Living A Noisy Life

This morning, we’re going to talk about “Living a Noisy Life”… To help you understand what I mean, we’re going to do something a little different… Does everyone know how to clap? You can clap both hands together, or you can clap one hand on your leg… you can even stomp your feet if you want… But I want you to make some noise without using your voice. Does everyone understand? OK… let’s practice to make sure… go ahead and start making noise... [let applause develop organically for about 10-15 seconds]

OK… you can stop… Good job! Now I’m going to have you do the same thing, but I want you to listen for my instructions while you are making noise… don’t stop until I tell you to stop… OK? Go ahead... [wait about 5-10 seconds]

OK… everyone clap in unison… now clap at a faster beat… now slow it down… now stop. Good job!

I want you to notice something… How did you go from all making noise on your own to making noise together? All I said was to clap in unison, but I didn’t set the tempo… You all did that naturally on your own… You listened to what each other were doing, and you came together in unity all on your own. When I said faster, you went faster using a tempo that the group chose… Same thing when I said to go slower.

I want you to notice something else… Not only were you able to experience unity, but the noise you were able to make was louder when you clapped in unison than when you did your own thing.

To see what it means to Live a Noisy Life, let’s turn in our Bibles to Ephesians 4:1-6…

1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,

2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,

3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;

5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;

6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Let’s PRAY…

1. WHEN YOU’RE LIVING A NOISY LIFE, YOU’RE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT

When you’re Living a Noisy Life, you must first be an active participant… Not a spectator. In the first 3 chapters of Ephesians, Paul lays the solid theological foundation of salvation thru Jesus Christ… We are all sinners… We all have done things that fall short of God’s perfect standards of holiness… and what we deserve, what we earn for being found guilty is a death sentence… BUT GOD… (read Ephesians 2:4-9)…

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Jesus paid the price of death for our sins... We are rescued from our death sentence when we place our faith in Jesus Christ… There is no other way… You can’t Live a Noisy Life until you have trusted Jesus to save you… God doesn’t look at how much good and how much bad you have done to see if you deserve punishment or not… God only looks at whether or not you have Jesus.

But once we have placed our faith in Jesus, we become a Child of God… We are children of the King of Kings and the Lord of all Lords… We are heirs along with Jesus Christ… The kingdom of the One True Living God is our inheritance!

With that theological foundation in place, Paul then spends the last 3 chapters of Ephesians telling us how then we should act as believers… Let’s read verse 1 again from Ephesians 4: “1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,”

God Himself has called us into His kingdom! He has called us His children… His heirs… and we didn’t deserve any of it… He did this out of His great love and His great mercy toward us… So then, we should walk in a manner that is worthy of what He has done for us!