Ephesians 4:7-16

Ephesians 4:7-16

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Spiritual Gifts

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

“When He ascended on high,

He led captivity captive,

And gave gifts to men.”

9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Eph 4:7-16

• Transcript

  Hey friends, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions, jump on the computer here. Make sure everybody's equal join us live this case. Hey, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions. It's so good to have you. Jump on the computer here. Make sure everybody's able to join us live. Give me one second, sending out the text message to everyone. And we'll just make sure we're going live everywhere. Wonderful. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions is where every day you and I we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow and our love for the Lord together in this year 2022. We'll make a book of Acts to the book of fight Lehman and today we're at Galatians chapter three, the first nine verses 10 verses or so nine verses. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get the Lord's word. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word for your son for your grace for waking us up this morning. Your Mercies new every day. Please teach us this morning God in Jesus name, amen. Here we go. Galatians chapter one, or Galatians chapter three beginning at first one Oh foolish Galatians who has been Witched you that you should not obey the truth. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. This I only want to learn from you did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who is applies the spirit to you and works miracles among you? Does he do so by the works of the law? Or by the hearing of faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham in the scriptures for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel to Abraham beforehand saying in all the nations in you all the nation shall be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Well, we need to ask ourselves a What's this about? Be what's the best verses summarize this and see, what are we called to do in response to these words, right. So first, what is this about? How did we become right with God? That's what this is about. Did we come to God and were we made right with God because of things that we have done? Or because of what he has done? So let's first look at verses one through four. That first paragraph of this section really says, You must have been the witch or who has cast a spell over you what has happened right before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified. Remember, this is kind of central Turkey area of today. It's the area of Roman Galatia. It's two churches there and so they weren't actually at the crucifixion. They weren't there in Jerusalem when this was going on. But what was the message of Paul's Gospel was Christ and Christ crucified. And so as he preached Christ to them it was Christ who was portrayed as crucified. It was before their very eyes, heart and core and central message of the gospel of Paul was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So how they lose sight of that? He says, I don't understand what happened here. Or you must be under some type of, of spell or something. This I only want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Oh dude, how did you come to know Christ? How were you filled with the Holy Spirit? How was your hardest stone taken out? And given a heart of flesh? How are you circumcised in your heart? How did you receive the Holy Spirit? To do it because you followed the commandments of Moses? No, no, that this isn't the way things worked. Or by the hearing of faith How did you come to know Christ? How are you filled with the Spirit? Was it by the keeping of the law? Was it by following every jot and tittle of Moses or was it hearing with faith? That the words come out of Paul's mouth into their ears? And seep down into their hearts and did it grip their souls and then they cry out what must we do to be saved? He's calling them back to their faith that they have wandered from are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain if his deed it was in vain, right if it was all by your works, why embrace Christ? If you're if you're suffering so much for the name of Jesus Christ, but you don't actually need the finished work of Christ, Why suffer at all? Seems like that's pretty vain. You could just stayed in your Jewish life. You could just stayed in the synagogues. You could just kept doing your thing. Why embrace Christ and bring all this hardship on you. If you started by the Spirit, but now you're trying to finish by works. That doesn't make sense here. What's what's happened? How did things turn backwards? And so he's going to now turn in the next few verses and and talk about how they received Christ. Therefore, He who supplies a spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are the powerful things that the Holy Spirit did in their midst? Was it because they had perfectly keep kept God's law? No. No, but faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God and they heard and they believed, and the spirit filled them and did miraculous things in their midst. He says, What are you doing, guys? You follow the way of Abraham verse six, just as Abraham believed God and it was a credit to him for righteousness. Therefore know that only those who are a faith are sons. of Abraham. Abraham believed God. He trusted the promises. He heard God's words. And he believed him so much so that as he would turmoil in his soul, went up the mountain with his son Isaac. He turned back and he told his young his servants, he said, that they're going to go up and make the sacrifice, but we will come down and the book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham believed in his heart that God might even raise his son up from the dead. Why? Because he trusted God He had faith God's promises that God had come into covenant with him, that God had made promises to him. And those promises were going to come through he had promised him that through his son, he would have a multitude of heirs numerous the stars of the sky. And he says that he believed him to be because he believed him. It was a credited to him as righteousness. Abraham believed I love the final verse here in verse nine when it says. So then those who are a faith are blessed with believing Abraham, believing Abraham all the nations would be blessed through Abraham because of his faith, because of this firm resolve to hope and the thing is not yet seen. To trust in God's goodness in his promises. To know that God was faithful to bring about what he had done. That's how he was saved. That's how he was justified. That's how he was declared definitively righteous. Not because of things he did, but because of the things he believed. That's the same way in which the Galatians received the Spirit. was the best verse to summarizes. Well, you know, I would underline verse one, and two, I might also underline verse five, but then I would be tempted to underline verse seven and eight also maybe you can help me narrow it down. That's what I got in my Bible underline but I seem to underline a whole lot and that's okay, but let me know. What would you underline in your Bible? Last seek calling. I'm gonna give you two big words. I'm gonna define them. It's important that we get them straight one first big word justification. This is a legal declaration of righteous at the point of your belief, there was a point, punk tiller at one time, that God said, righteous. Right, he accounted you, righteous for the sake of Christ, Christ's righteousness given to you. He made Him who knew no sin become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. You were given Christ's righteousness declared righteous, no longer guilty, no longer liable to the punishments of the law. Justification just as if you never sinned, legally declaratively true. Justification first, big word. Second big word. sanctification. Sanctification is this growing in holiness. This sense in which God Yes, he has declared us that we are saints. He has declared that we are holy, but he is as old Puritans would say, we have been saved justification. We are being saved. sanctification, and we will be saved glorification. But sanctification is that process in which God is working in our hearts and in our lives, by the power of his Spirit, being united to Jesus, that we would bear good fruit and be transformed that we would put off the deeds of darkness and we would put on light that we would repent from sin and turn towards righteousness, but our good deeds never earned our justification. Justification happens first. Sanctification happens over our whole lifetime. This is why it's so important if you go to the book of Ephesians and we're gonna get there in a couple of weeks. For by grace, you were saved through faith and that not of yourselves it was the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Right? justification by grace through faith, not of works. Ephesians chapter two, eight and nine then verse 10. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, why, for good works, which he prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. He saved us for sanctification. But we must not trust our sanctification. For right standing with God, this is the problem that they're having here. They're thinking, Oh, if I go back to the law, to my work to my good deeds and all be right with God maybe you have fallen into that trap. Now God cares deeply about your sanctification. He wants you to be transformed in the renewing of your mind. He wants you to walk in holiness. He has created you for good works but you're going to fail. In this life, sanctification will never be perfect. And if your assurance of salvation is founded on your sanctification, you will never have assurance of salvation, but you look to Jesus Christ Christian. I am calling you from God's Word this morning to look to Jesus Christ. Because as we see our depth of sin and the riches of His grace, we will be cut to the core of how heinous our sin is and out of grief and hatred for arson, then we will turn from it unto God with endeavoring afternoon obedience. See, it's not by looking at how well we are doing in sanctification, but as looking at the perfections of Jesus Christ. And as we look at him crucified, then the Spirit does this work that we see our deep need and we want to walk in his ways we see and our hearts are filled with thankfulness. I pray that you would be filled with gratitude to God for what He has done in your heart, in your life declaratively by saving you by justifying you, by giving you faith and in His grace, He has taken you who are once darkness and made you light, United you to a sun cling there. Look there remember what he has done for you. And then walk in faith. Being united to Christ and doing the good works. But don't ever get it confused. It's a trap of the human soul. We are Legalist to the core and that will try to creep into our hearts look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. And when your heart is despondent look to Christ. Let's pray. Father, we confess to you that we fall so far short of your glory. We thank you that you have declared us righteous by faith. We thank you that in Abraham, we have been blessed though we are Gentiles in the flesh, strangers to the promises you were so good. Lord, we pray that Your Holy Spirit might comfort our hearts that you would give us assurance of salvation, but not an assurance. of salvation that would leave us loving the walls of our own filthy synth. But Lord that you would, by the power of your Holy Spirit, move us more and more toward holiness conform us to the image of your son we pray in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may you find great joy and peace and resting in Jesus Christ alone. And may the comfort of the Holy Spirit give you peace today. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai