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?
Paul is not talking about our profession - that which we do to get the money to buy food and clothes. He is talking about what we have been “called” by God to become. Our calling is that Jew & Gentile together form one body, the church: we are blessed with every spiritual blessing, we are predestined, forgiven, sealed, heirs, quickened, empowered for ministry. In light of all that God has done for us, we need to make sure that our life “measures up” to this high calling.
Paul is really telling us that we are to live up to who we were meant to be. Many Christians live far below their calling. God desires something more for them in life, but they think they have “security” in their job, their house, their bank accounts. They really don’t. We know that all those things are temporary, and can be lost in a moment. Job learned the lessons well, when he lost all his prized possessions.
Many Christians fear leaving their comfort zones to live out their calling as a Christian. Sometimes we wonder why God doesn’t call more people to the mission field, why he doesn’t call more pastors and evangelists, why he doesn’t call more Christian schoolteachers. The truth is, HE DOES, but many times we fear to live out our calling. We who are called to an eternal inheritance cannot let the temporary things of this world attract and entice us. Hebrews 11:24-26 tells us By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
In the movie The Princess Diaries Mia Thermopolis is a dorky high school student who finds out she is heir to a kingdom. In the end, she has to make a choice to live out her destiny as Princess of Genovia or continue to live inconspicuously and unknown, making little difference in the world.
As Christians, we are to be life-changers, world-changers, and we live out our high calling in Christ in every circumstance. How have you done recently in living a Christ-like life before YOUR world?
Paul lists a few key ways we are to live to be sure we “measure up”.
•Humility - Paul tells us to be completely humble. This was something that was totally foreign to the Greek and Roman cultures of the day. These Ephesian Gentiles would have been going totally opposite the culture of the day. This was not “politically correct.” They would have been targets for “sensitivity training” or some type of reprogramming by others. The Greeks saw humility as weak, and of no value. In fact, it was Christians who developed the word for this attribute, quite possibly Paul himself.
Humility is understanding the true worth of ourselves and others before God. When we think of who we are in Christ, we realize that we have been given a high calling. But when we think of how temporary this world is, we realize that we do not boast in our strength or riches or wisdom. When we boast, we boast only in the greatness of our God.
Living a life of humility is one of the keys to living rightly, to building UNITY within the body of Christ.
The next thing Paul tells us is to be completely gentle.
•Gentleness - this is the word translated other places as MEEKNESS. It is not weakness, a lack of strength, but meekness, strength under control. It is having the power to fight back, but refusing to. It is Christ, who could have spoken the word and legions of angels would have come to his defense, but who rather replies, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
In the middle ages the crusades were fought to free Jerusalem from the Muslims, and men tried to compel people by force to convert to Christianity. Force doesn’t work. I’ve worked with many Christians who tried to argue and fight for Christianity. They put tracts everywhere, in the elevator, in the fridge in the breakroom, in the stalls in the bathroom. They are verbally outspoken and abusive in trying to share their faith. But the reality is we reach more people for Christ by keeping our strength under control, and living out our faith in a way others can visibly see is different from the world.
The third quality Paul commends is
•Patience - putting up with unpleasant people and circumstances. Everyone gets along well with pleasant people. But as Christians we need to learn to be patient and put up with ornery, sourpusses. Contentious, critical, whiners who constantly are grumbling and complaining. It doesn’t mean we need to agree with them or spend a lot of time with them, but we need to constantly show love and care for them. And that can be HARD!
But we are called to patience, bearing with one another in love. We each have weaknesses and shortcomings, and we learn that love covers a multitude of sins.
Then Paul mentions the area of
•Peace - as Christians we are interconnected, and we need to seek to get along together. We are not to excuse sinful behavior, but we choose to give up our selfish will to seek the good of others.
And through our humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, love, and peace, we maintain the unity of the body of Christ. Paul says to “make every effort” to keep the unity of the spirit - it means a continuous diligent effort. The truth is that living like this does not come naturally, it comes supernaturally. It comes by God empowering us as we continually are aware of how we are responding to others.
Paul continues on in chapter 4 and reminding us more about the fact that as Christians we have UNITY. And he explains what that means. He writes that we are UNITED in IDENTITY (that’s WHO we ARE) but UNIQUE in MINISTRY (that’s WHAT we DO). We have UNIFORMITY in the FOUNDATION of the GOSPEL, but we have INDIVIDUALITY in our FUNCTION, using our GIFTS.
Let’s look first at our IDENTITY
1. We are UNITED in Identity. Paul tells us in verse 4 the absolutes, the things we are all in agreement on as Christians:
•one body (the CHURCH - Jews & Gentiles together are one body) one Spirit--
•one hope - hope of eternal life in the home that Christ is now preparing for us
•one Lord - only those who profess Jesus Christ as Lord are saved
•one faith - we are saved only through faith, not by love, not by works, only through believing
•one baptism - as Christians we are baptized with the Holy Spirit who seals us, marking us as believers
•one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all - there is no God besides Jehovah!
These are the things we all agree on. Whether we like a more formal worship service or a more contemporary one, whether we like hymns or praise songs, whether we recite creeds or not, we all can agree on the basics. We are united in our identity as believers in the church. But we also see our individuality.
2. We are UNIQUE in our Ministry - verse 7 reminds us that each one of us has been given a specific measure of grace from Christ, a specific group of grace gifts. He showers us with his grace in a way uniquely chosen for us by Christ.
Paul explains how those grace gifts come. Verse 8 tells us that Christ gave gifts after he ascended back to heaven. He promised the disciples that when he left, he would send the Holy Spirit. But he also gave us special gifts of grace. Verse 9 reminds us that Christ had to first descend to earth from heaven, but then he ascended back to heaven to be exalted by God the father. In verse 8, we see that in the resurrection and ascension there were those taken captive, those who were “prisoners of war”. Colossians 2:14-15 tells us that these were the spiritual forces of evil: And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. In the resurrection and ascension, God’s power over sin, death, hell, and the grave was clearly demonstrated. Satan has no power over us, because Christ has broken the power of sin. The only control Satan has in the control we give him when we choose to yield to the desires of the flesh.
Christ gives “victory gifts” to his church. And Paul mentions the purpose of these gifts. He first mentions gifts of leaders for the church. Next week we’ll look at some different gifts, but here Paul mentions leaders:
Apostles - those who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus and his ministry; those chosen to start the church
Prophets - those who were given the gift of proclaiming truth that God had directly revealed to them
Evangelists - those gifted with the ability to share the gospel in a powerful and effective way
Pastor-Teachers - teaching shepherds - those gifted to care for needs of people and teach them the way to live.
These gifts mentioned here are leaders given to the church, the body of Christ, with a specific purpose.
Many times we mistake the purpose of the leaders. We think they are the ones who are to do the ministry in the church. If someone is sick, we say “call the pastor to come visit them.” If we know someone unsaved, “let one of the elders visit them and witness to them.” But that’s not God’s pattern.
The leaders don’t exist to do the ministry, but to train all believers for ministry. Verse 12 - he gave these leaders to prepare God’s people for works of service - I think the KJV brings out a better sense that the NIV misses here: “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry.” This idea of “perfecting” is the word for “mending nets; setting a bone; making something be whole and work rightly.” The leaders of the church are to help all the believers work rightly and be active in serving. This word “ministry” is a scary word for many. We get the idea of needing a seminary degree or having a backwards collar on. Really the word “ministry” really just means “serving.” So the pastors and leaders are to bring everyone together so that each one is serving in the church.
That is one of the biggest problems we face here at Bethel and that EVERY church in the US faces: Christians who come to church but who never serve. We need active workers, not passive receivers. God gives each of us grace gifts to use in serving in the church. He doesn’t want any one of us just to be a spiritual “couch potato” and to sit back and watch everyone else do all the work.
What have you done lately to serve God? You say, “I put $5 in the offering plate” But how have your served? You say, I came for SS today - But how have you SERVED? You say, I even came last sunday night - But again, how have you SERVED? How have you used the gifts that God has given you? Or have those gifts lain dormant and unused?
Paul says in verse 12 the leaders are to help God’s people to serve so that the church can be built up. If we want to see this church grow and be built up, we need to make sure that each of us is doing our part. The reality is that in some churches while part of the church works to build up the church, there are others who at the same time are tearing it down. And it is always easier to tear something down than to build it up.
Make sure you are working with us to build up the church and that you are not doing anything to tear it down. If you want to tear down the church, go to another church. There’s the door - leave and don’t come back. We don’t want people here who are just going to gossip and complain and criticize and destroy the church by their sinful actions. Just find a church you can support. You will do no good staying here and working against the rest of the body. As Christians, we are to build up the church. And the result of that will be what we see inverse 13 - unity and maturity and Christ-likeness. The more we serve using our gifts and work together to build up the church, the more we will be Christlike in all our ways.
Verse 14 reminds us that one of the marks of maturity is that we won’t be influenced and be led astray by all types of false teaching. There are some people who are easily influenced, and led astray by those who deceitfully paint a picture for them that is not truth. We need to be mature enough to see the truth and follow it. Paul says those who are constantly led astray following personalities are infants, spiritual babies. Rather, we are to grow up in Christ, knowing the truth and speaking it in love, and as a result the whole church grows stronger as we each do our part in serving.
So, in closing let me ask you three questions:
1. Does my lifestyle seek to maintain the unity of the church by everything I do? Do I set a consistent example for others to follow, so that they see my life and are drawn to follow Christ.
2. Do I actively serve God by using the gifts he has given me, or do I sit on the sidelines hoping someone else will step up to do the work.
3. Am I helping the church by building it up, or am I harming the church by tearing it down?
God wants each of us to work together in uniformity and individuality to build the unity of the church and to be more like Christ. Let’s pray together.
