This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of our look through Ephesians chapter 4 and daily drive time
devotions. We're going to be looking at verses 4 to 12 today. You might remember
that yesterday we began a look at what it means to be a part of a great church.

Can I make my church great? Great in a way that reflects God's glory and Jesus'
love in this world. And we talked yesterday about developing three attitudes,
humility, gentleness, and patience.

About making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit. And we began to talk
at the end of the day yesterday about appreciating the unity that strengthens
our diversity and the diversity that strengthens our unity. Let's continue with
that today by taking a close look at God's plan.

God's plan for unity and God's plan for diversity. God's plan for unity, you see
it in Ephesians 4 verses 4 to 6, listen to these verses. There's one body and
one spirit.

Just as you were called to one hope when you were called. One Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in
all. You don't have to be a brilliant student of the Bible to realize that the
word one was verses.

These verses are about the things that unify us, the ways that we're tied
together. And there are seven basic spiritual realities here that unite all
believers. There is one body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, and God.

That's the foundation. If you don't agree about those, you don't agree. But if
you do agree about those, we're going to take a closer look at them in just a
moment.

If you do agree about these seven things, then you have an undeniable foundation
for unity. Now having a foundation doesn't mean you have a house, but without a
foundation you can't even think of building a house, it won't stand. Let me just
encourage you, whenever you're tempted towards disunity with a fellow believer,
remember these seven things.

One body. That means one church, body of Christ in this world. And that means
that whatever hurts them also hurts me.

We're one body. We're one spirit. And that means that the Holy Spirit who is
within us, he agrees.

Now I may be disagreeing with you as a fellow believer, but the Spirit who is
within each of us does agree. So I look to him for direction. There is one hope.

You know what that means? That means we're going to spend eternity together. We
may as well start getting along now because we're going to spend eternity
together.

One body, one spirit, one hope. One Lord. When I'm tempted toward disunity with
a fellow believer in Christ, maybe somebody that I've even known for a long time
and we've gotten on different sides of an issue, remember we have one Lord.

And you know what that means? That means that Jesus thought of us both when he
died on the cross. He is our Lord.

We have one faith. That means that we agree on the most, the most important
things. There is one baptism.

That means we are marked by God as believers in him. And there is one God. We
are both creative expressions of a loving God, a loving Father.

And don't forget, God is over all and through all and in all. This verse, when
we talk about who God is and the unity that we have, it's a great verse to
visualize where God is in all of your relationships. He's over all and through
all and in all.

That's where he is. As we talk about unity, does that mean I have to agree on
everything with every other believer? Of course not.

You're going to see some things differently. But how do I handle it when I see
something differently than a fellow believer? I handle it with unity.

I handle it by realizing that we are one body and one spirit and one hope and
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, following one God. That's how I handle it.
That's God's plan for unity.

And God's plan for unity is a plan that is built on diversity. Notice he's just
talked about we are one this and one this and one this. In Ephesians 4-7, here's
what Paul has to say.

But to each one of us, grace has been given, as Christ apportioned it. One, one,
one, and now he says each one. Now he goes to the individual, apportioned, as
Christ has apportioned it.

He's talking about spiritual gifts here. He's not saying some people get more of
saving grace than others. We all get the same measure of that.

All. He's saying we've been apportioned a spiritual gift, a spirit-given gift or
ability. Remember the word for grace and the word for gift in the Greek language
is the same word.

We're given this grace gift to serve God. Now to understand the gift, you have
to get to know the giver. A lot of people want to know what's my spiritual gift?

What should I do about my spiritual gift? I always say the place to start is to
get to know the giver. The better you get to know him, the better you're going
to get to know what he wants you to do.

As we go on thinking about these gifts that God has given us, that he
appreciates our diversity, we hit Ephesians 4, 8 to 10, which to many people are
the most confusing verses in the entire book of Ephesians. Let me read these
verses. He's just been talking about gifts and then all of a sudden the Bible
says, this is why it says when he ascended on high he led captives in his train
and he gave gifts to men.

And then in parentheses Paul says what does he ascended mean except that he also
descended to the lower earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who
ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. These
few verses make a lot of people scratch their heads.

What is all this about ascending and descending and what is this about captives
in his train and why in the world is Paul saying this right in this spot? These
verses are filled with references to some different truths and when you
understand those it's pretty clear what's going on here. First there's an Old
Testament reference, a quote that shows that Jesus' plan has always been to give
spiritual gifts to the church.

That's where this all starts. When he ascended on high he led captives in his
train and he gave gifts to men. That's the key here.

Paul's quoting from the Old Testament saying I want you to understand that God's
always intended to give gifts to us so that we could serve each other. But then
as he says that he realizes he just talked about him ascending on high and it
causes him to begin to talk to the Ephesians about something that was unique to
their culture. This thing about ascending and descending it's a reference to
Jesus' superiority over this Ephesian false goddess Diana who was said to have
descended from heaven to the very spot, touched the earth where they built this
temple where remember we talked about in the first week they had this false
worship that included evil like prostitution.

Paul says Jesus is so far above this false goddess he not only descended he also
ascended. He did both. This is also by the way when it talks about Jesus
descending and ascending what some people think to be one of the few references
in the Bible of Jesus descending into hell.

Now I have to tell you I think that this just means he descended he came to
earth to meet our needs but it is a possible reference that he descended into
hell. You can read about this in commentaries if you want to know more. There's
a couple of other references to this in the Bible and it's in the Apostles Creed
and this is one of the places that it comes from but I remind you that the point
of these verses is not to get us talking about Diana and the lower regions.

The point is Jesus has used an awesome display of his mighty power to give each
one of us gifts. That's the point. This is about gifts.

We're talking about our walk as followers of Christ and the vital need for unity
with other believers in order to walk the walk of faith. When we're following
Jesus we've got to be in fellowship with other people who are following Jesus.
You can't do it alone.

If you try to do it alone or if you're not in fellowship with those that you're
trying to follow Jesus with, you're going to be concentrating on other people or
just concentrating on your feelings of loneliness instead of looking at the one
that we're supposed to be following. And one of the keys to following him
together is realizing God has given every one of us a gift. There is no one in
God's church who is not gifted, who is not important because Jesus has given
those gifts.

He went to the extent of descending and ascending and to give gifts to men.
That's his Lordship. We've talked about what it means to follow him together,
developing attitudes of gentleness and patience and humility, giving your all,
understanding God's plan for unity and diversity, the gifts that he's given.

In verses 11 and 12 there's a fourth thing that he talks about. You want to have
a great church? Paul says respect God-given leaders who can help you to develop
your God-given gifts.

Respect God-given leaders who can help you to develop your God-given gifts.
Ephesians 4, 11 and 12. It was he, Jesus, who gave some to be apostles, some to
be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers, to
prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be
built up.

I've heard some people say, "Oh, I'm just following Jesus, I'm not going to ever
follow any human being. " Well, that's not going to result in unity because
Jesus has given people that we're supposed to follow in the church, leaders in
the church. They're not perfect, they're not Jesus, they're just leaders.

And the purpose of those leaders, we just read it, is to prepare me, prepare
God's people for works of service. And the role of these leaders in our unity is
vital. If you're somewhere later where you can write this down or right now
where you can write this down, write this down and remember this.

Gifts enable us for service, people equip us for service. Gifts enable us for
service, Jesus gives us those gifts, people equip us for service. And Paul gives
a list here of the kinds of leaders, not a total list, but just some of the
kinds of leaders that equip us for service, apostles and prophets and
evangelists and pastors and teachers.

Just a real quick study of this, apostles are people who usually carry the
message to a place the first time. Evangelists are people who are foretellers of
the Word of God. Evangelists are people who share the good news and bring people
in.

Pastors and teachers are people who care for the flock of God by teaching the
Word of God. But notice, whatever the role, the goal is the same, to equip God's
people for works of service, because that's where the unity comes from. I just
say to you honestly, if you're in a place where you're thinking, "I don't
respect the leader of my church," then you can choose to go to a different
church.

You see, if you make that choice, you'll find out one of two things. Either God
wanted you to be somewhere else, and maybe he does. Maybe he wants you to be a
different part of a different family.

Or you'll find out God wants me where I am with a new respect for my spiritual
leaders. Because you see, for most of you whom I'm talking to, you do have a
deep respect for spiritual leaders. I know at Saddleback Church, I can't think
of a church anywhere that has a better way of respecting the leadership that
they get from our pastor and our pastoral team.

And that is one of the things that makes a great church, because we're
respecting the roles that God has given us in following him. And what does that
respect do for spiritual leaders? For me as a spiritual leader, it makes me want
to recommit myself even more to helping God's people to be equipped for the ways
that God wants you to serve.

In fact, right now as we pray, ending this day, I want to pray that God will
help you to use the gifts that he's given to you in amazing ways, even this
week. Lord, I pray for everyone listening to this. You've equipped them as a
follower of Christ with a gift.

And I pray, I pray that as they look to you, that that giftedness, even though
they may not know the name of that gift, that giftedness would be used this week
to make a difference in somebody's life. To bring encouragement, to bring hope,
to bring strength, to bring conviction, to bring direction. God, use that gift,
bring hope to someone who needs it.

I pray that you would bring the gift out in a way that honors you. And I pray
it, Jesus, in your name, Amen. Well join us tomorrow.

We're going to be looking together at verses 13 to 16 of the fourth chapter of
Ephesians.