in our text, he ascended,
verse 9, he ascended, verse 10, we find the
phrase, he ascended.
And you remember in Acts 1, what happened
after the resurrection, Jesus has the apostles
around him and he ascended into heaven and a
cloud received him out of their sight.
So Paul is saying, I believe, Christ is the
one who won the victory, brought the spoils,
that's the gifts, and led the captives free.
Now let's get to the nitty-gritty, alright?
Who are the captives?
Well, I'm going to present a case using some
other scriptures to tell you who I think these
captives are, alright?
So we're going to go over to 1 Peter, chapter
3, verse 18, starting in verse 18, "For Christ
also died for sins, once for all, the just for
the unjust, so that he might bring us
to God," now watch, this is the key phrase, "h
aving been put to death in the flesh, but
made alive in the Spirit."
So simply put, it's this, when Jesus was
crucified, he was put to death, he was dead in
the flesh,
but he was still alive in the Spirit, his
outer man died, his inner man was alive, that
's
just like us, just like us when we die, he
never lost consciousness when he died, okay?
His Spirit was still, all systems go, same as
us when we die, and have you ever asked
a question, where was Jesus for the three days
when his body was in the grave, you ever
thought about that?
He had not yet ascended to his Father,
remember, lots of people have wrestled down
through
church history with the text that refer to
this subject matter and have come up with
some very different conclusions from one
another, and again I'm just going to give you
where
I am on this particular subject right now
today in 2025, I am subject to change, and
I will let you know if I do, but right now
this is where I am.
I think where Jesus was in those three days,
or part of where he was, was descending to
the lower parts of the earth, as it says here
in our text.
Notice the end of verse 18 in verse Peter
chapter 3, okay, first, "but made alive in
the Spirit," that's the end of 18, and then we
go into 19, "in which," alright now notice,
"in which" modifies the word Spirit, "made
alive in the Spirit, in which in his Spirit
also he went and made proclamation to the Spir
its now in prison," whoa!
What in the world is that?
Spirits in prison, look, you got to deal with
what it's saying here.
Spirits now in prison clearly can't be guys in
Angola.
They have Spirits, but that's clearly not what
he's referring to here.
Now, let me give you a summary statement of my
view here.
During the Old Testament times, from the
Hebrew, the place of the dead was known as H
ades,
or shield.
We're not talking about hell in the final hell
, we find that in the book of Revelation,
the Lake of Fire, Hades is cast into the Lake
of Fire, that's the final, final hell, Lake
of Fire.
But things were different, I believe, with
where the dead went before the cross, before
Jesus' substitutionary atoning sacrifice, and
here's how I think this might help you
to understand this.
Imagine I draw a picture of a circle for you
right here, and now what I'm going to do is
I'm going to draw a line straight across the
middle of the circle like this, so here's
your circle, and right in the middle there's a
line.
And imagine in your circle, with the line
going across the middle, there's an upper
section, if you will, of this circle where the
believing righteous dead went when they
died.
Their Spirits went there in Hades, Hades is
the circle, after they died.
The lower part in the circle of Hades, the
whole thing is Hades, is where the unbelieving
unrighteous dead went in Hades after they died
.
And also down in the lower part of Hades were
these bound demons that we're fixing to talk
about in just a minute.
Now hold that thought for just a second, and
let me just get a quick review, Hades, Sheol,
face of the dead, that's how it's defined,
okay, in Scripture, that's where all the dead
people's spirits went when they died, upper
half believers, she's referred to as paradise.
Not no bad stuff happening there, no judgment
happening there, but not yet heaven in the
full presence of God, lower half of Hades,
unbelievers, unrighteous, and also in this
lower half of Hades, this certain group of
bound fallen angels, demons.
There's two kind of fallen angels, there's
ones that are running around loose, wreaking
havoc, can't possess a believer because the
Holy Spirit indwells us, but can possess unbel
ievers,
we see that in Scripture and wreaking havoc in
people's lives and in the church and all
the rest.
But there's also some bound demons, we find
them in several Scriptures, they are in a
prison, they are in a pit, we see that in the
book of Revelation, the abyss, the bottomless
pit, different names, how did they get there?
Well, here's where it's fixing to really get
juicy, okay, verse 19, let's go back to that
in Peter, in which also he, Jesus, went and
made proclamation to the spirits now in prison
,
who are they?
Peter, well he tells you, these spirits now in
prison, verse 20, who were once disobedient.
We found out, that's what they were, when the
patience of God kept waiting, that's when
it happened, their disobedience in the days of
Noah, during the construction of the ark,
in which a few, that is eight, persons were
brought safely through the water.
Now just a plain reading of that, what do you
have?
We've got some disobedient spirits, who were
disobedient, now they're in prison and when
were they disobedient?
They were disobedient during the days of Noah,
everybody with me so far, okay, this is what
I think this is, this right here, Genesis 6 is
the days of Noah, Genesis 6, 1 and 2.
Now it came about when men began to multiply
on the face of the land and daughters were
born to them, that the sons of God, and that
phrase in almost every case in the Old
Testament
is referring to angels, sons of God, there's a
couple places where it's not, but most
of the places is referring to angels, saw that
the daughters of men were beautiful and
they took wives for themselves, whomever they
chose, now here's where it gets wild, we're
getting into some high strangeness right now,
I think, and I'm fixing to show you this verse
,
that these fallen angels, I don't know how, I
can't answer that, but I think in some way
they cohabitated with these daughters of men
and they produced this hybrid race, and I'll
show you this, look at chapter 6 of Genesis in
verse 4, the Nephilim were on the earth
in those days, that's a different group, and
also after, and we have to talk about that
one later, afterward when the sons of God,
same phrase, I believe it's fallen angels,
came into the daughters of men and they bore
children to them, and it goes on to describe
these children, these were the mighty men, men
who were of old, men of renown, now there's
two basic views here that's happened, some
believe, and this is my position, but these
are actual fallen angels who produced this
hybrid race during the time and the days of
Noah, alright, there are other views, another
major view is called the line of Seth, inter
married
with the line of Cain and produced this
problem, it's purely a human understanding of
human
beings and the sons of God are referring to
actual just human beings and not demons here,
that's another view and I won't go all through
that, but let's go back to where I am, actual
demons, how, I can't answer that because it
doesn't give it that in scripture, this is
John MacArthur's view and he would refer to
the products of this unholy union as a bunch
of Rosemary's babies running around on the
earth, if you're familiar with that creepy
old movie from the 70s, Rosemary's Baby, if
not don't watch it, it's terrible, I'm telling
you, but this is why, and I've often thought
of this, you think about the people of our
day, I mean how much more wicked could the
people of Noah's day been than the people
of our day, well, I think the reason for the
major wickedness that made God destroy the
whole world with a flood is primarily to wipe
out the race of these hybrids and all the
wickedness
that they were doing on the earth to just
completely wipe them out along with all the
wickedness that they had really stirred up the
human beings to do, and then God, I believe
and I'm going to show you, I'm going to give
you biblical evidence to make my case, I'm
fixing to show you, I believe that God
uniquely punished these particular demons who
didn't
keep, as the old King James says, their first
estate, but went past their boundaries of
what they were supposed to do by putting them
into this pit, this prison, this abyss, I
think
that is who, go back to 1 Peter 3 19, I think
that is who Peter is calling these spirits
now in prison that Jesus went and made pro
clamation to, okay, who, next verse, verse 20,
who these
spirits in prison were once disobedience, when
, when the patience of God kept waiting
in the days of Noah, there it is right there,
Genesis says Noah preached for 120 years
while the ark was being built, and at the same
time that was happening, I believe what
this is saying is that these was when these
demons were running riot throughout the earth,
stirring up the wickedness in the people and
overstepping these boundaries that God had
set for them in this vile, vile disobedience
to God, and I think Peter refers to this in
another verse, look with me now, in two verses
actually, look over at 2 Peter chapter 2,
verses 4 and 5, notice this, for if God did
not spare the angels when they sinned, now
that can't be holy angels can it, oh, gotta be
fallen angels, for if God did not spare
the angels when they sinned, but cast them
into hell, now you have to know the Greek
here, it's interesting, Peter borrows from
actually Greek culture because the Greek
word for hell there is taurus, and the Greeks
taught that taurus was the very lowest place
in Hades, but keep going in this verse, cast
them into hell and committed them to pits
of darkness reserved for judgment, and guess
what comes in the very next verse, he refers
to Noah again and did not spare the ancient
world, but preserved Noah a preacher of
righteousness
with seven others when he brought a flood upon
the world of the ungodly, so two times,
when Peter is talking about these angels that
sinned, these spirits now in prison, and they
're
committed to pits of darkness, first Peter
says, spirits in prison at the same time in
both of those texts, he adds to it during the
days of Noah, in the days of Noah, and
I'm not done, I got another verse for you, in
Jude, Jude only has one chapter, so verse
five, look at this, and angels, you're fixing
to see these have to be fallen angels, angels
who did not keep their own domain, but
abandoned their proper abode, he has kept,
here it is
again, in eternal bonds under darkness for the
judgment of the same, of the great day,
so once again, these fallen angels didn't keep
their proper abode, he has put them in
this eternal special judgment of darkness to
the great day, I think all of those verses
are talking about this same subject, it's wild
, I know we're on Mr. Toad's wild ride,
I understand that, but this is a supernatural
book and we live in a supernatural existence,
and now I think that Jesus descended to this
particular place, where these particular
spirits
were put into prison, these fallen angels who
were once disobedient and not keeping
their own domain, but abandoned their proper
abode, impregnating the women of Noah's day,
and they were punished by God by being put
because of their horrendous crime that had
never been done before since in that pit, in
fact, if you remember when Jesus cast the
demons out, and they said, no, don't send us
to the pit, and what did he do, he sent them
into the pigs and they went off to cliff, they
knew about this pit, I think that's talking
about the same thing, but if you keep going,
here's some further evidence, keep going in
verse Peter 3, 22, speaking of Jesus, who is
at the right hand of God, having gone into
heaven after angels and authorities and powers
had been subjected to him, and you remember
from earlier in our study, authorities,
principalities, powers referring to fallen
angels, they're
clearly angels there in that verse too, and so
what did Jesus do when he went down into
this spirits and prison situation, we'll go
back to 1 Peter 3, 19, it says, he went and
made proclamation, now it doesn't tell us
exactly what the proclamation is, but I think
when you put the whole thing together, this is
what I think, I think he went and proclaimed
to those fallen angels that what you guys
thought what looked like was a big defeat
at Calvary actually was the greatest victory
in all of human history, and Paul is referring
to fallen angels and Colossians look at 215
when he says when he had disarmed the rulers
and authorities he made a public display of
them having triumphed over them through him,
I think that that is what Jesus the victor of
death, hell and the grave did when he went
to make this proclamation, now go back to Eph
esians 4, we're going to add to this, I think
on
his way out of that lower part of Hades where
Jesus proclaimed victory to those fallen
angels,
he went through the top part of Hades where
all the believers were go back to Ephesians
4, 8 and he led captive a host of captives, I
think other translations again he led
captivity
captive, these are all these Old Testament
saints, and let me add this again, this part
of Hades is what I believe that Jesus is
referring to in the parable, and I don't think
it's
a story that he made up, I think it really is
true where remember he talks about Abraham's
bosom is where Lazarus was and the rich man
was down and there's a great gulf in between
them in Luke 16, and I think this is referring
to the same Hades if you remember the circle
of Hades because these Old Testament saints
think about it before the cross, they couldn't
enter I don't think into the presence of a
holy God yet because Jesus' blood had not
actually been shed yet, it had not actually,
payment had not actually been made for the
sins of believers, now they believed like
Abraham and it was counted to them as
righteousness,
they received it by faith of what was to come,
but it hadn't come yet, it hadn't happened
yet kind of like on credit in today's terms if
you will, when Jesus died and he actually
made atonement for all who believe, I think he
went into Abraham's bosom and led captivity
captive and brought them to heaven to be in
God's presence, but they had to wait until
Jesus actually purchased their redemption on
the cross, that's the triumph of Calvary,
and when he won that victory, as Hebrews says,
he perfected forever by one offering
them that are sanctified, and he made his pro
clamation to those spirits in prison, he
opened the doors of that upper part of Hades
and released the captives to be in the
presence
of God, and now after the cross all believers,
when we die, we don't go back to that place
because Paul says to be absent with the body
is to be present with who, the Lord, and we
go straight to heaven after Jesus' work has
now been completed, now that was a wild ride,
I had to fill in what captivity captive meant
in order to actually get us to the broader
meaning here of Ephesians 4, alright, because
there's a broader meaning here, but I had
to explain that, you just get, oh, captivity
captive, just skip over that, we got to
explain
it, right, it was Jesus' victory on the cross
and conquering the grave that allowed him
to be the one who had the right to give us
gifts that every single believer has given,
this is why you cannot treat your spiritual
giftedness that you have lightly when you
contemplate the cost that Jesus had to pay for
Christ to be able to grant you that privilege,
the infinite price that he paid cannot take
this subject lightly, Jesus didn't die on
the cross just to save you, Jesus died to
enable you to serve him and to bring him glory
with your life, and guess what, he gives you,
all of us believers, the spiritual giftedness
to be able to do that, now, having made his
point in this parenthesis, next Paul wants
us to know he not only gave gifts to
individual Christians, but also to the total
body of
Christ, remember again from verse 8, he led
captive, a host of captive, and he gave gifts
to men, now, here comes some of the gifts,
verse 11, because we're done with the parenth
esis,
okay, he gave some as apostles and some as
prophets and some as evangelists and some
as pastors and teachers, now, I used up most
of my time with the parenthesis today, so
you're going to have to listen faster and we
'll cover some more this next time when
we get back into this text, Jesus is given
each believer a gift singular that can have
many facets of giftedness and he's given the
whole body of Christ, what we could refer
to as gifted men, first, verse 11, apostles,
are we indebted to the apostles, you better
believe it, they wrote the New Testament, we
wouldn't have a New Testament without the
apostles, next says prophets, now, here, and
you can go look at this in Acts, he's
referring
to this special group of men in the early
church who spoke for God, the Word of God,
but we believe that their office ceased with
the apostles and with the completion of the
New Testament, sometimes they spoke in direct
revelation, sometimes they expounded
revelation
already given, this is what Ephesians chapter
2, verse 20 tells us of both of these groups
of men, that they were the foundation of the
church, this is two special groups of men,
where it says having been built on the
foundation of the apostles and the prophets,
that's the
two groups we're referring to here, Christ
Jesus himself being the cornerstone, okay,
and then next in Ephesians 4, verse 11, it
says evangelist and some as pastors and
teachers
and there are people who debate whether
evangelist is an office and all of that, but
let me tell
you, simply put, this is my view, God has been
so good to his people to give gifted
men evangelists, men who proclaim the good
news of the gospel to unbelievers and
immediately
who comes to my mind is Ed Lacy.
Ed Lacy, just how much his evangelistic
ministry meant to me and countless others
around this
whole globe and think about it, his ministry
continues on years after his death, that's
how much of an impact this one man made with
his evangelistic ministry and then next you
see here in verse 11, some pastors and
teachers, now without a big boondoggle
explanation,
basically in context, this is understood as a
single office of leadership, pastors and
teachers is basically you put that together as
teaching shepherd, teaching shepherd, that's
synonymous with elder, bishop or overseer,
pastor, and all down through church history
we can think of some really very uniquely,
especially gifted men who have served in this
role and have made a worldwide impact, men
like the reformers, Luther, Calvin, Knox,
later Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Jonathan
Edwards, these men wrote books and preached
sermons
that are still being published today in 2025,
can you imagine having such an influence and
impact on the world that centuries later your
works are still being published and then think
about in our day who we looked at again in
Sunday school this morning, R.C.
Sproul, now he's in heaven and the impact of
his ministry as a pastor, he finished up
as a pastor, still happening today, long after
he's died, I get the little newsletter from
Ligonier and all the different languages that
their materials are published in, it's
incredible,
and then John MacArthur still in his 80s,
still preaching, pray for him, he's in the
hospital
right now, he's had three major surgeries with
his heart and lungs last year and he's back in
there right now with complications, but he
just preached a couple of weeks ago at Grace
Community,
think of the extraordinary ability that God
had given men like this to expound the word of
God
to the point of worldwide impact and then
there's the countless nameless men who have
faithfully
served as teaching shepherds all over the
world who will never be known much outside of
their own
church, but they're doing the same work,
serving the Lord with the gifts that Christ
has given,
got one right there, Pastor Brother Earl right
there and with our visiting us today, so
remember
now where we started, I'm going to wrap up
with this, remember where we started in
chapter 4 and
verse 1, Paul remember he implores us, that
word is literally begs us to walk worthy of
the calling
with which we have been called, remember it's
a walk of humility, it's a walk of unity,
what we learned today about this walk because
we're still in that primary context is that it
is a walk where you recognize the resources
that you have with the spiritual giftedness
that God has given you and you recognize the
ministries of gifted men that God has given
to the whole church, so don't look at
Christianity as something just that you do for
God, that's
complete legalism, understand it's what God
has done for you and all of the doing that we
do on
our end is simply a response to what he has
done for us in Christ and how could we want to
do any
other but to give our lives to serving him
with a great miracle of grace that he has
extended
to us, well that was a wild ride, I understand
that, if you got questions about that you know
where to get me, hit me up, if you got a
different opinion on that and you studied that
and you want
to convince me of your position, I'll be glad
to hear it, but one thing we won't do is argue
with us and fight about it, we'll just talk
about it and as I tell you all the time you've
got the
right to be wrong, okay, right, all right let
's pray together. Lord we thank you for this
day,
I thank you for Lord this beautiful Sunday,
every Sunday is beautiful because it's your
day
and Lord there are things as as Peter instead
of Paul, things with Paul is just hard to
understand
and certainly we get into these areas where it
's not a crystal clear clarity
with text like we have in justification and
the gospel and things that we absolutely must
believe
in order to be Christians, but there's room
for us to have disagreements and work our way,
this is why you have this I believe, you want
us to dig into these texts to understand this
magnificent word Lord, if there's any error
with anything I've said today Lord, I pray you
forgive me because you know my heart and you
know my motive Lord and I just thank you for
this
wonderful Sunday and we pray that every ounce
of everything that we have done this day has
been
done in such a way as to bring you glory. In
Jesus name we pray. Amen.