Ephesians 4:7
The Grace We’ve Been Given
Introduction:
Have you ever asked yourself: As a Christian, what role do I have to play in the Church?
I heard a story of a ship that was sinking in the middle of a storm. The captain called out to the crew and said, "Does anyone here know how to pray?" One man stepped forward and said, "Yes sir, I know how to pray." The captain said, "Wonderful. You pray while the rest of us put on life jackets. We're one short."
Have you ever asked yourself what role God has for you in the Church? Do I have anything to offer that contributes? Some people are singing and playing instruments each week, but, if you sing about as good as the guy who preaches you probably can’t be on the music team. Others help out in children’s ministry, or host growth groups, or setup for events or maintain the buildings, or do meals or prayer meetings or visit shut ins, or give. The list of what many of you are doing goes on much longer than that.
The point of our passage today is to show how Christ not only creates unity in the Church, but, how He also creates uniqueness. Christ has not only saved each of us, but, He has supplied each of us uniquely with grace. And I believe the point of this uniqueness that each one of us has is so that each of us can contribute effectively to the unity of the whole Body.
Unity is really the driving theme. He mentioned it in verse 3 “……….” He picks up again on it in Notice verse 13, “until we all reach unity in the faith”. And notice again in verse 16 when he says, “the whole body…builds itself up…” But notice the flow of Paul’s thoughts. Whereas verses 1-6 we saw character qualities that promote unity, now, in verses 7-11 we will see that each one of us is given a certain capacity for serving. Then in verses 12-16 we will see that our individual capacity for serving is for the construction of the whole Body.
If we keep in mind that the theme of chapter 4 is the unity, then, we can see the context that verses 7-10 fall into. And we can see that the idea is that Christ purchased us with His blood and He has provided each of us with grace so we can operate in a productive way within the Church Body.
Point #1: Christ Administers Grace (v7)
Notice how Paul says in verse 7, “As Christ apportioned it”. Christ is the giver. He appoints the specific size and species of grace that each of us possess. We are His design. He is the engineer, the architect. Hebrews 12:2 says He “is the author and perfecter of our faith.”
Now in other parts of Scripture we read that the Holy Spirit gifts us. For example, turn with me over in 1 Corinthians 12:7, (read…)
But here in Ephesians we see the particular giver of the gift of grace is Christ. Some have suggested that the thought here by Paul is that Christ gives the Holy Spirit, who, then gives the gifts to each believer. Perhaps that may be as often the Holy Spirit is described as a gift to us from the Father and the Lord Jesus. Jesus said in Acts 1:4 to the disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the GIFT my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Peter said in Acts 2:39 when he preached to the crowds in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the GIFT of the Holy Spirit.”
Since Christ is the one who administers this grace to us, there are several things for us to notice from verse 7 about this grace:
#1: Grace that Enables us for service to the Body. Notice in verse 7, “But to each one of us Grace has been given”. Grace is what Christ gives. Specifically, this is Grace for serving, not salvation. And in the NT, salvation and serving are the only 2 areas that we find God’s grace spoken of: salvation and serving. Here Paul is talking about the grace Christ gives that enables us for service. It is the grace of ability and empowerment to walk in the good works that He has prepared for us (2:10). We saw this in chapter 3 where Paul said in verse 2, “Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you”. Notice that God gave Paul grace, but, it was for the Ephesian believers. Paul explains more a couple verses later in verse 8, “Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” I love how 1 Peter 4:10 says it, “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” God’s grace is seen first in His saving us, and then in our serving Him. (Eph. 1:6; 3:2, 8; 4:16; 1 Cor. 1:4; 2 Cor. 6:1; 1 Pet. 4:10)
#2: Grace that Extends to all believers. No one is overlooked. Paul says specifically in verse 7, “But to Each one of us grace has been given”. No one here is without grace. None are neglected. Christ hasn’t forgotten about a single believer in this matter.
This thought of Paul here extends all the way through verse 16. Three times he stresses the fact that we each participate in the construction of the Body of Christ. Here in verse 7, “to EACH ONE of US”, then in verse 13, “until WE ALL reach unity…”, and finally in verse 16, “From Him the WHOLE BODY joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as EACH PART does ITS work.”
The point I find coming from this is that Christ has a purpose for each one of us in the Church. There are no benchwarmers. This means we should not be making excuses for neglecting service in some capacity to the Body and it means that no one should feel left out. This enabling grace has been provided to each of us from Christ in order to serve His Body.
#3: Exact degrees of grace to all believers (v7) --“Each one of us”, Christ has gifted all of the members of His Body with careful thought to how we each should use of our gift and the effect we should have on the other parts of His Body. What Christ has given us is expressly for the purpose of benefiting others in the Church. Again 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms”
Notice first that there is Uniqueness within the Body. There is great diversity within the unity of the Church. All of us have received grace, but, we have not all received the same portion. Paul says, “to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it”. While there is Unity in the Church there is not uniformity. Each of us has uniquely been gifted. A great variety of graces thoughtfully selected and appropriated to each one of us. Just like God’s manifold wisdom is being displayed in the Church for the angels to see (3:10) God’s manifold grace is being displayed in the uniqueness of each believer.
This is very personal. This is very thoughtful of Christ. We remember in John 14 when Jesus says that He is going away to prepare a place for us. How personal that is to go and get some place ready for us. All the time He is preparing a place for us it is us He has in mind. Here now we see that Christ gives a very special and personal attention to each individual Christian. He doesn’t just give cookie cutter grace, He doesn’t give some blanket sweep grace, He doesn’t give “standard” one-size fits all grace. With each of us in His mind He gives each of us exactly what He wants to give us for the purposes He has for us in His Body.
And, yet, in seeing us as one body, all of us function with our various gifts to make the body as functional as possible. Unless we realize our individuality within our unity we will be at great risk for division. Realizing our individuality does not bring a greater isolation of each of us. What is unique of us is the particular value Christ gives to us so we can give to the whole church. So the purpose of our Christ-given uniqueness is for the unity of the Church.
Sometimes in the NT the Church is described as a building. We have several builders here this morning. If someone wants to build a house you are going to need different kinds of people to do it. You are going to need Carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, painters, roofers, and so on. All have their own task, different from the others. Yet each different person has as his goal the same as the all the others – the completed house. A house isn’t any good without electricity, or without the plumbing, or without the drywall hung, or without the roof. All of these different tradesmen come together with different skill sets and contribute to the one building. The Church is like that. Each of us are given different degrees of grace, determined by Christ, and every one of us with our different portion come together to work towards the same purpose: the upbuilding of the whole Church. Each of us has something to contribute.
So, are we contributing? Are we functioning according to the grace Christ has given us? Are we actually active with what Christ has given us? Or are we neglecting it? Do we skip fellowship with other believers. Do we neglect serving them? If Christ has thoughtfully, carefully and purposefully thought about us, and calculated the portion of grace for each of us, then for any of us to ignore or neglect that grace is to refuse His personal will for our individual lives in the Body of Christ.
Someone might say, “Well, I’m just not gifted like so and so. I can’t do what they do.” Maybe not, but, you do have some measure of ability to do something meaningful in service to the Body of Christ. Whether it is as much as someone else really is no concern for you. What is your concern is whether what you have been given is being put to use for the benefit of other believers and for the glory of Jesus Christ, who gave it to you. This point is stressed in the parable of the talents that Jesus told in Matthew 25:14-30.
Gifts are given to us so we can give them to others. What we receive is what we are to give. There is no such thing as using my gift for my personal spiritual growth apart from anyone else’s benefit. Spiritual gifts given to me are for the building up of other people, and it is only when my gifts are exercised in that way that I benefit from the use of my gift. It is nonsense for someone to say well I use my gift for my own prayer life or my own private use. That certainly is not what Christ gave it to you for, if you even have it.
***Conclusion:
A couple of years ago in England, 19 year old Roger Hayhurst decided that he wanted to do something about crime in his area. So, he decided to become a superhero. His mom helped him make a black and blue outfit with a mask and everything. He even came up with a name, “Knight Warrior”. Roger, aka, “Knight Warrior”, would patrol the streets of his hometown with his superhero getup and “breakup fights and thwart anti-social behavior.”
Well, it wasn’t long before Knight Warrior’s bravery was zapped and his superhero fantasy was thwarted. It is reported that while out on patrol one night he was attacked and quite thoroughly roughed up. Knight Warrior, in an interview after the incident said, “I still dress up and occasionally patrol, but I mainly dress up for charity appearances.”
While Knight Warrior may have the appearance of a superhero, he doesn’t really have the ability to be one. We are not Chrisians in appearance only, but, by Christ’s grace, we have abilities that are vital to the growth and life of the local church. Each of us has uniqueness as together we make up a necessary unity.
The Grace We’ve Been Given
Introduction:
Have you ever asked yourself: As a Christian, what role do I have to play in the Church?
I heard a story of a ship that was sinking in the middle of a storm. The captain called out to the crew and said, "Does anyone here know how to pray?" One man stepped forward and said, "Yes sir, I know how to pray." The captain said, "Wonderful. You pray while the rest of us put on life jackets. We're one short."
Have you ever asked yourself what role God has for you in the Church? Do I have anything to offer that contributes? Some people are singing and playing instruments each week, but, if you sing about as good as the guy who preaches you probably can’t be on the music team. Others help out in children’s ministry, or host growth groups, or setup for events or maintain the buildings, or do meals or prayer meetings or visit shut ins, or give. The list of what many of you are doing goes on much longer than that.
The point of our passage today is to show how Christ not only creates unity in the Church, but, how He also creates uniqueness. Christ has not only saved each of us, but, He has supplied each of us uniquely with grace. And I believe the point of this uniqueness that each one of us has is so that each of us can contribute effectively to the unity of the whole Body.
Unity is really the driving theme. He mentioned it in verse 3 “……….” He picks up again on it in Notice verse 13, “until we all reach unity in the faith”. And notice again in verse 16 when he says, “the whole body…builds itself up…” But notice the flow of Paul’s thoughts. Whereas verses 1-6 we saw character qualities that promote unity, now, in verses 7-11 we will see that each one of us is given a certain capacity for serving. Then in verses 12-16 we will see that our individual capacity for serving is for the construction of the whole Body.
If we keep in mind that the theme of chapter 4 is the unity, then, we can see the context that verses 7-10 fall into. And we can see that the idea is that Christ purchased us with His blood and He has provided each of us with grace so we can operate in a productive way within the Church Body.
Point #1: Christ Administers Grace (v7)
Notice how Paul says in verse 7, “As Christ apportioned it”. Christ is the giver. He appoints the specific size and species of grace that each of us possess. We are His design. He is the engineer, the architect. Hebrews 12:2 says He “is the author and perfecter of our faith.”
Now in other parts of Scripture we read that the Holy Spirit gifts us. For example, turn with me over in 1 Corinthians 12:7, (read…)
But here in Ephesians we see the particular giver of the gift of grace is Christ. Some have suggested that the thought here by Paul is that Christ gives the Holy Spirit, who, then gives the gifts to each believer. Perhaps that may be as often the Holy Spirit is described as a gift to us from the Father and the Lord Jesus. Jesus said in Acts 1:4 to the disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the GIFT my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Peter said in Acts 2:39 when he preached to the crowds in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the GIFT of the Holy Spirit.”
Since Christ is the one who administers this grace to us, there are several things for us to notice from verse 7 about this grace:
#1: Grace that Enables us for service to the Body. Notice in verse 7, “But to each one of us Grace has been given”. Grace is what Christ gives. Specifically, this is Grace for serving, not salvation. And in the NT, salvation and serving are the only 2 areas that we find God’s grace spoken of: salvation and serving. Here Paul is talking about the grace Christ gives that enables us for service. It is the grace of ability and empowerment to walk in the good works that He has prepared for us (2:10). We saw this in chapter 3 where Paul said in verse 2, “Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you”. Notice that God gave Paul grace, but, it was for the Ephesian believers. Paul explains more a couple verses later in verse 8, “Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” I love how 1 Peter 4:10 says it, “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” God’s grace is seen first in His saving us, and then in our serving Him. (Eph. 1:6; 3:2, 8; 4:16; 1 Cor. 1:4; 2 Cor. 6:1; 1 Pet. 4:10)
#2: Grace that Extends to all believers. No one is overlooked. Paul says specifically in verse 7, “But to Each one of us grace has been given”. No one here is without grace. None are neglected. Christ hasn’t forgotten about a single believer in this matter.
This thought of Paul here extends all the way through verse 16. Three times he stresses the fact that we each participate in the construction of the Body of Christ. Here in verse 7, “to EACH ONE of US”, then in verse 13, “until WE ALL reach unity…”, and finally in verse 16, “From Him the WHOLE BODY joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as EACH PART does ITS work.”
The point I find coming from this is that Christ has a purpose for each one of us in the Church. There are no benchwarmers. This means we should not be making excuses for neglecting service in some capacity to the Body and it means that no one should feel left out. This enabling grace has been provided to each of us from Christ in order to serve His Body.
#3: Exact degrees of grace to all believers (v7) --“Each one of us”, Christ has gifted all of the members of His Body with careful thought to how we each should use of our gift and the effect we should have on the other parts of His Body. What Christ has given us is expressly for the purpose of benefiting others in the Church. Again 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms”
Notice first that there is Uniqueness within the Body. There is great diversity within the unity of the Church. All of us have received grace, but, we have not all received the same portion. Paul says, “to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it”. While there is Unity in the Church there is not uniformity. Each of us has uniquely been gifted. A great variety of graces thoughtfully selected and appropriated to each one of us. Just like God’s manifold wisdom is being displayed in the Church for the angels to see (3:10) God’s manifold grace is being displayed in the uniqueness of each believer.
This is very personal. This is very thoughtful of Christ. We remember in John 14 when Jesus says that He is going away to prepare a place for us. How personal that is to go and get some place ready for us. All the time He is preparing a place for us it is us He has in mind. Here now we see that Christ gives a very special and personal attention to each individual Christian. He doesn’t just give cookie cutter grace, He doesn’t give some blanket sweep grace, He doesn’t give “standard” one-size fits all grace. With each of us in His mind He gives each of us exactly what He wants to give us for the purposes He has for us in His Body.
And, yet, in seeing us as one body, all of us function with our various gifts to make the body as functional as possible. Unless we realize our individuality within our unity we will be at great risk for division. Realizing our individuality does not bring a greater isolation of each of us. What is unique of us is the particular value Christ gives to us so we can give to the whole church. So the purpose of our Christ-given uniqueness is for the unity of the Church.
Sometimes in the NT the Church is described as a building. We have several builders here this morning. If someone wants to build a house you are going to need different kinds of people to do it. You are going to need Carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, painters, roofers, and so on. All have their own task, different from the others. Yet each different person has as his goal the same as the all the others – the completed house. A house isn’t any good without electricity, or without the plumbing, or without the drywall hung, or without the roof. All of these different tradesmen come together with different skill sets and contribute to the one building. The Church is like that. Each of us are given different degrees of grace, determined by Christ, and every one of us with our different portion come together to work towards the same purpose: the upbuilding of the whole Church. Each of us has something to contribute.
So, are we contributing? Are we functioning according to the grace Christ has given us? Are we actually active with what Christ has given us? Or are we neglecting it? Do we skip fellowship with other believers. Do we neglect serving them? If Christ has thoughtfully, carefully and purposefully thought about us, and calculated the portion of grace for each of us, then for any of us to ignore or neglect that grace is to refuse His personal will for our individual lives in the Body of Christ.
Someone might say, “Well, I’m just not gifted like so and so. I can’t do what they do.” Maybe not, but, you do have some measure of ability to do something meaningful in service to the Body of Christ. Whether it is as much as someone else really is no concern for you. What is your concern is whether what you have been given is being put to use for the benefit of other believers and for the glory of Jesus Christ, who gave it to you. This point is stressed in the parable of the talents that Jesus told in Matthew 25:14-30.
Gifts are given to us so we can give them to others. What we receive is what we are to give. There is no such thing as using my gift for my personal spiritual growth apart from anyone else’s benefit. Spiritual gifts given to me are for the building up of other people, and it is only when my gifts are exercised in that way that I benefit from the use of my gift. It is nonsense for someone to say well I use my gift for my own prayer life or my own private use. That certainly is not what Christ gave it to you for, if you even have it.
***Conclusion:
A couple of years ago in England, 19 year old Roger Hayhurst decided that he wanted to do something about crime in his area. So, he decided to become a superhero. His mom helped him make a black and blue outfit with a mask and everything. He even came up with a name, “Knight Warrior”. Roger, aka, “Knight Warrior”, would patrol the streets of his hometown with his superhero getup and “breakup fights and thwart anti-social behavior.”
Well, it wasn’t long before Knight Warrior’s bravery was zapped and his superhero fantasy was thwarted. It is reported that while out on patrol one night he was attacked and quite thoroughly roughed up. Knight Warrior, in an interview after the incident said, “I still dress up and occasionally patrol, but I mainly dress up for charity appearances.”
While Knight Warrior may have the appearance of a superhero, he doesn’t really have the ability to be one. We are not Chrisians in appearance only, but, by Christ’s grace, we have abilities that are vital to the growth and life of the local church. Each of us has uniqueness as together we make up a necessary unity.
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