Being Worthy Of The Call Of Jesus

Jonathan Newlon

Uniontown Church of Christ

23 May, 2020

Being Worthy of the Call of Jesus

Introduction

When I was a child, I looked to my dad for guidance. I still do. As I grew older, I remember my attitude changing a bit in terms of how I saw going against my father. When I was younger, I wanted to do the right thing because I was afraid of my father punishing me. I didn’t want a spanking, I didn’t want a timeout, I didn’t want to stand in the corner. I had the “fear of the Brian” in me. As I grew older, I started to understand concepts like respect and disappointment. When I wanted to do the right thing, it was no longer out of fear of being punished by my father, but rather, it was out of fear of disappointing my father. To me, my father was an is the perfect role model of what a man should be. Even to this day, I try to live my life in a way that I would be considered worthy of being called his son.

The same should be true of our relationship with God. You see, we are all called to be children of the Lord. We are called to an inheritance from God! We are called to be joint heirs with Jesus to the eternal glory of heaven. The Apostle Paul reminds us of our responsibility to God in Ephesians 4. My question to you is the same as the wishes of Paul in verse 2. Are you living in a manner worthy of the calling of the Lord? Let’s read Ephesians 4 together and see what this all means.

(Read Ephesians 4)

I. Unity as Christians

The first theme that Paul gives us in this chapter is unity. Unity all starts with the way we treat each other. He says in verse 3 that we should be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. In other words, we need to be striving for unity in how we treat each other. We need to treat each other with respect. I want to take a look at these three little words that Paul gives us here to help us do that: humility, gentleness, and patience.

Let’s start with humility. This can be a hard one for a lot of people, especially if you have a dominant personality. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” As we’ve seen before, pride can be a very dangerous thing. Humility is the absence of pride and arrogance. This is very fitting when it comes to our relationship with God. When it comes to God, there is no room for pride. Without God, we are nothing. Without God, we don’t even exist. He is the almighty creator of the universe, and we are simply His creation. When you look at what our relationship really is with God, you cannot help but be humbled.

We must also treat each other with humility. We must put others before ourselves. We must look to the interests of others before our own interests. We must look after our brothers well-being, both physically, and spiritually. In answering Cain’s question from Genesis 4:9, we are indeed our brother’s keepers.

Humility is explained perfectly by Paul in Philippians 2:3-8 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant , being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The next word Paul gives dealing with unity is gentleness. I don’t know about you, but this can be a hard one for me sometimes. When I see a problem, my first reaction is to go gung-ho into it and try to solve the problem as quickly as I can. I want to correct it and be done with it. Many times, this can come off as being crass or unloving, however, I assure you it’s done in love. I just try to be more cognizant of how I approach people in gentleness and love.

We see the importance of gentleness in Proverbs 15:1. It says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Also, we see this in Proverbs 15:4. It says, “A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” These are just a few verses about gentleness in the Bible.