Ephesians 4:7-10 – Berris Patience – 2025 11 23

7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,

“When He ascended on high,
He led captive a host of captives,
And He gave gifts to men.”

9 (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) (NASB 1995)

Transcript:

(Disclaimer: AI generated transcript. Accuracy may vary)

Good morning. We are grateful to have you join us in worship once again and I’ll turn your attention to the passage that, for the book that we’ve been studying, Ephesians chapter four, we’re in Ephesians chapter four. And today we’ll be focusing on verses seven to 10. Ephesians chapter four, verse seven. Paul says, 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 captives. He led captive the captives and gave gifts to the people. Now, in this expression, he ascended what does it mean? Except he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descends is himself also who ascend far above all heavenly all the heavens, sorry, so that he might fill all things. Lord, I ask that you’ll use me through the working of your Holy Spirit to impart with clarity, with boldness, with authority, your words to your people. And God, may it penetrates the hearts and the minds in that. Again, Lord, the desire is for us to grow more in our walk, in our maturity and that we’ll see the importance of the community, the local body, this local assembly that you’ve placed us in. But not only see the importance of that, but see our importance and the role that we have to play and we need to play and that we’re called to play as we gather weekly and worship you. Lord, I pray that we will come to that realization, help help each individual Lord to come to the realization of what gifts you have given them by the end of this and that they’ll seek to honor you and honor the body in service, to utilize the gift or gifts that you have given them for your glory, for Christ’s sake. Amen. Thoughts are the idea that we’ll be focusing on this morning is the Christian community, the pathway to spiritual maturity. And I trust and I hope that we have seen that and we have, we know that this is true and there’s so many professing Christians who like the thought, like the idea of divorcing themselves from the church, from the local body, they want to stay at home, they want or do whatever, do their own thing. They, they feel it necessary to do whatever they want to do because they’re saved. There’s no need for them to be a part of a local assembly. They don’t need to join or attach themselves to a local assembly and they use excuses for this or the church, the local assemblies, they cause division. It’s so divisive, you know, it’s better off being at home and being by myself and it’s absolute nonsense and it’s not biblical. So I hope that at the end of this text or these verses that we’re gonna look at, we come to a greater appreciation for what we have here at this church. But not only that, that we will come to want to serve more in their local assembly as God has given us the gifts and abilities to serve his local assembly for the benefit of the building up of the kingdom and for the glorification of Jesus Christ. The Christian Christian maturity isn’t just about personal holiness. There is that aspect, but it’s not just about that. It’s about becoming Christlike in love. It’s about becoming Christlike in service. It’s about becoming Christlike in unity. That transformation happens most fully in the context of the community. And when I say community, I know you’re gonna automatically know I’m referring to the church, not concession road or Bowmanville Baptist or Bowmanville, the the, the city. It comes to fruition in the context of the local assembly, the community. This is where it is refined. This is where maturities encouraged and this is where you are, you and I are or should be challenged into growth. And we see this in the um, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24, that we are to spur each other onto love and good works in the community. The church, we get to support, we get support in times of struggle. We’re we, we come. When we come here, we are supported in our struggles. Life is hard. And I don’t need to tell you this is stating the obvious, but having others of same faith who are like-minded, who are of the same faith, that oneness of mind that we looked at earlier in this very chapter. When we have people like those or we sheer faith the same faith, it helps us. It helps you and I to stay strong in our faith regardless of these struggles that life will throw at us in the community. We learn together. You hear different perspectives. We see that in Sunday school. We see that in Tuesday afternoon bible study and we see that on Wednesday nights. We study the scripture as a whole and we gain wisdom from others and the experiences of others. But in the community we also learn accountability. There is accountability. Fellow believers can lovingly challenge you and challenge us. And again, this is expected, this is commanded. When we fall off track or when we are going off track, we’re encouraged lovingly to come back on track. There’s also encouragement celebrating victories and comforting each other when there’s a loss. And this builds resilience. And there’s also the idea of role model. I know again a lot of debate and dispute is especially on this, but we see mature believers live out their faith and this gives us a picture our should give us, give us a picture of what maturity looks like in the church. And Paul is a very a champion of this idea and this thought that we have. We can look at other believers and learn from them just like we look at people and learn how not to deliver, what not to do. We can look at believers, see how they’re maturing and growing in their walk with Christ and say, you know what? I want to be like that individual because at the end of the day, just like Paul says, you’re not trying to emulate Maurice or emulate Peter or Pastor Dave or Paris, you’re trying to emulate Jesus Christ because that’s who that person is mimicking. That’s who that person is imitating. But that is one of the things that we get as a body of believers. What we see in the community, the Christian community is like a training ground, like a training ground. It’s not a training ground, but it’s where we practice love. It’s where you practice patience, it’s where you practice forgiveness and it’s where you practice service without it you might know the ideas, you might know the theories that are behind these things. You might know the theory of love, patience, forgiveness and service, but you will not know the practicality of it without the community. And you won’t grow and you won’t shape. You won’t become molded and fashioned into the person that God expects you to become in the local body without the local body and without being a part and immersing yourself in the local body. The main idea that springs forth from this text, the idea that forms the portion of this letter is that the Christian community is essential for growth and maturity because Christ has sovereignly end endowed everyone, every individual. And if you’re taking notes, I want you to put that every in all caps and highlighted because every single believer, and I will touch on this again when we get into verse seven and A, every individual he has endowed sovereignly with a special gift or ability or gifts might have one you might have multiple to minister to all the other members. That is one of the main idea from this text. This goes right into verse 16, by the way, it is the responsibility of the divinely gifted leaders. And again, we’re gonna see this next week to equip the members for the life of mutual service. So that is the responsibility of the leaders to equip you for service in the church. Verses 10 to 16 we’ll see this. So the goal of ministry is to help all believers to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the core doctrines of the faith to mature to a greater Christ likeness to become more and more like Jesus Christ then and to manifest the love, love for one another in the life of the community. And of course there’s unity that is involved with that. So here in these verses, Paul will emphasize the individual gifting of all believers. And of course he specifies few for the leadership in the body in the church. But the idea is that these individual gifts ought to be used for the benefit of the entire community. And that is the one body that he talks about in verse four. So the divine provision for this gift is what is highlighted in verses seven to 10, the divine provision for maturity for growth. So Paul now moves away deliberately. So he moves away from this idea of unity and focuses on on diversity in one sense. However, despite the diversity that exists within the body, and this is what we see in Romans 12, this is what we see in one Corinthians chapter 12 as well. The diversity of gifts and the differences that makes up the body of Christ and the local body itself. Despite this diversity that exists within the body, this ought to be the means through which unity is attained in the body. And we’ll see this in verse 13, the diversity that Paul is speaking of here is that of Christ sovereignly, imparting gifts to each member of the local body locally and universally as well. And again, this is verse seven, this is what we see in verse seven. So the diversity is about the differences of gifts. We don’t all have the same gifts, they differ and the spirit of God through Christ sovereignly gives each as he sees faith, as they see fit, as the guarded. And each believer, each of us needs to con contribute to the overall growth and maturity of the body. And I hope that we have come to that realization that I have a part to play in this local assembly. I need to be contributing to the growth and maturity of the believers here as well. It’s not just absorbing a wealth of knowledge and as having questions answered and and you name it, it’s also being of use to the body of Jesus Christ. So yes, we need each other, we need each other and we need to gather like this. This is necessary. It’s a necessity and we need to do it often again, something we see in the book of Acts. So when we come to the realization and when we analyze what Paul is saying and trying to bring across in verses seven to 10, and when we compare what Paul is saying here, then we’ll see what and have a better understanding of what we see happening in the early church. We’ll see and come to understand more clearly why the early church flourished in the manner in which it did because they got what Paul is saying here. And in fact it happened before Paul wrote it. So we’ll get a better understanding of this is why they flourished so much because it was a community strengthening the community. It was a community building up the community on the one faith, the one Lord, the one baptism, the one spirit, the one hope. The community with that oneness of mind sharing the common grounds of faith and doctrine came together and build each other up. And this is what we’re going to see in this text. So although, excuse me, although Paul will only mention a few gifts here and these gifts are pertaining to the leadership in the local assembly, the leadership in the church, what Paul is not saying is that only the leaders in the church have been gifted. He’s not saying that because he makes that abundantly clear in verse seven. We all have been given gifts but neither is Paul saying that the responsibility or the sole responsibility of growth and maturity of all the members is on the leadership and on the leadership alone. So it’s just Pastor Bear’s responsibility and Pastor Dave’s responsibility to ensure that you guys are growing spiritually. Yes that is our responsibility, but it is not ours alone. It’s all of us. It’s all of us. In saying that God has given each of us a gift. Paul is saying that there is not a single individual who has been saved, not just in the church in Ephesus, but Paul is saying that there is not a single individual that has been saved by the grace of God and as a result of being incorporated into the body of Jesus Christ that does not possess at least one gift. There isn’t such a Christian, there is no such thing. In other words, as a gift less Christian there is that they don’t exist. And if you, if they exist then they’re not a Christian because there is no such thing as a believer that has no gift. It doesn’t exist. You have at least one gift and that gift ne or gift need to be used for the edification of the body, for the glory of Jesus Christ. But some of you might be thinking, I don’t know what my gift or gifts are. And that is a valid question. That is a very good question. It’s fair, it’s fair to say that it’s fair to have that analyzation because you, you are at least acknowledging the fact that you know what, I’m saved and I know that for a fact, but I don’t know what my gift is. It is up to you, however, to discover what your gift or gifts are that God has graciously sovereignly given you. So what does this mean? What does this mean? How am I gonna know where I’m gifted or what my gift, our gifts are? This means for an individual that is asking this question or making this statement, it’s a matter of immersing yourself in ministry. It’s a matter of immersing yourself in service, trying to find what you excel in, be that person does always want to assist. That’s how you’re going to know. That’s one way at least you’re going to know how or what gift or gift that God has given you. Just availing yourself to serve in the ministry, whatever that service is, and you’ll come to the understanding and then you’ll come to know what God has gifted you with. ’cause you might come to say, I, I, I don’t feel like this specific area is my thing, but then you come to another area and you say, I, I absolutely love this and I want to devote my time and effort and energy into doing this. So you immerse yourself into service. Allow yourself avail yourself to be a servant. It also means praying to God to reveal that gift to you. But is a way whether you’re immersing yourself or you’re praying action is required. You’re not going sit down. Gabriel isn’t gonna come and specify to you what gifts you are or the Holy Spirit is gonna whisper in your ear and say you are, you have the gift of encouragement. Go therefore and use it. You have to do the work to figure out what God has gifted me with. And I can tell you this from ex personal experience. The one that worked best for me was immersing yours myself into service. That one is the best for me. Work best for me. Again, pray. You might be able to pray to God and God will reveal to you what your gift is or what your gifts are. But it means that you have a work to do. And Paul makes sure he includes himself in this when he says us, to each of us, God has graciously given a gift. We talk about God being a God of order, which he is God of order and God of intent. And both statements are true. And here at the end of verse seven, we see this very thing God of purpose and intent. Paul says in the latter part of verse seven, he has graciously given gifts according to the measure of his grace. He gives gifts graciously he does so not randomly, not haphazardly. He doesn’t just randomly, sporadically throws it out and say whatever you catch, whoever catches what In Bowmanville Baptist church, that’s yours, he’s specific, his intently placed, giving us each gifts for his purpose. There is a purpose and intent behind each gift as God distributes them, as he sees fit, he distributes them according to his perfect plan. Christ in his sovereignty decides who gets what gifts. So if you have one, whatever that one might be, it is because that’s the one that Jesus Christ wanted you to have. That is the one that the Holy Spirit of God wanted you to have. And he gave you that one gift to use for his glory, for his purpose. Whatever that one gift is, he endowed you with that gift for you to use it for his body. And implicit in this statement is that there isn’t something special. There isn’t something special about me folks, why God gave me the gift of pastoring. There isn’t. There isn’t anything special why he gave me the gift and abilities that he gave me just like salvation where he chose us in his by his sovereign choice. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with a gift giver, not the gift receiver, just like salvation. It’s his sovereign choice, but it doesn’t matter because he’s sovereign. And when he gives you and gives me a gift, he expects us, he commands us to use it for his glory. That’s what he expects of us to use it for His glory. So there isn’t a believer here that is sitting that is hearing my voice. There isn’t a believer that has ever existed on the face of this planet that the Holy Spirit of God sovereignly gave a gift to use for God’s glory for the building up of his kingdom. And again, the onus is on you if you are at that point where you have no idea what that gift is, is to immerse yourself to discover and use that gift and ability for the glory of God. 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 the captives and he gave gifts to the people in support of this assertion that Christ bestows spiritual gifts on his people. Paul cites Psalm 68, verse 18, which is a reference to God as a divine warrior who achieves great victory over his enemies and ascends to his holy mountain and of po. Of course, Paul interprets this Psalm Christologically meaning that he sees Christ, Jesus Christ as the one who has vanquished his enemies and has ascended to heaven. And this sets the stage for him to distribute the gifts, these divine gifts as he sees fit for service in his body. Now Psalm 68 corresponds significantly to one of Paul’s central themes and central concerns in the book of Ephesians. And he wants the re his readers to grasp the incomparable great power of God. He wants the readers to grasp the God, this God who is all powerful, who is able to strengthen his people so that they, so that we can stand against our enemies. And this is precisely the concern of the psalmist in Psalm 68. It prayers, it’s a prayer that the divine warrior will manifest his power, that he will manifest his strength to his people and defeat the enemies of Israel. The threat posed by the enemies of God’s people pervades this entirety of the Psalms. And the Psalm begins with a prayer that God will arise and scatters enemies and make his foes flee from before him. In verse one, the the vine warrior will cause kings and armies to flee in haste in verse 12 of the Psalm. And when David proclaims, surely God will crush the heads of his enemies, the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins, he may have been overlooking the physical enemies that were being faced or that the Israelites were facing. And go on to the spiritual forces and the spiritual foes that are behind these earthly rulers. And the term that is used for hairy is also a reference and can also be a reference to a goat demon or a demon in general. And this should not come as a surprise for us because this is one of the great concerns for Paul with the church in Ephesus, is it not? In chapter six he says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers in high and dark places. So Paul is in line here and that is why he chose the psalm because Paul realizes we’re not just fighting flesh, we’re fighting spiritual foes. And God is powerful and capable and able to defeat our enemies. And he has given us the abilities he has given us the tools that we need for victory over these enemies. Psalm 68 ex stalls and blesses God and God’s majestic and overwhelming power to save his people from their enemies. And Paul has interpreted this psalm, as I said earlier, Christologically seen the Jesus Christ, that Christ is the one who has the power to save his people from ultimate, the ultimate enemy and from the power of sin, save his people from the power of death, save his people from the principalities and the powers and the rulers and the authorities, those who are in the heavenlies. So Psalm 68 fits precisely and perfectly and exceptionally well with Paul’s exposition, a psalm again that depicts God as powerful and empowering his people and saving his people in their struggle with their enemies. In the past, God has demonstrated his power by defeating and scattering his enemies. And this has resulted in receiving gifts or back then it would be booty or bounty from the capturing of the foes. And now the Psalm is praise that God will once again give his people these gifts, power give them strength to overcome the enemies. But for Paul, these enemies are no longer people. These enemies are no longer people but hostile supernatural powers. And that is why he ascribes this psalm to the giving of gifts because you realize that the the battle, the battle folks, the battle is spiritual and God has gifted us. And you see why he talks and he starts off this passage, starts off this chapter with unity. If we are not united, we’re not gonna want to use our gifts for the glorification of God. We’re going to want to be selfish with it ’cause that’s our sin nature. We’re going to want to be selfish with it. What God has graciously sovereignly given us gifts to use so that we can be victorious and we have to use it for his glory and for his honor. Now verse nine is a highly, highly debated passage of scripture and because of a one phrase, the lower parts of the earth. And in typical Paul line fashion, Paul has a tendency to use one Greek word once. You can’t find it anywhere in any other Greek manuscript. You can’t find it in the Old Testament translation into Greek, which is a SEP two agent. And that’s what we find here. So if that complicates things, even more commentators are back and forth. There’s commentators, the one main one that I use, in fact most of them say this, lower parts of the earth is a reference to the the Hades or the underworld that Christ went to the underworld. And that is the position that was held. Like I said, by few of the commentaries that I use, there’s another position that says it refers to Christ’s burial. So it starts off with is humiliation, that is the incarnation. Then there is a humiliation that he went to the cross. Paul talks about this in Philippians too. And then the creme de la crem are the crux, pun intended, the crux of the humiliation is being buried. I am inclined to hold to that position that it’s about him being buried because Paul talks about the ascension, the exaltation of Christ. So it makes sense that it’s the death burial of Jesus Christ that is in view here because the ascension, the resurrection and the ascension is the exaltation. Furthermore, if I were to hold to the underworld view, I can’t, I won’t be able to sustain that with any other passage of scripture. The one scripture that these, the men that hold to the underworld view point to one Peter three 19. And guess what? That verse is another highly debated topic text in the entirety of the scripture where it talks about Jesus Christ preaching to the spirits. So I wouldn’t be able to sustain it. That’s my point. And again, the logic of the text show it makes sense that it’s Christ entire humiliation, death, burial, that of course the exaltation, resurrection, and ascension. Furthermore, it makes more sense that it’s talking about these things because this is how Christ first of all, made sure that he has this one body. This is the means through which the one body came to be what he went through. And the exaltation, of course is the rem de la creme of that this work is now accomplished. Therefore they, him going through all of this makes sense to us. This is how he’s able, he’s capable of distributing gifts as sovereignly as he sees fit. Because he did the work, he was humiliated, he went to the cross, he died, he was buried as a proof that he was dead. And then of course God was highly pleased. So he was highly exalted. And as a result, he can now sovereignly distribute these gifts as he sees fit. So you can choose for yourself which of the terms, which of these theories fits you bit. But the fact of the matter is the work that Jesus Christ accomplished made him eligible, made him give, gave him the right to choose who gives, he gives gifts, what gives, he gives gifts, he gives to the church. It’s a point that Christ is sovereign. That is, uh, the main crux of this verse. As difficult as it is a sovereignty of God, even to the point of his humiliation, even to this point, even though we don’t know precisely what the lower parts of the earth is, Christ is the sovereign one who controls all. He’s the ruler of all. What does it mean except he ascended, descended into the lower parts of the earth. And in verse 10, he who descended is himself also, he will ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things, fill all things. Verse 10 emphasizes his power and authority. And this is what verse nine is doing as well, despite the complications of that term and that phrase, it’s, it’s emphasizing the power and authority that Jesus Christ has over everything. And this includes the principalities and the powers. Something that Paul tells us about in chapter one, verse 21, the stress is on Christ’s supremacy over all things. That is the stress here. That is the highlight, that is the point. And if you take nothing away from that verse in particular, take away the fact that Christ is the supreme one overall things. Hence why he has all the rights to, to distribute these gifts throughout the body as he sees fit. Because he purchased that body with his own blood. So therefore he has sole authority to give gifts to whomever he wills as how he sees fit. So you can’t go to God and pray that you want this gift where you can, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna get that wish and that desire ’cause He determines who gets the gifts in the exercise of his ruling sovereignly at the right hand of God Christ is now unfolding a comprehensive plan for the entire universe. And as Paul has already indicated in chapter one verse 10, that plan involves bringing all creation under his lordship and thus the filling all things in verse 10. So this filling all things has to do with his reign extending over all his enemies, which again makes Paul’s quote of Psalm 68 so potent. And at this present time, this fill in includes or involves the extension of the church through its evangelistic ministry. A gift that Paul will actually mention in verse 11. But it also involves helping people to defeat, helping the church that is to defeat the power of the enemy in their lives and involves us growing to a stature of Christ’s fullness. Again, we see this in verse 30, you know, we’ll see it, but in the future it will involve Christ bringing all the rebellious creation under his leadership and by so doing, making them his footstools. So we have been given the divine provision for maturity in the body of Jesus Christ. The resources are his grace through his grace and guidance by God himself through his spirit. Maturity is growing into a spiritual adulthood stable. Our stability in our faith, discernment. We talked about this in Sunday school this morning, the ability to discern and become more and more Christlike in our walk here on earth. So divine provision for maturities about how God equips us, equips his church, equips his body to grow beyond spiritual infancy and into the fullness of him. Jesus Christ. The divine provision for maturity is God’s way of ensuring that his children, that his church that we here at Bowmanville Baptists don’t remain stagnant, but grow into strong, wise, and fruitful disciples. That is a purpose, that is desire. And Paul is gonna get into this as he close this section and we’ll see this next week. That is the desire of God in giving us these gifts so that we grow, that we mature, we can’t remain stagnant. God does not leave his children to grow on their own. He doesn’t, it makes sense if he’s our father. He is not gonna leave us to fend for ourselves. We all, most of us here have children. We, they’re not born, I would say, you know what? They can fend for themselves. When you want milk, you can go get it when you want to. We don’t do that. We ca we nurture, we mature them, we provide for them. We give them the essentials and the necessities that they need so that they can grow into adulthood. Well that’s what God has done for us. It gives us everything that we need so that we can grow and mature into adulthood. And that’s what these gifts are for. He doesn’t leave us to grow on our own. He provides the resources to ensure maturity. That’s why he gives us according to his grace. And here are some of the things that he has graciously given us. He gave us his word. The scripture is the primary teaching tool. It is the tool that we use for correcting, for equipping, for instruction in righteousness. According to two Timothy three, 16 and 17, the scripture nourishes the believers like milk for infants, but it also provides solid food for us. It doesn’t just continue giving us milk and baby food. It provides solid food that we need as we grow and we mature. And more and more, Hebrews chapter five, verses 12 to 14, he has given us, he has provided for us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that imparts these gifts to us upon the moment of salvation. The spirit who guides us into all truth. According to John 1613, the spirit who convicts us of sin and empower us for obedience. He provides fruit or produces rather fruit that Paul talks about in Galatians chapter five. And these fruit, our evidence that we are growing and maturing into the people that God wants us to be. He also provides spiritual leadership in the text that we have before us that we’ll look at next week. He provides apostles and prophets, pastors, teachers, they are given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. We have forgot, we have missed that. What is the work of the ministry? The same ministry that the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists are doing. And Paul is saying he has given us these men so that they can equip up, equip us to do the same thing that they’re doing. And we have significantly missed that. And we need to remember that and we’ll see more in this next week obviously. But he is given us gifts so that we can continue. That’s the process of discipleship, that’s the process of disciple making. It’s a never ending cycle until Jesus Christ comes. We’re continually making disciple, maturing, disciple and marking disciples, teaching them the things of God so they can continue on the trend. That is how the church needs to operate. That is how the church has to operate. That is how we need to be as a church. But here’s another thing that he provides for us that spurs growth and maturity, life experiences and trials. Yeah, we don’t like this aspect. We like, oh of course give us the Holy Spirit. Give us the word. Give us the gifted men in the church. Absolutely. But life’s trial we can do without that. No we can’t. According to James chapter one, verses two to four, we can’t because challenges and obstacles are our challenges and trials rather, they’re not obstacles, they’re instruments for growth or they should be used for instruments for growth and maturity. But again, because we are a community, because we’re a body of believers that have this oneness of mind, we we’re going through these trials and these life circumstances when we come together, we can learn, we can be encouraged by each other, we can be blessed by each other. Trials produces patients, our preservation, our perseverance. And this perseverance leads to maturity. And God uses both blessings and hardship to shape personality. We like the blessing part that I said we don’t like the hardship part, but again, that’s where coming together helps with the hardship part of it. And even with a blessing, because we rejoice with each other. He grants us, he gives us or he provides for us grace and prayer. Growth is not achieved by human effort alone, but by God’s grace, prayer keeps believers connected to the source of their strength and the source of their wisdom. And that’s one of the weapons that our offensive weapon that Paul will tell us that we have in our arsenal in chapter six, prayer and the word, those are our two offense. Two of the things that we don’t use too much. So we wonder why offensively we’re not that great. Prayer keeps the believer connected to the source of strength and wisdom. He provides each believer with gifts for edification from the early church in Acts chapter two or in Acts chapter two in Wednesday night. We’re not even close to verse 42 to 47 yet. But in in Acts chapter 2 42, the 47 believers devoted themselves to fellowship. They devoted themselves to prayer. They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread together. Community was not optional. Community was not optional. Using your spiritual gifts for the body in the early church was not optional, but I must say was not burdensome either. It wasn’t a burden for them to come together this often and fellowship and and be a community of believers just enjoying each other’s company wasn’t burdensome, it wasn’t inconvenient either. They enjoyed it, they loved it. It was central to their spiritual growth. And that’s why the church grew and spread like wildfire. Christians are described as members of one body. So many times we see it here in Ephesians, see it in Corinthians one, Corinthians 12. We see it in Romans. So many passages of scripture we’re described as members of one body. Spiritual maturity then re begins with the recognition that faith is lived out collectively, not in isolation. You can’t be an isolated believer and claim maturity, full maturity, the maturity that God expects you to achieve. It’s not going to happen. There might be growth and there might be a little bit of growth spending time on your own in your reading scripture. In fact, how you’re not even gonna be encouraged to be in the world too much because you’re not around people to see that these people are in the word. You see people delving into scripture and quoting scripture and explaining scripture and talking about the difficulties of certain passages of scripture. You are not around that. How are you gonna be encouraged to go in the word of God and study it? You’re not gonna be encouraged to pray because you’re not in the community seeing the community pray and immerse themselves in prayer. And you’re definitely not gonna be committed to service ’cause you can’t serve the church when you’re at home. You can’t do it. It’s not lived in isolation. It’s lived collectively. And we need to remember that we ought to encourage accountability as well and be encouraged and encouragement. Hebrews 10, 24, 25. Community provides encouragement when faith feels weak and accountable. Accountability, when temptation arises, is bearing each other’s burden is another thing that we share. And these, some of these things are some people are gifted in, in, in being. People are encouraging. We had a, a brother in Bible college and and we’ve told him this many times, he was phenomenal at encouraging each pe, each other e encouraging the body of students. And I was like, man, this is your, your everyone should be able to encourage others. But he was gifted. It just happens so naturally. And so just right off the hop for him, bearing each other’s burden, carrying each other’s burden, as Galatians reminds us, spiritual maturity grows when believers learn empathy and sacrificial love. Growth happens through teaching, mentoring, modeling, Christ-like behavior. Older believers guide younger believers creating a cycle of maturity. Collective prayer strengthens faith. Worship that is aligned towards God and aligned hearts towards that of God’s heart. Learning to forgive within the community reflects Christ’s love and deepens maturity, different gifts, different background, enriches the body of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t cause chaos and confusion, maturity seen when believers celebrate differences while remaining united in Jesus Christ. And we’re not talking about the celebration of differences that we see out there in the world. But here also is the crux of the matter. Service and mission. A mature community looks outwards. We’re not just looking inward. That is vital. That is pivotal because I’ve always said, and I’m strongly convinced of this, we cannot grow numerically if we’re not growing much spiritually. We can’t. We have to start inward. It has to be a growth that happens from the inside out because people will be coming and people can come. But do we want baby is to be trained and matured and nurtured by baby Christians. We can’t have that. We don’t want that. So maturity has to start within. But with that being said, we still have a responsibility to look outwards serving the world, spreading the gospel. Spiritual maturity is not just inward growth, but it’s output. It’s output as well. And there has to be commitment. Spiritual maturity requires consistent participation in the community life showing up, serving loving, faithfully. And as we walk together as believers, they are tr we are transformed. And the idea and the aim is to become more and more like looking like Jesus Christ and walking in holiness. The Christian community is not merely a gathering, it is a pathway to spiritual maturity. Through fellowship, through discipleship, through service, through unity, believers grow will grow, ought to grow, should grow deeper in your faith, in our faith, and reflect Christ more fully amongst ourselves. And in the world in which we live. Maturity is cultivated, not again, not in isolation, but in a sheer journey while we walk this Christian walk with Jesus Christ. That’s how the Christian community should be looked upon. That is why God has gifted us. And I pray, I sincerely pray my heart’s desires that we faithfully, wholeheartedly serve God with every fiber of our being. And if you want to look at it selfishly, just think, what if Pastor Bears decide, you know what? I’m gonna just withhold my gifts. I’m gonna give you guys the bare minimum of sermons and Bible study because I want all of this for myself. How you would not appreciate that. Well look at it internally. Look at it from an individual perspective. Why God has gifted me. Why should I then withhold this gift from my brother and sister in Christ? Why should I not want them to explore and understand and realize and see God’s goodness in me and God’s grace that he has lavished upon me to use this gift and ability so that they can grow and mature and become more and more like Jesus Christ. That’s why he has given us each, every single individual a gift. And it’s the U be used for his glory. That’s the Christian community. That’s the book. That’s what we see in the Book of Acts. This is not unfortunately the norm for churches, but I pray that this will become the norm again. And let it start with us here at Bowmanville Baptist Church. Let this become the norm for the church. Let us be an example to, sorry, to other churches and to other believers. Let them look at us to see this is our Christian community operates or should operate. Let that start with us. Let us be the community that is shining so bright that is just gonna attract so many, whether they’re saved or not to us because they see something that is so significantly different. Like we want to experience that. We want to experience that may God give us the grace to do so. Father, we’re so thankful, we’re so grateful for this reminder, Lord, of why you have graciously given us these gifts and abilities. And I pray, Lord, that is the desire of each and everyone that is here. The heart’s desire to utilize wholeheartedly the gift or gifts that you have given them for the benefit of building up your kingdom, your local assembly that you have placed them in for your glory. For your honor, and again, Lord, we do realize that there might be some that are unaware of what their gift or giftedness might be. And I pray that you will reveal that to them. But I pray that they’ll be diligent to seek to discover through prayer, through immersing in the word, through immersing themselves into ministries and that are and ministry opportunities that are available here at this local assembly so they can truly discover and faithfully execute the service that you have called them to here at this local assembly for Christ’s sake. Amen.