Ephesians 4

Ephesians 4 - August 13, 2006

Good morning. Join me in turning to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. We have been going through this letter of Paul the Apostle, written to Christians in the town of Ephesus, the capital city of Turkey or Asia Minor as it was known back them. We mentioned that chapters 1-3 deal with doctrine, and chapters 4-6 deal with duty. 1-3 deal with who we are, and 4-6 with how we live. We look at 1:3 and we see the key idea: we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenly realms. We see that we live on a spiritual plane, and we look beyond just the blessings of health and money and family. We see that on a spiritual, supernatural level God has given us every possible blessing.

We see that the Father chose us for salvation. The Father is the one who initiated our salvation and made it possible. We see it is Christ who has redeemed us, offering us forgiveness by dying in our place on the cross. We see the Holy Spirit seals us, identifying us as a Christian. The Holy Spirit is also our guarantee, our downpayment, our security that we WILL receive all that God has promised we will receive. And because of all of these blessings, our response is to give praise to God. To load him down with our praises.

In the end of chapter 1, Paul has seen the faith and love of these Ephesians believers put into practice, and so he prays all the harder for them. He doesn’t pray for them to GET anything new, because they have already received every spiritual blessing. Paul is praying for the believers to KNOW what they have already been given.

Paul’s prayer is that we would KNOW God on an experiential basis, more and more; that we would ANTICIPATE with hope the calling we have received to salvation; that we would understand the glorious INHERITANCE we have been given; and that we would know the incomparably great POWER of God. So powerful, that the only thing that comes close to helping us understand it is that this was the power that raised Christ from the dead after he died for our sins, in our place.

In chapter 2 we see Our Position in Christ. In verses 1-10, we see ourselves positionally. We see who we WERE - dead in sins, led astray by the world, the devil, and our flesh, our sin nature. But Paul reminds us we have been given victory by God. We have gone from being a corpse to being made alive, to becoming a masterpiece, a great work of art, showing God’s glory, and we are to do good works so that God may continue to get more and more glory as others see our good works and glorify the Father in heaven.

In verses 11-22 we see RELATIONALLY who we have been made to become. The Ephesians, as Gentiles, were without a past, without a present, without a future, without hope, and without God. But Christ has broken down the wall of separation, brought peace, and brought access to God. In Christ, Jews and Gentiles together form one people, one kingdom, one family, and one building: a holy temple.

We saw in chapter 3 Paul’s authority in learning the great secret, the mystery that in the church Jews & Gentiles are one. He learned this directly from God. We see his commitment to share this truth with others, and we see his prayer for POWER to live out this truth practically in our lives by loving one another. That brings us to chapter 4 today. We go on today to see what we are to DO now that we know these truths. Today we’ll be looking at Ephesians 4:1-16. I’ll be reading these verses out of the NIV. READ 4:1-16. PRAY!

Chapters 1-3 are in the indicative, telling us truth. Chapters 4-6 are in the imperative, giving us commands. Paul makes the change here telling us what we must do. And in verse 1, he gives the first command: Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. The KJV uses the phrase “walk worthy” of the calling you have received. The word Paul uses literally means “as you are walking about” - wherever you are going - Our Christian life is not just to be lived out on Sundays. Rather it is something that affects us wherever we go: at the bowling alley, at the grocery store, at work - even when the boss is away - at the family reunion, at home when its just your family you’re around. Everywhere we go we are to live a certain lifestyle. And what is it?

The word “worthy” is literally the word “worthily” - in a worthy manner. The word literally had to do with being weighed in a set of scales and having a weight that matched, that was found approved. Remember the story of the handwriting on the wall in Daniel, where Belshazzar is told “he has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.” In our terminology today, Paul would be saying, Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, make sure your life “measures up”! Our lifestyle is to match our calling. What is our calling?