I remember Christmas as a child. My parents would think about what would best suit me for a present. It was not always what I asked for. Some of the best gifts I received were not things I had asked for but things my parents gave me anyway. I’ll mention two merely for nostalgia’s sake. The first, Lincoln Logs. I remember getting up on Christmas day and playing with those things. I don’t remember why they held such a grip on me but it was a wonderful toy. The other toy was this train set that was big enough for me to ride on. It was initially set up around the kitchen table but was later relegated to the far end of the basement for some reason that I don’t know. But it was great. It was only a little more than a circle but I would go around and around on it. Those two gifts make me yearn to be a little boy again. Well enough for nostalgia.
If our own parents can figure out what kind of gifts that are suitable for us how much more is God able to know how to give us spiritual gifts that fit us properly. I entitled this message, “An Effective Measure of Grace” because in verse 7, Paul says, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. This is the key idea of the passage. Christ has given spiritually gifted people to the church for changing your life as an individual and the life of the church as a body. God has truly given us all that we need for life and godliness in this church. There are three aspects to this gracious giving of gifts to the church.
I. Christ’s Authority in Giving Gifts
The first aspect to this gracious giving of gifts to the church is Christ’s authority in giving gifts. Verse 8 shows us the key to understanding verses 9-10 as Christ’s coming to earth and his return into heaven (as verse 9 says, “the lower region, namely the earth” – he didn’t descend to hell). Look at how Paul describes Christ’s action in verse 8. “Therefore it says, ‘When He ascended on high he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” The quotation that Paul makes is from Psalm 68:18 where the Lord ascends onto Mount Sinai after delivering the people from the hand of the Egyptians. He is described as making a triumphal entry as a conquering warrior. However, in this case Paul describes Christ as giving gifts. The Old Testament passage speaks of Yahweh receiving gifts. Paul is most probably making an allusion to Peter’s words in Acts 2:33 where he says, “Therefore, [Jesus] having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this [Holy Spirit outpouring] which you both see and hear.”
So Jesus has made His own triumphal entry into heaven. He received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father with the authority to distribute these spiritual gifts as He has seen fit.
Because of Jesus’ victory over death He is now the conqueror who is able to distribute the spoils to His followers. This is the picture that Paul paints for us. Jesus has now gone into heaven at the right hand of the Father and is giving spiritual gifts to believers for the benefit of the church.
II. Christ’s Reason for Giving Gifts
The second aspect to this gracious giving of gifts to the church is Christ’s reason for giving gifts. We see this in verses 11-13. Paul says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
Paul lists four categories of gifted individuals in verse 11. Though it may look like there are five categories, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, the last two pastor/teacher are really the description of one individual. The reason I group pastor and teacher together is that Paul separates the other categories by a small particle translated as the word “some” in our Bibles but between pastor and teacher there is no such particle. For this reason I, along with many others, see four categories and not five. This is not to say that there is no gift of teacher for the Scripture mentions that in other places. But Paul has listed these four categories that relate to the maturity of the church of Christ.
Two of the categories are foundational and their role has ended and two are structural and their role is ongoing. The first two are apostle and prophet. Paul mentioned these in 2:20 as being the foundation of the New Testament church. The church is built upon the work that they have laid down. And this foundation has come to us in the form of the Word of God, specifically here as the New Testament. And now the structure of the church is continuing to be built under the last two categories of evangelist and pastor/teacher. The evangelist is one who is committed to sharing the good news of the Gospel with people to bring churches into being and help churches grow. These people have a gift of evangelism. All of us are to share the Gospel with others as God gives us opportunity but these people have this gift to witness to others in a way that some of us don’t. We might even call people like this today, missionaries. Then there are the pastor/teachers. These individuals are the shepherds of the congregation committed to and commissioned for the teaching of the whole counsel of the Word of God. The shepherd is to make sure that the sheep are protected and receiving good nourishment. This is the pastor’s role. He is, in the negative sense, to make sure that the influences of the wolves of this world do not encroach upon the sheep. He is then, in the positive sense, to feed them all the good substance of the Word of God to nourish their souls. So what are the reasons that Christ has given these spiritual gifts to the church? Paul notes two reasons for Christ giving these spiritual gifts to people.
A. To equip the saints
The first reason that Christ has given these spiritual gifts to people is to equip the saints. The role of the apostles and prophets in giving us the Word of God and the evangelists and pastor/teachers in explaining the Word of God is so that the saints will be equipped. Who are the saints? As we have seen many times in the past, the saints are each one of us who has placed his or her faith in Jesus Christ. We are not saints by our action but by God’s decree through our faith in Christ. We have been made saints, those who are set apart, through Christ alone. You are a saint if you have placed your faith in Christ to save you. But don’t bigheaded about it because you didn’t do anything to deserve that title God made you one because of your faith in Christ. Now what is it for which we are to be equipped? Paul notes two items.
1. for service
The first item is service. The saints are equipped by these apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor/teachers for service. You as part of the church body are being equipped through the reading, preaching and teaching of the Word of God to serve in the church. The pastor and evangelist aren’t the ones who accomplish all the serving in the church. We work together in this capacity to carry out the work of Christ in the world.
2. for edification
The second item is edification. Paul notes that the reason God has given these individuals to train the church is so that they can edify or build one another up in Christ. The question you must ask yourself as part of this church is, “In what way am I being equipped to build up others in the faith?” Some of you may be at a point where you simply need to be equipped. But others of you are perhaps at a place where you can begin to build others up because you are now equipped for the service of Christ. God has gifted you in a certain way to be a benefit to the body of Christ in this place. The question is, “Are you using your gifts for the building up of the body?”
B. to bring the saints
The first reason Christ gave us these gifts was to equip the saints; for service and for edification. The second reason is to bring the saints. To where does God want us brought? There are two places to which God wants to bring us.
1. to unity
The first place to which God wants to bring us is to unity. He wants us to be in unity with one another. To what end is this unity? Paul says in verse 13 that it is a unity of the faith in the Son of God and it is a unity in the knowledge of the Son of God. We need to be unified in our faith in Christ. And we need to be unified in our knowledge of Christ. We not only need to trust in Him (our faith) but we also need to know Him. You can’t trust in someone you don’t know. This is the unity to which God has called us.
There is a movement for unity today in the church. But it is a movement for unity at all costs. The movement stresses likenesses but not differences. The movement says, “Let us find the lowest common denominator on which we can agree.” Those in the movement have defined the lowest common denominator for us, thank you! That LCD is “Jesus.” If YOU worship Jesus and I worship Jesus then we can worship together. Unfortunately the name Jesus means nothing by itself. To some people the name Jesus is simply a curse word. The question we have to answer is, “Which Jesus are you worshipping?” In 2 Corinthians the Apostle Paul said that there was a possibility someone would come along preaching another Jesus whom Paul never preached.
There is a danger that comes with unity if it is not a unity in the knowledge of the Son of God. From the mid part of the 1st century there were already people creeping into the churches who were mixing worship of the true God with Greek philosophy. It was so much so that Paul had to address it in the letter to the Colossians. “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ.”
There is a tendency in every generation to add the philosophical system of the current age into the church. It is a movement away from the simple truth of faith in the real Son of God for salvation. It is simple trust in Christ that brings freedom from the burden and bondage of sin. This is what transforms the heart. We must trust that God’s Word is right without admixture from the culture. Certainly the Word of God speaks to our culture and its need but needn’t be interpreted in light of the movements of our day because they are all corrupted to some extent. We need to start from the Bible and derive our philosophy of life from there and not starting from our observations about life and seek to prove them from the Bible or else we will be deceived.
John in his first letter also addresses this pernicious matter. He defines Jesus along several lines to show who He is because there were some that John said, “Were not of us.” They didn’t believe in the Jesus that John and his fellow apostles had seen. If you look through the first letter of John the real Jesus was God come in the flesh. This real Jesus was bodily resurrected. This real Jesus cleanses us from all sin not just some of it by appeasing the Father’s wrath on our behalf. The real Jesus is one with the Father. We can’t equivocate on these points. We cannot have fellowship with people who deny these essential truths about Jesus our Savior.
Can we unite in Jesus? Yes. But He must be the Jesus of the Bible and not the Jesus of this group or that. He must be the eternally existent, co-equal second person of the Triune God who offers salvation through the shedding of His blood alone which He offered on the cross as a once for all sacrifice in place of our sin.
We need to encourage one another in this unity and not discourage it but we must make sure that it furthers the faith and knowledge of the Son of God.
2. to maturity
The second place to which God wants to bring us is to maturity. Paul describes this in the middle of verse 13, “Until we attain . . . to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” God’s goal for this church is to see this body function as a healthy mature adult. It is to grow in its beauty that belongs to the fullness of Christ. When we are living out our lives as Paul describes it in these chapters our church should look so wonderful to those on the outside because they are seeing the true beauty of Christ. We will be a picture of that first church in Jerusalem where it was said about them, “the people held them in high esteem.” And when we are seeking Christ to work in our lives first and foremost then we will understand how the early believers “kept feeling a sense of awe” as “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Friends, we are a far cry from that place but Paul says that our goal should be to look to this maturity in the church whereby we are experiencing the fullness of Christ. This is our ultimate goal. The church in heaven will be this wonderful body with no spot or wrinkle and God calls us to this same holiness and maturity now. Shall we not work together to encourage one another in this goal? Don’t you want to see our lives so transformed by the power of Christ that the communities around us take notice? God wants to bring us to maturity in our corporate walk with Christ. Let’s set our sights on it. It doesn’t come about by plans or programs but through a sincere desire to use our gifts for the benefit of one another and a reliance on the power of God to accomplish it. We could develop and promote “United 2005” but that won’t do it. Only the power of God can accomplish it and this is where our hope must lie. Do you want to see this? Is the church not where you think it should be? Then you must cry out to God to accomplish it not some petty program. I want to see this beautiful church body grow up in our midst but it can only take place by the power of God. And you must be part of it in calling out for God to make it so. Be careful when you are asking, God might just do some remarkable things in your life. But as we look for God to do this we must look to God’s standard for the church, which is the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ and not be satisfied with anything less.
III. The Result in Giving Gifts
Finally, the third aspect to this gracious giving of gifts to the church is the result in giving gifts. You can see this in verses 14-16 where Paul says, “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” And from these verses we can see that there are two results of this heavenly gift giving that is going on in the church.
A. Stability
The first result of this gift giving is that we would possess stability. There is a need for stability in our Christian life. Paul is noting the need for the believer to recognize and counter falsehood when he meets it. Paul uses three different descriptions of this instability that we are to overcome. First he describes a helpless ship in the midst of the storm tossed ocean. There is no way for the ship to get on course because it is being battered by the wind and waves. Paul says that they are carried about by every wind of doctrine. Have you seen believers like this? They run and cling to every new teaching that comes down the pike. Jesus is coming back next week. Hurry up and run up your credit card debt before the rapture. Here’s a recently discovered ancient document showing Jesus was a health food nut. Take part in His diet (and look with disdain on anyone who doesn’t). They run back and forth soaking up every new teaching because they are not grounded in truth.
Secondly, Paul describes a crooked dice game. The word, “trickery” is the word, “kubeia” from which we get the word “cube” and speaks of the deceit that is often characterized by these street cons who deceive suckers willing to try their luck by throwing their loaded dice or by finding the ball under the cup. We are not to find our doctrine by those TV preachers who twist the Word of God like the crooks who manipulate the dice. We are to find our source of truth by that which has been laid down in the foundation of the church by the apostles and NT prophets. If it is not here, in the Word of God, it is not worth searching out as far as Christian teaching goes. Instead of our lives becoming pure and holy they will become wretched and lowly.
The third way he describes this instability that we must overcome is by relating it to Satan’s own deception. Both words, “craftiness” and “deceitful” are used by Paul in other places to describe Satan’s work in the church. Satan has been using the same kind of deception throughout human history. He has sought continually to bring doubt upon the Word of God. When you have doubts about whether the Word of God is reliable or even relevant to you then Satan is seeking to lead you from the only rock upon which your life can be set. And if you don’t want to be deceived by Satan and his tricksters then you must let God’s Word be the focus and center of your life.
So what does a life of stability look like? It is not characterized by see-saw action in bouncing up and down in one’s life but a steady gradual firm resolution to live a life committed to the Word of God as we fellowship with the people of God.
B. Charity
The second result of this gift giving is that we would possess charity. Our lives are to be characterized by love. This is how Paul begins and ends the final section of this paragraph. The beginning of verse 15 says, “But speaking the truth in love we are to grow up.” And the end of verse 16 says, “[Christ] causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
The way we see people grow in Christ is through speaking the truth in love and the result of this kind of spiritual growth produces love. If we fail to speak the truth then Satan has won the battle and if fail to speak the truth in love he has likewise won because there is no Christ-like beauty in truth spoken without love for whomever it is spoken.
The love of Christ should control us, as Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 5. It is the beauty of this love that brought us to Christ and it is the beauty of this love that should work in our lives a maturity that sees sin as a poor substitute for experiencing the glory of God.
Truth spoken in love declares all the righteous standards of God against sinners but it never fails to declare that in nowhere else and in no one else but God can our full satisfaction be found. These God substitutes, called sin, will never satisfy our hearts because they are rebellion against embracing God and His way.
Are you still a child in the faith being drawn away by your own desires and tossed about by Satan’s lies? Are you still a child in the faith who does not respond to others with the truth in love? Are you willing to seek a stability and love that can only be found in pursuing Christ our head in the church? This is our goal as a church. This is all our aim. It requires the humility to admit our need is found in pursuing Christ first and His righteousness so that all these things may be added unto us. Let us, as a church, pursue Him together. This is the focus to which God has called us.