Blessed To Be A Blessing Series

THE CHURCH

Blessed To Be A Blessing

Ephesians 4:1-6

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

4 There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called—

5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;

6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (NIV)

In Genesis 12:2, God told Abram, “I will bless you and I will make you a blessing.” In 12:3, God says, “In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Not only would God bless Abraham, confer on him great privileges and increase, but Abraham would become a source of blessing for all the families of the earth. Abraham was blessed to be a blessing. Like Abraham, we have been blessed to be a blessing.

In the first three chapters of Ephesians Paul focuses on the immeasurable wealth of the believer. He says that we have been “blessed…with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (1:3). Among other things, we have been chosen by God, forgiven, placed in His family as adult sons with privileges and the Spirit has been given to us as a foretaste and guarantee of things to come.

The blessings given to us are so incredible and so incomprehensible that Paul prays and asks God to enable believers to grasp the largeness of what He has done for them and in them through Christ. (See 3:17-19.)

Being informed is important, but right beliefs should always lead to right behavior. In essence, this is what Paul says when he calls us to walk or live our blessings; to behave what we believe. He says, “live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (4:1). James said much the same thing when he wrote, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only…” (James 1:22).

Where the NIV says, “live a life worthy of the calling” the KJV says, “walk worthy.”

• The term “walk” takes us away from frantic aimlessness and suggests discipline, effort, control, endurance, purpose and direction.

• The term worthy (Gk., axios) has the root meaning of balancing the scales—what is on one side of the scale should be equal in weight to what is on the other side.

An employee who is worthy of his pay is one whose work corresponds to his wages; he gives an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages.

The believer who walks worthy of his calling is one whose daily life corresponds to his position in Christ. His behavior matches his blessings.

Even a brief examination of our blessings is mind blowing. According to Paul,

• God has forgiven us (1:7).

• He has lavished His grace upon us (1:8, NASB).

• He loved us even when we were dead in sin (2:4).

• He demolished the gap that separated Jew and Gentile, and reconciled them both to God through Christ and made one new people of them (2:14-19).

So, if those are just a few of the believer’s blessings, what will a worthy walk look like?

Our list might include miracles, prophecy, tongues, great exploits for the Kingdom or financial wealth, but God’s focus is different; it’s on relationship. His blessings, forgiveness, grace, love, and reconciliation are bestowed upon us so that we can have a relationship with God and with one another.

The life we are called to is public and it’s relational. We are called to walk our faith in the context of the Christian community and among those who are not yet Christians. Point Assembly is a multi-membered community of redeemed, but not yet perfect, men and women. Like any Christian community it consists of new converts who are certain they have all the answers and elders who realize that they barely know enough to ask the right questions. It is a community made up of the unruly , the weak, the wounded, the committed, the timid, the lukewarm, the fearful and the faithful. It is a hodgepodge of dreamers and dream killers, of the mature and the immature, of God users and bond-servants.

Someone with experience in this thing called the church wrote:

Oh to live above with saints we love, what glory!

Oh to live below with saints we know…well, that another story!

We are called to live our lives together, not in some pristine problem free environment, but in the context of a community made up of imperfect people and before a world that finds fault with us even when we are at our best.