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.
If you fail, there are people around you who are ready to make it a matter of public record and to tell your story in great detail with great delight. How we, the Christian community, handle our disagreements and errant members will say more to the world at large than they will hear from the best orator among us.
The life we are called to live is public and it is there that we are to behave our blessings. We must live and function together so that onlookers can see and experience the greatness of God’s blessings through us. For instance…
1. According to Paul, God has blessed us by forgiving us--“In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7).
Instead of demanding payment for our sins, God has accepted Christ’s death as payment in full and has released us. Instead of death, He has given us life.
So, how do the forgiven become a blessing?
God commands us to “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:32).
We do more to prove the validity of the Gospel by acting it out in our relationships, than we do by merely declaring it. When we actually forgive our enemies, we are demonstrating the reality of the Gospel in our lives. On the other hand, when churches split because its members can’t get along and refuse to forgive one another, what does that say to an on looking world? When we, the forgiven, live and practice forgiveness, then we are walking worthy of our calling.
To the blessing of forgiveness, Paul adds love.
2. According to Paul, God loved us while we were yet sinners--“…because of His super-abounding love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…” (Eph. 2:4, 5).
When we are told that God loves us, it is not a reference to the warm-fuzzies or to a momentary sensual desire. When Scripture says, God loves us, it means that God sees us as valuable, as being a prize. He sees us as precious even when we cannot bring Him any pleasure; even while we are living with a total disregard for Him. Jesus declared, “God so valued the world that He gave.” Those who walk worthy of their calling will place the same value on others as God does. They will walk in self-sacrificing love.
• In Ephesians 5:2 Paul commands us to, “…walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice that smelled sweet to God and gave Him pleasure.”
• In Ephesians 4:2 Paul commands, “… Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” NLT
• Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” KJV
Although the Charismatic community longs for power to work miracles, it is in loving one another and the unlovely that we are most like God. Jesus said love was the thing that identifies us as His disciples. John told his readers:
NLT 1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God -- for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.
NLT 1 John 4:16 …God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world. 18 Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of judgment, and this shows that his love has not been perfected in us. 19 We love each other as a result of his loving us first. 20 If someone says, "I love God," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? 21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too.
Love is not a response to those who love us, but the valuing of people…even those who are selfish and unlovely. Love liberates the object that is loved and makes relationships possible. Being loved gives me the security to be transparent and to be accountable. I am confident that the community I am a part of treasures me when I am giving back and when I have nothing to give…when I am at my best and when I am at my worst. Being loved by you enables me to experience God via you life.
What a blessing it is to live in and be a part of a loving community where people are viewed as valuable and too precious to use or abuse. A community where you are more valuable than what you do!
To walk worthy of our calling is to walk in love, but it also means we walk in unity.
3. Finally, God has blessed us by making Jew and Gentile into one new man and then reconciling that man to God through His cross. Here’s the way Paul said it to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 2:14 “… Christ himself has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one people. He has broken down the wall of hostility that used to separate us. 15 By his death he ended the whole system of Jewish law that excluded the Gentiles. His purpose was to make peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new person from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. 17 He has brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and to us Jews who were near. 18 Now all of us, both Jews and Gentiles, may come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. (NLT)
The Spirit’s call to us is, “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit” (4:3). We are not asked to produce unity, but to preserve it.
• All the things that kept us apart have been removed by Christ.
• Everyone who has been baptized into Christ is a member of His body, the Church.
• In Him there is neither male nor female, bond nor free, black nor white, Baptist nor Assemblies of God.
• In Him we are one body serving one Lord.
We are connected and should do everything to maintain that connection. Anything that divides us is an enemy of Christ! Anything that separates us from one another is the enemy of our unity!
Those who walk worthy of their calling behave their blessings or walk their wealth.
THE BLESSING
He has forgiven us
He has lavished His grace upon us
He loved us when we were unlovely
He reconciled us to one another and to God
THE BEHAVIOR
We forgive
We grace others
We value those who do not value themselves or us
We live without barriers and promote relationships
On the morning of October 2, 2006, a troubled milkman named Charles Carl Roberts barricaded himself inside the West Nickel Mine Amish School, ultimately murdering five young girls and wounding six others. Roberts committed suicide when police arrived on the scene. It was a dark day for the Amish community, but it was also a dark day for Marie Roberts—the wife of the gunman—and her two young children.
But a surprising thing happened on the following Saturday. Marie experienced something truly countercultural while attending her husband’s funeral. That day, she and her children watched as Amish families—about half of the 75 mourners present—came and stood alongside them in the midst of their own blinding grief. Despite the crime her husband had perpetrated, the Amish came to mourn Charles Carl Roberts and to comfort his wife and children.
Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain who attended the service, described what moved him most about the gesture: "It’s the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed." He added that Marie Roberts was also touched. "She was absolutely, deeply moved by the love shown." [1]
These Mennonites behaved their blessings and in doing so became a blessing.
Are you walking worthy of the call you’ve received from God? Are you behaving your blessings? Are you just blessed or are you blessing others? God has blessed us to be a blessing!
PRAYER
God, you have blessed us to the extent that it takes a revelation from you to begin to comprehend how blessed we are. You have forgiven us, graced us, loved us and reconciled us to yourself and to one another. We are incredibly blessed, but your command to us is to behave our blessings or to walk our wealth. We are to live these blessings in a way that will bring bless those around us. We choose to extend forgiveness to those who trespass against us. We choose to show favor to those who do not deserve it. We are to love the unlovely. We choose to live without barriers and to promote the relational connections you have made possible. We are the channels thorough which our world will experience forgiveness, favor, love and a relational connection with You.
1 "Amish Mourn Gunman in School Rampage," USA Today (10-7-06).
