the mountains tremble before the voice of God. O glory, might, and honor us, right to God our ♪ Thine awful glory shine ♪ ♪ Thou strengthenest thy people ♪ ♪ Unending praise be thine ♪ Amen. And we turn then to our text. for this Ascension Day evening, Ephesians chapter four, which we did have for a family visiting theme not too long ago, but we haven't had a sermon on it any time recently. So we shall read verses one through 10. And we will focus on verses 7 through 10. Let us hear the word of God. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, before we work through this text from start to finish, let us jump first to verse nine. There is a logical statement of the apostle. We could rephrase it with a therefore, could we not? Since he ascended, therefore he must have first descended. Now, if we are speaking about a mere man, that logic doesn't actually follow. There are many saints who the Lord takes up to glory. That's language, which is scriptural. There are even two saints who are taken up without physical death, Enoch and Elijah. And so we can talk about them ascending in a sense. So let's just stick with Enoch and Elijah. Enoch and Elijah ascended. Does it follow that therefore they also descended? No, it doesn't follow. It doesn't follow. So where is this logical statement of the apostle coming from? Well, it comes from this reality. that Jesus Christ is no mere man. That's the reality that the logic flows from. You see what he's saying is this one, this one who is Jesus Christ, this one who was incarnate, born of woman, born under the law, born with flesh, the word become flesh, this one who dwelt among us, if he ascends, therefore it follows. that He has also descended, that He also came down before He ascended back. It is a logical statement, but only if Jesus Christ is both God and man. And surely Christ is God. And it's beautiful, it's astonishing, we might say, that Christ ascended. But it is more astonishing, because he is God, that he first descended, that he might be able to ascend back. That's what's really astonishing. and we'll consider this and how this relates to the spoils of victory that Christ had to won and how he won them with three points this evening. The gifts measured, the gifts given, and the gifts won. So first let's speak about these gifts. the gift which Christ gives, the gift which is measured. And that's what we begin with. We're speaking about these gifts. That language is repeated in verses 7 and 8, and then we might say explained how it is possible in verses 9 and 10. So this language of gifts appears already in verse 7, and these are gifts which are from They are, in fact, His gifts, the measure of Christ's gifts. They are His. They are something which was won by His merit, by His work, by His victory. They are Christ's gifts, but they are given, we might say graciously given. In fact, that is the language of the text. Grace was given. These gifts were given. They were given in a measured way. They were given by Christ, they were measured by Christ. In other words, it starts with Christ, the very fact that they exist is due to Christ, and the measurement by which they go out is also due to Christ. So now, what are these gifts? Well, there is one gift that is the same, that isn't measured in the same sense. And scripture speaks about that gift, which is the gift of eternal life. And so Romans 6 verse 23 says this, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So that's one overarching gift which Christ does give to all His saints. But what are other gifts which vary, which we might say are measured, which we might say are more specifically in view here in verse 7? Well, verse 11 gives us a clue. Verse 11 gives us a clue, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, and the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. In other words, look, there are different offices in the church. They are measured. They are different gifts. They are different offices. They are not all the same, and not everyone has the same office. But the offices themselves are gifts from Christ, which are measured out, dealt out by Christ. It's not as though we can think right of the Apostle Paul, who writes this. What does he say about his own apostleship? Not that I am worthy, but Christ called me anyway. I am the last one, one untimely born. So that's one of the gifts which varies, offices within the church. Another one is, we might say, this, more fully described in 1 Corinthians 12 and in Romans 12, and that is the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of there being various members of the one body who all have different functions. That's another thing in scripture which relates to the various diverse, not always the same, gifts. Gifts are given according to a different measure. So we might say there are a few options here. Various fruits of the spirit, fruits of the spirit, various offices and tasks, and various functions within the body of Christ. We need the head, we need the foot, we need the eye. So 1 Corinthians 12 would speak about this. And this is all tied to one united body, one church united in the spirit and the bond of peace in verse 3. And that is certainly part of the context here. And the applications which flow from this are stated for us in other passages. 1 Corinthians 12 might be the more familiar passage which speaks about there being various parts of the body, but Romans 12 also speaks about it. And what is the application directly stated in Romans 12 tied to this reality that we have differing and various gifts? Well, it says this, but the grace was given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. The reality that we have various gifts measured out by Christ, from Christ, drives us to humility. Whatever gift you have, whatever position you have, it is of Christ. It is from Him. It is His to begin with. It is measured out by Him. This ought to drive us to sober judgment, as the Apostle says in Romans 12. We might think of James 1, verses 9 and 10. Let the lowly brother boast in his exultation, and the rich in his humiliation. In other words, do not allow your status to define you when you are in the body of Christ. Be thankful with whatever position you have, and don't ever make it an excuse for pride. And we might boil down and say, simply speak of it this way. There's another application which flows from this. We should seek to get rid of sin and any sinful differences, but we should not seek to get rid of differences tied to Christ's gifts. You see what we are saying here? What's the human tendency? The human tendency is to say something like, well, why isn't everybody more like me? Well, there are some things that we should seek to get rid of. We should seek to get rid of any sin, of any differences which would be tied to sinful behavior and sinful things. But we're not to seek to get rid of differences as a whole, inherently, essentially. No, on the contrary. This is what Christ has done. We are to rejoice in this. We are to rejoice that there are various gifts. We are to rejoice that one person can serve in this way and another person can serve in another way. We are to rejoice that we are not all exactly the same. We're to rejoice in that. This is how Christ has measured it out. It ought to drive us to unity, never division. So those are some words about the gifts measured, the gifts being various. Let's think again about the gifts given and what kind of gifts they are. And now we're going to come back to this word which has been said in our reading of Psalm 68 earlier, said even before the call to worship, and that is the word spoils of war. Spoils of war. Therefore it says, verse 8, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. Now if we go back to Psalm 68, remember there's lots of war language in Psalm 68. God scatters all of his enemies, verse 1. He's the one who won the victory through the wilderness, verse 7. He's the one who won victories with the women when the men didn't stand up. And verses 11 to 13 are even paraphrasing the song of Deborah from Judges chapter 5. In other words, this is a reference to the victory specifically over Sisera. And there's other more, say, specific references to victories, but then there's also general language towards the end of the psalm about Christ winning future victories. Christ, or about God winning victories. We're getting to how it's also Christ who wins a victory. God wins these victories. He's the one who scatters the enemies. And he's the one who, in Psalm 68 verse 18, what does it say? He is the one who, it uses a different word than the apostle who quotes it. In 68 verse 18 it says, he's the one who received gifts among men. And why is that important? How does that relate to the spoils of war? When it comes to military victory, the custom of old was that the king never kept the spoils of victory for himself. That would have been an incredibly selfish thing to do. It would have broken the code of war, we might say. And so we see examples of this in the Old Testament. We see David in 1 Samuel 30 winning a military victory. disperses the spoils amongst his men. We see all the way back in Genesis, in Genesis 14, Abraham wins the victory over the Canaanites who had taken Lot and his family. And then what does he do? He gives gifts to a whole bunch of names, names which are necessarily familiar. Lot is familiar. Melchizedek might be familiar. He gives part of the spoils of war to them. And then he also gives to Aner, Eshgal, and Mamre. Not names familiar in our Old Testament vocabulary, but they're all there listed in the list of men who, quote, take their share, Genesis 14 verse 24. This is what is done. This is still true in the New Testament times. And so we read in Luke chapter 11, we read in Luke chapter 11 verses 21 and 22, when a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe. But when one stronger attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. See, this is throughout the history of scripture, the pattern. It's not necessarily something we think of today. Warfare is a little bit different today. But from Genesis to Luke, it's the pattern. What this shows is that the taking in victory is tied essentially to the giving. The one flows from the other. You take in victory, you receive, and then you give. And this is an illustration for us, even more than an illustration, a reality of how Christ wins the victory, the great victory over Satan and all the powers of this world. and then takes us, we are his captive, so there's more military language here, although it's language of, right, we were captives, we were rebellious against God, we were captives to our own sin and to the powers of the world, but now Christ changes that, and we're now captives to his love, and we're set free from those other captivities of sin and the world, and we're now his Captives were now taken up in the train of his love, as if we're being pulled along by his victory chariot. And he is the one who receives the spoils of war and gives them to us, his people. You see Christ coming down, being the ascended king, is directly related to the gifts which he gives to his people. It's Christ the Ascended King who pours out the spoils of warfare upon his people. This is the kind of gift we are talking about here. To think about the application brings us into our third point. Because then the question becomes, well, how did Christ win such a great victory that he could pour out gifts on his people? It's a victory over death itself. It's a victory which in order to win, he had to come down. He had to come down. And that's where the logic of the apostle, which we spoke about in the introduction, comes back. Because now we're up to verse nine. How was this victory achieved? This victory was achieved because the divine one, one who is God, came down and won a victory on earth. If Christ did not do this, if Christ had not took on human flesh, if Christ had not died on the cross in our place to take away our sins, not only would we still be in captivity to sin in the world, but we would have no victory reward. These things are all tied together. And see, that's where it comes to the reality that this is what is most astonishing. Christ is God. It's no surprise that he would go back to his eternal home. That's not the surprise. When we know who he is, the astonishing thing, the surprising thing, the unexpected thing is that he came down in the first place so that he might have to ascend back. That's what's astonishing. What does it mean that He also descended into the lower regions of the earth? That's how He won the gifts. That was the only way He could win the gifts. Hebrews Chapter 2, verses 14 and 15 speaks about this reality in this way. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. If Christ didn't come down and take a human body, if He had not come not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, to use the language of Philippians 2, if he had not made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man, if he had not done these things, and being in human form, humbling himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, if he had not done those things as lined out in the great hymn of Philippians 2, 5 to 11, if he had not done those things, there would have been no victory. Because if God never takes on a human form, God can't die. God is spirit, God is eternal. The only way we can speak about God dying in any way is to have one who is both God and man. And then that one can die on a cross, but conquer that death because he is also God and rise again on the third day. And then all these things which he has done, all these unexpected things, Because he's God, why would he have done this? It makes no sense. It is the mystery, the beauty of the gospel, something we cannot understand. He would have never been able to ascend because he would have always been in the ascended, in the heavens, which are far above the heavens. To use the language of verse 10 of our text again, As Christ Jesus says in John chapter 8 verse 14, I know where I came from and where I am going Once again something which no one else on earth can can say right not certainly not in that sense We came from earth we were all born on earth Christ was born on earth, but he's also God eternal. And that takes me to a reflection upon what Psalm 68 is. Do you know the term messianic psalm? We use that phrase once in a while. It's kind of a technical term, isn't it? Messianic psalm, a psalm which speaks about the Messiah. So what are clearly messianic psalms? Psalm 2, Psalm 110. These are clearly Messianic Psalms. They talk about God's anointed agent who will come. And then the New Testament makes it clear that Christ is that agent. He is that anointed one. That's not what's going on in Psalm 68. Psalm 68 doesn't speak about an anointed one, an agent of God. Psalm 68 is all about what God himself You see, the Apostle is always recognizing the reality that Christ is God. Is Christ the agent, the Son of God who came? Yes. Is Christ the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Triune God? Yes. Is Christ also God? I and the Father are one. Yes. So it's not only Messianic Psalms, like Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, which refer to Christ, it's all of the Old Testament, which speaks about Christ, because Christ is God. Now, do you see again how the logic from verse eight to verse nine follows? He's talking about what Christ does in verse eight. And then he says, look, here's my logic. If he ascended, that means he also descended. Well, yes. Because He is God. He is the God who acts in Psalm 68. He is the God who even came down and won the victory in the flesh. Jesus Christ is God. He did descend, win the victory, and also ascend, taking his saints with him and showering the spoils of war from his victory upon us. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, you are far above all the heavens. You are above the universe itself. And you are also the one who dwelt among us in humble form, suffering for us, winning victory for us, and then ascending. Ascending to your eternal throne, now as the incarnate one. Surely, Lord God, your riches are unsearchable. Amen. So let's sing about the conqueror who mounts in triumph. Let's stand and sing 373 together. and the gates on in glory. Trumpets sound with jubilee. O'er the fattles of armies, he has gained the victory. human nature will sit in heavenly places, there with you in glory stand. Jesus reigns adored by angels, and where God is on the throne, mighty Lord in your ascension be my Please remain standing, people of God. Come now to our benediction. Following that, our doxology, 564. And then we once again have the offering in the back, immediately following the doxology. This evening, that offering's for Pablo Landazzuri in Ecuador. mission. Let us hear the parting blessing of our God. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. ♪ Who only You and wondrous works in glory let excel ♪ ♪ And blessed be His glorious name through all eternity ♪ ♪ Of all earth let His glory be heard ♪ Let it be. you.