.
Now, what does this statement mean, there is one body, one spirit, and then he goes through all these one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, all these different things.
The idea here is that we can have unity because of the fact that we have all of these things listed here in common.
So our unity is built upon the fact that there's one body, one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, right?
So how can we be unified when we come from a diversity of backgrounds, different demographics, different regions of the country, maybe in the case of the Ephesians it was probably the same thing, people had moved from different parts of the world.
We have that here in Phoenix where people have come from different countries, different states to be here.
How can we have unity when we're from different countries, maybe originally spoke different languages, different religious backgrounds, different financial status.
The way that we have unity is that we rally around the things of God that we have in common.
Okay, so what do we have in common?
There's one body.
Now the one body goes back to the big long discussion in chapter 2 about how the Jews and the Gentiles are now one body.
So we don't have a Messianic Jew church down the street and then the Gentile Christian church.
No, this is a Christian church.
There should be no such thing as Messianic Judaism.
That's ridiculous.
It's called Christianity.
Get out of that Messianic Judaism mess and get in Christianity.
You should be in a church with the Gentiles because we're all supposed to be of one body here once we believe in Christ.
Whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be bond or free.
So there's one body, meaning that we don't have a separate church for black people, a separate church for white people, a separate church for Indians.
No, there's one body.
Okay, God's house, a house of prayer for all nations.
So this is the source of our unity, one body, one Holy Spirit.
Right, we're all, if we're saved, indwelled by the same Holy Spirit.
That should cause us to have a lot in common.
That should cause us in some ways to think the same way if we're listening to the Spirit.
If we're hearing what the Spirit is saying, then one body, one Spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling.
Right, so we all have the same calling, the same Spirit, we're all members of the same body.
There's one Lord.
Right, one Lord.
And that's talking about Jesus specifically here in this context.
One Lord, right? Jesus Christ is our Savior.
One faith.
We all believe the same thing when it comes to salvation.
We all believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again.
We all believe that that is why we are saved, not because of our own works.
One baptism.
And by the way, this is not sprinkling, this is not pouring, this is not infant baptism.
There is one legitimate baptism and that is dunking people underwater after they're saved.
It's the only thing that you see in the Bible is people believing and then getting dunked underwater.
That's it.
And so you say, well, Pastor Anderson, I think that we should compromise on that and we should unite with the Presbyterians
and we're going to have one church that's going to be prespo-baptist or something.
Baptisterian.
Okay.
Here's the thing about that is that although we may in our personal lives have friends who are Presbyterian,
I do believe that there are some Presbyterians that are saved.
Although the vast majority of Presbyterians are more like Lesbaterians
because like 90 some percent of Presbyterians in America are part of these super liberal Presbyterian denominations
where they wave a rainbow flag and everything like that.
So I'm not talking about the Lesbaterians but, you know, we may know Presbyterians that are saved,
that believe in salvation by grace and faith.
But here's the thing.
We're not going to unite together with them and form a church with them.
No.
This is a Baptist church.
Right?
The church itself is for people who are like might.
Look, you might work with people that are saved Christians of other denominations
or maybe they are liberal in this area or liberal in that area or they use a wrong Bible version or something.
And you know what?
It's still good to see them at work and you can pray with them and say hi to them and be friends with them and it's good.
But, you know, when it comes to the church, though, we got to have unity in the church, my friend,
which means it's got to be King James.
Okay?
We're not just going to have everybody's got a different Bible.
And, you know, I'm not saying that everybody who has a different Bible is unsaved
but I'm saying this church, we need to rally around all the same Bible.
Or we can't, we're not going to have unity.
Right?
We're going to church where everybody's got a different Bible.
You walk around and talk to people.
Everybody has a different story about how to get saved.
Some people believe the right gospel.
Some people believe it's by works and all these shades of gray and everything like that.
Folks, the whole source of our unity is the fact that we have one faith
and that we have one baptism, that we have one Lord.
Okay?
So we've got to have certain things in common.
We've got to agree on the Trinity.
We've got to agree on salvation by grace and faith.
Now, you have to agree on those things just to even be saved.
You have to believe in the Trinity and salvation by grace and faith.
But there are other things people saved could still get screwed up on.
You know, they could get screwed up on dumb things like Calvinism
or get a wrong Bible version or whatever they're messed up on.
And you know what?
I'm not saying we shouldn't be friendly with those people.
I'm not saying that they can't be, you know, friends of ours outside of church.
But when it comes to the local church, the whole point of this institution is that we're like-minded.
That's the whole point.
And that's why we are not taking Baptists out of the name of our church.
Now obviously there is no biblical command that says we must have Baptists on the sign.
I'm not saying that we have to, but I'm saying that it's kind of absurd in 2024
to take Baptists off of your sign so that nobody has any idea what you believe
when you just have thousands of churches out there, many of whom are apostate.
I mean, what if I just went into my food pantry and just took all the labels off all the cans?
Would that be a sin?
Would it be a sin against God if I went into the pantry and removed the label from every food can?
Would I be sinning? No.
But is that a smart idea? No.
No, because then I don't know what's in it. Why don't I just take a Sharpie and just write,
Food.
And that's how churches are named now, just like, The Church in Tempe.
It's like, okay, that worked out great maybe for the first century AD
when there's like one church in Smyrna or something. It's just like, The Church at Smyrna.
But you know what? There isn't just The Church in Tempe.
If we were the only church in Tempe, that would be one thing.
But there are scores of churches in Tempe.
So first of all, The Church in Tempe is a misnomer because we're not The Church in Tempe.
There's a bunch of them.
Which one are we?
Well, we're church 37.
I mean, why don't we just call it that, right? Church number 37.
You know, you could just sit there and just call it a community church.
What is this, like the community swimming pool?
It's just, I guess, just everybody shows up? Is it subsidized by the government?
Everybody's welcome? Is that what's going on? What is that?
You know, oh, Bible church. Oh, that really tells us a lot.
Because every single church is claiming to be preaching from the Bible and believing the Bible.
I mean, what church out there is going to say, no, no, no, we don't do the Bible here.
You know, the point is, at least by saying, Faithful Word Baptist Church, what are we doing?
Right away, people know a couple things about us.
Right away, they know that, number one, we believe that salvation's by faith.
Because that's just part of what it means to be a Baptist, right?
Virtually every Baptist church in Arizona, or in most of the United States,
I know there's some weird stuff going on in the South sometimes,
but virtually every Baptist church in Arizona would say,
salvation's by grace through faith. You can't lose your salvation.
And we're going to baptize people underwater after they're saved.
I mean, at least that is getting you in the ballpark of Ephesians chapter 4.
One Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
So this is why we're not going to take Baptists off the sign.
Again, I'm not saying it's a sin to take Baptists off the sign.
I'm not saying that people who don't have Baptists in the name are wicked or wrong or not right with God.
I'm just saying it doesn't make any sense.
Because I want to make sure that we are labeled.
Ah, these labels. Yeah, Trinitarian. Yeah, Baptist.
Yeah, independent. Yeah, fundamental. Yeah, King James.
Yeah, soul winning. I love the labels.
That way I don't have to sift through literally how many Baptist churches in America.
I mean, even just in Arizona alone. Hundreds of Baptist churches alone.
But what if, what if we didn't even have the Baptist label?
Then you'd have to just sift through thousands of churches.
You'd spend years trying to find the right church.
It makes no sense to take off labels.
The bigger our population gets, when we have millions and millions of people in our city,
we have 4.7 million people in our county, we need more labels.
Not less labels. More labels.
If I had three cans of food in my cupboard, the labels wouldn't be as important as if I had 300 cans of food.
Now they better be labeled.
Because I might be able to remember what these three are or I might just open all three of them.
No harm, no foul if I open one and it's the wrong one.
Eat it tomorrow.
But if there are 300 cans of food, I don't want to be like, oh man, I'm 97 cans in.
I still can't find the cream of mushroom.
That's a problem.
And so there's certain things that we need to be unified.
First of all, we need to understand that all ethnicities go in one body.
There's no separate church for different races, separate church for Jews and Gentiles.
No, no, no. It's one body, one Holy Spirit.
The fact that we're saved, that's going to provide unity, right?
We don't want half the church to be unsaved.
How can we be unified? What's even the point?
We've got to have one spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith.
Sorry, Presbyterians, but one baptism.
Okay? That is a point of division right there.
And again, not saying to be rude to your Presbyterian buddy at work.
I'm saying that, sorry, the church is a Baptist church and that is something that we must agree on as a church.
Not to say we can't have visitors or visit, but no.
We as a church body have a distinct doctrine.
We're not like, well, let's do both.
You know, like there's a Baptist church in town that has this policy.
It's okay if you believe in speaking in tongues.
And if you don't believe in speaking in tongues, we do both here.
We accept both.
Well, here's the thing.
You know, when it comes to baptism, we don't do both.
It's just immersion.
And by the way, we don't have any holy rollers rolling in the aisles, so-called speaking in tongues here either.
If somebody starts, you know, quote, unquote, and I put it in quotes because it's not even a real thing in the Bible,
what they're taught, this fake glossolalia, speaking in tongues.
If somebody starts speaking in tongues at our church, we're either going to call 911 if we think that it's a seizure
or an epilepsy, you know, somebody with an epileptic fit, or we're just going to drag that bozo out.
We're either going to get them the medical attention they need or we're dragging them out.
But we're not going to have a circus here because all things in the house of God need to be done decently and in order.
You know, there's certain things that it's okay to disagree on.
Hey, look, it's okay to disagree on Israel.
It's okay to disagree on end times prophecy.
It's okay to disagree on, you know, lots of things.
You know, we could list a whole bunch of things.
And virtually everybody in this church, I'm sure, disagrees with something that I preach.
That's fine, but, you know, we better agree on the Trinity, better agree on salvation.
We better agree on baptism.
We better agree on one Lord, one God and Father of all who's above all and through all and in you all.
That is the basis of our unity.
That's the foundation of our unity.
That's how we have unity in the local church.
We have that foundation.
But, so we've got that basis for unity.
Verse seven, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Now, what does he mean by that?
Well, he's going to explain what he means by that.
But this really gets into the idea of spiritual gifts.
We all sort of contribute something different to the church.
We're all different and we all sort of bring something to the table.
So we have unity on the doctrines that are the most important, but then we also have our own personality.
We have our own unique style.
We have our own unique talents and abilities that we bring to the table.
Now, the Apostle Paul is going to quote the Old Testament here, and this is a really interesting Old Testament quote.
So we're going to spend a little time looking at this and looking up the source of the quote in Psalm 68.
So if you want to keep your finger there in Ephesians four and then also turn to Psalm 68.
He says in verse eight, wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.
This is a quote from Psalm 68.
What does it mean?
What is the purpose of this quote?
Why is he quoting this?
Well, because he's going to talk about the fact that the gifts that he gave are that he gave pastors.
He gave teachers.
He gave evangelists.
He gave prophets.
He gave these people with various talents and abilities to edify the body of Christ in various ways.
That's what he gave as a gift, okay?
But let's go back and look this up in the original quote because it's kind of an odd quote in a sense because of the fact that the Apostle Paul changes the wording a little bit
from the way it's written in Psalm 68.
So let's look this up.
It says in Psalm 68, 18, thou hast led, thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men,
yea, for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them.
Now, a couple things that we notice different right away is that first of all, it says thou hast ascended on high.
Now, this shouldn't bother us at all because in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul is saying he ascended up on high.
Obviously, this is just speaking directly to God saying you ascended up on high, whereas the Apostle Paul is just speaking in the third person like he ascended up on high.
That doesn't really count as a change.
He's still quoting verbatim at that point, okay?
But the big change is coming here.
It says thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, that's the same, but then it says thou hast received gifts for men, right?
So we see here it says thou hast received gifts for men, whereas in Ephesians chapter 4, it says that he gave gifts unto men, right?
So in Psalms, he's receiving gifts for men.
In the New Testament, he is giving gifts unto men.
Well, the first thing I want to point out is that it says he received gifts, not for himself, but he received gifts for men.
So God received gifts, the Lord received gifts for men, so there's already the built-in implication here that he is going to be re-gifting these things.
Does everybody see that?
Because if he's receiving them for men, it's so that he can then give them to someone else, which is why, look at the very next verse.
It says, Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah.
So notice, he received gifts for men so that he can then load us with benefits.
So what the Apostle Paul is basically doing is just sort of crunching these two ideas together.
He's paraphrasing both verses by saying that, you know, he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to men.
Instead of that, you know, he received the gifts for men so that he could give them to men. Does everybody see how that works?
So this is part of the reason why sometimes New Testament quotes don't always match Old Testament quotes verbatim is simply because they're being paraphrased, right?
It's a paraphrase. It's not meant to be a direct quote necessarily. It's still the spirit of what is being said.
But let's look at some of the context here in Psalm 68. What is Psalm 68 about?
It says in verse 1, Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered, let them also that hate him flee before him.
So there's a warfare metaphor in this psalm where the Lord is pictured as a great warrior.
God is arising, his enemies are scattered, right?
Jump down to verse 7.
O God, when thou winnest forth before thy people, so it's like he's leading his people into battle.
You know, think about the Old Testament nation of Israel.
When thou didst march through the wilderness, Selah, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God.
Even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
So again, this is sort of harkening back to the Lord leading the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, right?
Leading them to Mount Sinai, going before their armies.
Look if you would at verse number 14, it says, When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow and salmon.
So again, the Almighty is scattering kings, defeating enemies, defeating kings, right?
Jump down to verse 17.
The chariots of God are 20,000, even thousands of angels.
The Lord is among them, as in Sinai in the holy place.
Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men.
Yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.
So the immediate context here in Psalm 68 is this is a psalm of warfare where the Lord is a great warrior leading his people into battle, defeating the enemies, right?
So the Apostle Paul is taking this though and applying it to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now first of all, let me point out, the psalm is talking about something that happened many centuries earlier.
Looking back to, you know, God bringing the people out of the land of Egypt.
But obviously the psalm is meant to be sung all the time.
It's meant to be sung in the future.
It's meant to be sung hundreds of years later.
You could still say let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.
Why? Because God always has enemies and God's people are always in a spiritual warfare and we always want the Lord on our side.
So obviously the psalms in general have a timeless quality.
But ultimately the Word of God is always pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so that's why the Apostle Paul is going to take this psalm and apply it to Jesus.
Jesus ascending up on high, literally, right?
Jesus leading captivity captive and Jesus giving gifts unto men.
Yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.
So let's think about this.
Go back if you went to Ephesians chapter 4.
And I don't want to lose you here but I'm just trying to do a thorough job here of explaining this quote from Psalm 68.
It says in verse number 8, wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.
Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth.
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things and he gave some apostles.
So these are the gifts that he gave.
He gave apostles, he gave some prophets, he gave some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Now let's back up and think about this.
When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive.
Now what does that mean he led captivity captive?
Well the Apostle Paul explains what that means by explaining that that is a reference to the fact that before he ascended up on high, he first descended into the lower parts of the earth.
Otherwise this doesn't really make a lot of sense as far as the context.
What's the context?
Unity.
Unity in the local church, right?
We need to have unity.
We have a lot of common ground.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
But we also have a diversity of gifts, a diversity of life experiences, a diversity of talents, right?
God has given spiritual gifts.
God has given preachers, teachers, shepherds, apostles, people to lead us, to help us grow, to bring us to that unity.
Now why in the middle of that thought, which makes a lot of sense, right?
Hey, we have unity on this common ground, but there's diversity, but then God uses those different diversities of talents and gifts to teach us and make us grow so that we can then be unified.
Why all of a sudden be like, hey, by the way, did you know that Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth?
Where is that coming from?
Like why bring that up?
Why bring up the fact that he descended into the lower parts of the earth?
It is to explain the captivity captive quote because he wants to use the Psalm 68 quote about him ascending up on high and giving gifts to men, but then he has to explain the whole he led captivity captive portion of that quote.
And so that's why he takes this little rabbit trail, which the King James Bible puts in parentheses.
Why does the King James put this in parentheses?
Cause it's a little bit of a rabbit trail where he's in a parenthesis here explaining what it means from Psalm 68 when he led captivity captive.
Now the modern versions will change this verse and they are wrong.
Okay.
The King James Bible correctly says he led captivity captive.
That is a literal translation of what the Greek says.
Okay.
Whereas the new versions will say something like, well, he led a body of captives.
He led a group of captives or something that is their interpretation that they are foisting on the text, but that is not what the original says.
The original literally reads just like the King James.
In fact, if you wanted to be ultra literal of what the Greek says, it basically says he captivated captivity.
That's that would be like an ultra literal, but obviously a better way of saying it in English is he led captivity captive.
Okay.
What does captivity mean?
Captivity is the state of being a captive, right?
Think about an animal being in captivity.
It's in a state of being a captive.
So this is not talking about a group of captives because a lot of people will try to twist this.
And the modern versions, of course, facilitate this by changing the text to say, well, he led a group of captives.
Because then what they'll teach is that somehow, you know, Jesus took a big crew of people out of hell and he brought a bunch of people out of hell.
Or they brought a bunch of people out of Sheol or Hades or whatever, Abraham's bosom.
And that even though such a huge event of God just pulling a bunch of people out of the netherworld, you'd think that there'd be some clear scripture to talk about that.
You know, but you have this whole doctrine called the harrowing of hell or whatever.
And it's this made up doctrine and it just rests on basically just a misunderstanding of this verse.
You know, there's no clear scripture that describes what would be this massive event, just millions and millions of people being relocated into heaven.
Sorry, but that didn't happen.
Okay, now there is going to someday be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust.
And, you know, there's a lot of clear scripture describing that event.
But here's what there's not any scripture describing, you know, this whole harrowing of hell thing.
No, no, no.
What does it mean when it says that Christ led captivity captive?
Here's what it means.
He turned the tables on his captor and he led captivity captive.
Captivity itself was led captive.
What does that mean?
Well, you could go back, you don't have to turn there, but in Judges chapter 5 verse 12, the song of Deborah, she sings to Barak and says,
Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive.
Now, what was the situation with Barak?
Barak, along with the rest of the children of Israel, is subjugated by the Canaanites.
They're in a type of captivity underneath the thumb of the Canaanites.
And then what happens is that Barak then defeats the Canaanites and leads them away captive.
So he leads captivity captive.
And notice the pronoun, he leads his captivity captive.
Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive.
Your captivity, lead it captive.
His captivity is what?
Captivity to the Canaanites.
He's going to lead that captivity captive.
So the King James has it right in Judges 5, 12.
The King James has it right in Ephesians.
In Ephesians, it's a literal translation.
Other versions are actually taking liberties and putting their own interpretation,
which happens to be a wrong interpretation in this case.
Now, how does this apply to the Lord Jesus Christ?
We understand how Barak led his captivity captive.
How did Jesus Christ lead captivity captive?
Well, when Jesus Christ was dead for three days and three nights,
he was, in a sense, captive to death and hell.
Now, if you would look at Psalm 116.
Psalm 116, and I don't care if a lot of people disagree on this
because the Bible is really clear on this.
So if you actually just have a King James Bible and believe what it says,
then I think this is an easy doctrine.
But look at Psalm 116, and let's look at verse 3.
While you're getting there, I'll just read the first couple verses for context.
I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications,
because he hath inclined his ear unto me,
therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
Watch this, verse 3.
The sorrows of death compassed me,
and the pains of hell got hold upon me.
I found trouble and sorrow.
So notice this verse here.
The sorrows of death compassed me.
Compassed means surrounded me.
And the pains.
Does everybody know what pain is?
It hurts.
The pains of hell got hold upon me.
I found trouble and sorrow.
So notice this phrase, the sorrows of death and the pains of hell.
And of course, it says in verse 4,
Then called I upon the name of the Lord.
O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul, and so forth.
So this is obviously symbolic or metaphorical for salvation.
But it's also prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ in this situation.
He's dead for three days and three nights,
and the sorrows of death compassed him.
The pains of hell got hold about him.
Look, if you would, at now Acts 2.24.
Acts 2.24 in the New Testament.
Acts 2.24.
And we'll see some scripture explicitly about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Obviously, we know Psalms is prophesying about Jesus as well.
But in Acts chapter 2, this is explicitly about Jesus.
It says in verse 22,
Ye men of Israel, Acts 2.22, hear these words,
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs,
which God did by him in the midst of you,
as ye yourselves also know,
him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God,
ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
Everybody following so far?
Verse 24, whom God hath raised up, watch this,
having loosed the pains of death.
Does that sound familiar?
The sorrows of death, the pains of hell,
having loosed the pains of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holding of it.
So remember, the sorrows of death compassed me about.
The pains of hell got hold upon me, right?
And if you think about it, hell is in many ways a prison.
Because when the devil is cast into hell for a thousand years,
after a thousand years, he's loosed out of his prison, right?
When the devil is loosed out of his prison,
he goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.
So, Jesus Christ is captive,
he is compassed about,
he has, death and hell have a hold on Jesus.
But it was not possible for him in the long run to be holding of it.
And so therefore, God raised him up,
God loosed the pains of hell and of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holding of it.
For David speaketh concerning him,
I foresaw the Lord always before my face,
for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved.
Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad,
moreover also my flesh shall rest nope,
because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
He's saying, look, I have hope,
even as I'm dead,
because I know that my soul is not going to be left in hell, right?
Look at verse 31, he's seeing this before,
spake of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul was not left in hell,
neither his flesh did see corruption.
This Jesus had God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses.
Does everybody see how that works?
Now, what does Jesus Christ say in Revelation chapter 1?
In Revelation 1 he says,
I'm he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen,
and have the keys of hell and of death.
So who's in charge now?
Who's the boss now? Who's in control now?
Jesus now has the keys of hell and of death.
He has led captivity captive.
The captivity of death.
The captivity of hell.
He has now captivated them.
He has power over death and hell.
He has the keys of death and of hell now.
This is what it means when it says that he led captivity captive,
which is why the apostle Paul says,
well, yeah, he led captivity captive because, you know,
he ascended up on high, but before that,
he descended first into the lower parts of the earth,
because he was dead for three days and three nights,
and then being loosed from the pains of death,
because it wasn't possible for him to be holden of it,
now he has the power over hell and death.
He has led captivity captive,
just like the Canaanites had Barak as a captive,
and then he led them captive.
Jesus is captive to hell and death.
He leads them captive.
That's what the Bible is saying in Ephesians 4.
So back, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 4,
it says he ascended up on high,
he led captivity captive,
and he gave gifts unto man,
now that he ascended, verse 9,
what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens,
that he might fill all things,
and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers.
So now in the last few minutes of the sermon,
I'm going to tie this all together and bring us back full circle,
because remember, the context is unity.
Unity in the local church.
We have unity because we have, you know,
a bunch of different salvation plans,
a bunch of different Bible versions,
a bunch of different doctrines.
No, we're unified around certain core doctrines,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, okay?
So that's where the unity comes from.
But there is a diversity of gifts.
But God uses different kinds of people
so that we can all edify one another as one body, right?
If we were all the same,
then the body of Christ would not have the strength that it has
because it would be imbalanced.
You know, think about whoever you think is, you know,
one of the greatest Christians in our church.
But if the whole church was that person,
the church wouldn't work.
If the whole church was me, the church wouldn't work.
If there were just 300 Stephen Anderson clones,
it wouldn't work.
You know, you need to have different people
with different talents, different abilities,
different strengths, different weaknesses.
We balance each other out.
You know, this is why you shouldn't marry someone
that's exactly like you.
You know, hey, I went online,
and we matched up on all 80 points of compatibility or whatever
because then you're both just gonna keep getting more extreme.
Like if one of you is really messy
and then you marry someone else who's messy,
that's gonna be a disaster.
But if one of you is a neat freak
and the other one's also a neat freak,
then the house just has to look like a museum all the time.
You're not gonna be able to accomplish much.
You're not gonna have 12 kids, that's for sure.
So the point is, we need to have different kinds of people.
Not everybody's gonna be a pastor.
Not everybody is gonna be good at this, that, or the other.
We have all different abilities, right?
So God gave some apostles.
Obviously there are no apostles today.
The apostles were back then actual eyewitnesses
of Christ's resurrection
that were ordained specifically by Christ.
But they obviously did contribute greatly
to the church in the first century AD
and founding churches all over the world.
But apostles, prophets,
prophets are talking about preachers.
We're talking about evangelists, pastors, teachers.
Why did he give these gifts?
He didn't just change the subject.
Hey, by the way, God gave gifts.
Oh, and did I mention that Christ ascended
into the lower parts of the earth?
No, this all is going toward one thing.
It's all about taking the Psalm 68 quote,
talking about God giving gifts unto men
so that we could have unity.
What are the gifts?
These different preachers, teachers, evangelists, pastors.
Why did he give them?
For the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ,
the building up of the body of Christ
till we all come in the unity of the faith.
See how it all comes full circle?
To all come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God
unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
See, knowledge leads to unity.
You see, if people in the church don't know doctrine,
don't know what the Bible says,
don't know what we believe,
then there's not going to be unity.
So you have pastors and teachers and prophets and evangelists,
and what is their goal?
To build up and edify the body of Christ in various ways
so that we can all become more unified
and so that we can all increase in knowledge
because those two things go hand in hand.
Because think about it.
If we both are learning more Bible
and we both have the same Holy Spirit
and we're both learning more Bible,
the more we know, the more errors we're correcting
about what we believe, right?
We all used to believe things that were wrong in the past,
and now we've corrected them through reading the Bible.
Well, look, let's say I have a hundred errors
and you have a hundred errors,
and then both of us study the Bible
and now we're down to 50 errors, right, each.
You know, well, that's just the 50 things that we fix.
Those are points of agreement now.
You know, and then I fix 20 things.
He fixes 30 things.
You know, that's 20 points of agreement now.
You know, it's just the less error we have,
the more we're going to get along.
It's error, it's heresy, it's false doctrine that divides us, right?
Well, like, oh, man, you know, why you got to be all divisive about baptism?
Because there are people that are wrong about baptism.
If they would actually grow in knowledge,
then we can all agree and be baptizing people by immersion.
You know, oh, man, why you got to make a big deal about the Bible version issue?
Because the modern Bible versions corrupt God's Word,
and the more people learn that,
the more we can get unified around one traditional Bible text
instead of the Bible of the month club.
But if people don't know that, if people don't learn that,
if they don't have that knowledge, if there's no pastor teaching them that,
how are we going to be unified?
Look, I'll tell you this.
I've been in churches that are King James,
but in the pew, everybody's got a different Bible. Why?
Because the pastor is not teaching people knowledge about Bible versions.
Because if he got up and said, I'm going to do an eight-part series
on the King James version, at the end of that eight weeks,
there'd probably be a lot more unity in that church.
Well, some people might get offended and leave.
That also creates unity.
Part of unity is sometimes certain people need to be sent down the road
because they're not getting on, they don't get on board.
And again, I'm not talking about non-essentials, my friend.
I'm talking about the key things, the big things, the essentials.
We've got to have unity.
By learning the Bible, we get more unified because we're more right.
The more right we are.
See, unity is unity about being right,
not unity because we just put aside all differences.
And you know what?
Let's have Chrislam and Crinduism and Buddhistianity or something.
No, man, we need to be unified on the right things.
And the more things we get right, the more we're going to agree on.
I mean, think about it.
What if two students are taking a math test and they're both terrible at math?
They're going to get a lot of different answers
because there's a bunch of wrong answers all over both of their pages.
But then what if you have two just straight A students
and they both take the math test?
You know what?
Turns out virtually all their answers are exactly the same.
You see how being right brings unity.
Hey, you put that, that's what I put.
Oh, you got that?
I got the same answer.
You believe in baptism by immersion, so do I.
You're King James, so am I.
Salvation by faith, am I right?
That's unity, my friend.
But if you don't have churches teaching people stuff,
if you have churches that are lean on doctrine,
little 20-minute sermonette for Christianettes,
then you're not going to have the unity that big boy church is going to have
where you actually learn the meat and potatoes of God's word.
Till we all come in the unity, verse 13,
and of the knowledge, the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Obviously we're never going to achieve that goal completely,
but that's where we're heading.
And the closer we get to that goal, the closer we get to each other.
That we henceforth be no more children
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine
by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie and wait to deceive,
but speaking the truth in love,
may grow up into him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body,
and this is such a beautiful verse here,
from whom the whole body fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth.
So it's not just the pastor.
It's not just the staff.
Every joint is supplying something to the body, right?
Even just, you know, these little joints in my pinky or something.
You know, if these things go wrong, you're going to feel it.
You're going to know about it.
You know, I had a finger for ten years.
I had a joint on my right hand, on my middle finger,
that would slip out of joint every day for ten years.
So thousands and thousands and thousands of times,
my middle finger would painfully slip out of joint.
Thankfully, after ten years, it was finally healed.
And it's another story that I'm not going to tell.
But the point is that, you know,
thousands of times this sucker was slipping out of joint,
and let me tell you something, it drove me nuts.
It was very painful.
It bothered me.
Now it's like, well, who cares, man?
It's just your finger.
Yeah, but your little finger can just mess with your whole body.
Right?
And so every single joint needs to be supplying.
It needs to be doing its job, right?
In order to have perfect unity in a perfect world,
everybody in the church is in their place doing their thing.
And you may think you're not that important,
but you know what?
You still play a role.
You still have a job.
You still have a function in the body.
And so it says,
Every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,
making increase of the body
unto the edifying of itself in love.
You know, along those same lines,
you get cancer of the finger or something,
it could literally kill you.
You know, so if one member suffers,
the whole body suffers, the Bible says.
If one member rejoices, the whole body rejoices.
I mean, look, I could just put some really tasty food in my mouth.
I mean, the only part of my body that's really enjoying
is just my tongue.
But yet the whole body's like,
this feels good.
My whole body gets excited when that food enters my mouth.
And if, you know, I were to get a paper cut on my tongue,
my whole body's probably going to react to that too.
And so the church is like a body.
We need to be unified.
We don't want to have our body all go in different directions.
You know, we need to be able to move in concert, right?
Because we're unified.
We don't have to be like,
one part of my body's trying to go one way,
and the other part's going another way.
We're not going to get very far.
Right?
Unity means we're going in the same direction.
Let's have unity in the church,
rallying around truth,
because we're all, every day, reading our Bibles,
and every week going to church and getting more knowledge
so that we can rally around things that are right and true.
Let's bow our heads in our word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
We thank you so much for this book of Ephesians, Lord,
for the great work that the Apostle Paul did in Ephesus
so many centuries ago, Lord,
and we're still feeling the effects of that, Lord,
as the Gospel continues to march forth across the world.
Lord, God help us to preach the Gospel to every creature
and bless our church as we grow.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Take your hymnals, please.
Go to Hymn 150.
Hymn number 150.
My faith has found a resting place.
Hymn number 150.
Sing it out with me on that verse now.
Hymn number 150.
My faith has found a resting place
Not in device nor creed
I trust the ever-living one
His words for me shall flee
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that he died for me
Enough for me that Jesus saved
This ends my fear and doubt
A sinful soul, I come to him
He'll never gas me up
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that he died for me
My heart is leaning on the Word
The risen Word of God
Salvation by my Savior's name
Salvation through his blood
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that he died for me
My great physician heals the sick
The lost he came to save
For me his precious blood he shed
For me his life he gave
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that he died for me
I need no other plea