Change from the Inside Out series
Ephesians 4
Sermon 1: “Steps of Faith”
Ephesians 4:1-6
Intro: There is some crazy stuff on TV…I’m sure you would agree with me; unfortunately a lot of it is made for kids.
We work hard to police what our kids watch, and when we say “no” to something we want to give them good reasons.
But you know what, sometimes our reason is simply “The show is stupid”.
There are some really stupid kid’s cartoons and programming out there that makes the Looney tunes I watched as a kid seem like Shakespeare.
One of those shows I try hard to keep Caleb from watching is every little boy’s dream show: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Have you seen this show?
It’s a Japanese show with the main characters in full costume, but for American TV the un-costumed actors represent the melting pot of our great country.
Our heroes are your run of the mill American teens doing your typical all-American activities until these really bizarre creatures wearing some really bad costumes show up to take over the world or something…one of them looks like a Jay Leno Wicked Witch of the West hybrid.
Our heroes then get in the fight with some really bad acting, and even worst choreographed fight scenes that are a bit like a train wreck: you know it’s not going to be pretty, but you just can’t help but watching it.
The segway from American to Japanese are 3 simple words: It’s Morphin’ time!”
And it is there the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers become the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers…head to toe in their battle gear.
A change takes place and our all-American teens become the heroes who save the earth.
How’s that for a change? From average to hero.
But you know what, you have been involved in a change that is even greater if you are a born again believer.
Think about it, you have been changed from sinner to saint by the grace of God.
You have been brought from death into life by the power of the resurrection.
A morphing has taken place in your life if you have been saved by grace through faith…and it isn’t just a matter of you getting your name written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Salvation isn’t just a spiritual change, but should also result in a life change.
And that is what I want us to consider for the next few weeks.
We are going to be studying Ephesians chapter 4 over the next 4 weeks in a series I’m calling “Changed from the Inside Out”.
And I do think this is a timely series because we are seeing more and more that so many people whose names are written on church roles are practicing nothing less than cheap grace.
What is cheap grace? It is a “salvation experience” where someone might have recited a prayer at some point in their life, and that is all.
You may still go to church; you may go more than once a week.
You might even serve on the occasional committee; but there is no fruit and there is no life change.
Cheap grace…cheapening the salvation of Christ that you claim to have received.
How can you tell if you have cheap grace? Look at your life.
Has it been changed?
Is it different from what it was before you “prayed the prayer”?
Is it different than those outside the church?
Are you being changed from the inside out by the power of God’s Spirit who is in you?
Let’s look at the first 4 verses of Ephesians 4 together to get started on our journey.
Read text and pray.
Transition: The Christian life and walking by faith is all about life change.
We’ve fallen victim to the false concept…which means it is a lie, that Christianity is fire insurance.
Once again, it isn’t fire insurance it is a miracle that I believe is on par with, if not greater than creation itself.
God spoke creation into existence out of nothing on the first day…simply incredible if you think about it.
But think about it, every single day He takes it to the next level by breathing life into death.
He takes sinners like us who are bound by our own sins and deserve to pay the penalty for them and instead gives us life when we call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
And that step of faith leads to repentance, a turning point…which means life change.
I want us to consider how that life change affects our walk.
2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
In Eph. 4:1 Paul tells us that we should “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called” and then gives us 5 key words to describe how we should walk.
These steps of faith are clear for us, and should be evident in our lives if we are experiencing life change as a result of our salvation.
Once again, our faith in Christ should result in life change, and should have a significant effect on our walk.
Paul suggests 5 observable changes in our walk as born again believers:
First of all he says we should have…
1. Humbleness
Paul understood this to a “T”.
Paul wrote this letter to the Church of Ephesus, as well as to the Church at Philippi while sitting in Roman prison.
He says in vs. 1 that he was a prisoner of the Lord…which meant that Paul was nothing compared to who he could have been if his life had not been changed by Christ.
Over in Phil. 3:4-6 Paul tells us how much he could have been proud of.
He was on the fast track of Jewish life and gaining respect in the Roman eyes also…he was fearlessly going after Christians and killing them.
As much as Jews were a thorn in the flesh to Rome, those Christians were worst.
And Paul’s resume was 2nd to none.
But he had an encounter on the Road to Damascus that we read about in Acts where he encountered the resurrected Christ and his life was changed.
His pride was no longer in his pedigree or his resume; he now saw that as nothing.
In fact, back in Phil 3, notice what he says in vs. 7-11.
The great Hebrew of Hebrews was now sitting in a dingy Roman prison as a servant of the King of kings.
He had been humbled to the point of having nothing other than Christ.
Have you been there?
I have, and it isn’t a pleasant place to be for the flesh.
But you know what, that is where you find God.
James 4:10 says to humble yourself in the eyes of the Lord and He will lift you up.
Humble yourself by admitting that you are a sinner and your sins have sentenced you to death…unless you cry out to mercy to the judge; the God of righteousness and holiness who has called you by His grace to forgiveness.
And then after you humble yourself for salvation, you must continue to humble yourself day by day…or risk being humbled.
If you do it, God will lift you up.
That is the first step of faith, humility.
Our 2nd step of faith is a call to be…
2. Gentleness
If you aren’t joining us on Wednesday nights, you are missing out on a tour through one of the greatest passage of Scripture…the Sermon on the Mount.
It is there in the section we know as The Beatitudes that we find Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Jesus said if we are to follow Him, we are to be like Him…and that means being gentle.
Paul also tells us in Gal. 5:23 that gentleness is one of the 9 fold fruit of the Spirit.
I find it interesting that Webster’s defines gentle as an adjective meaning, “free from harshness, sternness, or violence”.
While we may not see much violence in the church…how often do we see people being treated harshly or sternly?
How often have you responded to someone harshly or sternly?
While harshness, sternness and violence may be normal in the world…it should be anything but normal in the life of the born again believer and in the church.
Why? Because our lives should be changed, our lives should be different.
Are you gentle?
Are you humble?
Those are just two of the changes we should in our walk because of the life change that comes with salvation.
A 3rd key word we find in Ephesians 4:2 is…
3. Patience
You ever heard the phrase, “Patience is a virtue”.
Yeah…I have to wonder if we know what a virtue is sometimes.
Let’s be honest, alright?
Are you patient?
We spent the last 2 days driving from Cincinnati, OH…stopping in Hodgenville, KY to spend the night with some friends along the way.
You know what we ran into on the way? Traffic.
You want to know if you are really patient, drive into traffic.
Be it Texarkana or Little Rock.
Be it Shreveport, Dallas or Memphis.
It can be right here in Lewisville when a train passes…and you know what we find out; we run short on patience.
But God desires for us to be patient, because He is patient with us.
Read Romans 15:5, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:”
ASK: Why is it we tend to have the shortest fuse with those who are closest to us?
And why is it we tend to have even shorter fuses with those we are in church with?
Think about it, why do so many people tend to church hop?
Someone gets irritated, annoyed, upset or mad with someone over something that in the big scope of things is pretty irrelevant…and the church shopping begins.
Something you wouldn’t dare quit your job over causes you to give up doing what God has called you to do within the local church, His source of hope for a hopeless world…and all that was asked of you was a little patience.
Are you walking by faith?
Are you walking in life change?
Does it include patience?
4th, it says we should be…
4. Tolerance
In our society of pluralism this is one of those words that has been hijacked and made to mean something that it shouldn’t.
Today when people speak of “tolerance” what they are saying is “you need to accept me and the lifestyle I choose to live and anything I say or do, no matter how it goes against moral standards…in the name of tolerance.”
Tolerance in 2008 means you water the fine line between right and wrong into a big mess of gray that is undefined with “right” being what feels good.
That isn’t what God is talking about here since He is not tolerant of sin.
He is so intolerant of sin that He gave the life of His Son to pay the price for it.
In our pursuit of life change the tolerance that Paul is speaking of is for us in the church based on love.
This comes as a result of the patience we just discussed, a minute ago.
Read John 13:34-35.
What this means is that because you and I are born again believers and because we both bear the name of Christ…we should be able to put up with a lot more than we do.
Instead of having that short fuse, and instead of wearing a the chip on our shoulders that tend to match whatever outfit we choose for church…we need to be more tolerable of each other.
We need to focus more on building God’s kingdom rather than building up the walls of separation between us that goes up oh so easily.
How will they know we are his disciples? By love and tolerance.
What does the world tend to say? A lot of fussing, fighting, arguing, griping and complaining.
And yet we wonder why the American church is losing ground rather than growing.
But if our lives are changed, this should be no problem for us.
The question is, is it evident in your life?
But you know what; this can be pretty easy if we notice the 5th change in our walk…
5. Diligence
Read vs. 4
Paul says we should be diligent in two areas.
A. Preserving the unity of the Spirit
All people have one thing in common…Romans 3:23, “All have sinned”.
But within the body of Christ, we have one other thing in common that the rest of the world doesn’t have…God’s Spirit.
That is where life comes from, God’s Spirit in us.
And that Spirit is what unites us and binds us and makes us one.
Blood is thicker than water…so how much thicker is the blood of Christ that forgives us and unites us.
And what right do we have to break that unity?
None…in fact, let me tell you that I don’t believe we have any rights except for those promised by God in His Word.
In John 1:12 we have the “right” to become children of God by faith, and then Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 9:18…
No where does it say it is our right to have things our way, to do things our way, or to pitch a fit when it doesn’t happen.
But we are called to preserve the unity of the Spirit meaning doing what ever is necessary to reach that goal.
And that means going above and beyond the call of duty…which is what God did for you.
And we also need to be diligent in the…
B. Bond of peace
While we were up in Cincinnati this past week I was trying to make a repair to the gear shift on a bicycle.
The piece that attached it to the gear shift to the handle bars had been stripped and wouldn’t hold together when you changed gears and I really didn’t want to replace the whole unit.
So first we tried a little super glue hoping those ads with the guy handing from his hard hat was true…not really.
Next I ran down to Ace hardware and found a stronger epoxy that said it would work on nearly anything, including metal…well, it was plenty sticky, but the first time I changed gears it popped off.
So, I went to Wal-Mart and found some JB Weld…this is an epoxy and hardener that can and will bond with metal; and I think it worked.
That is the type of bond we need to have as believers, one that sticks through thick and thin…not a cheap fix that won’t make it through even the slightest stress.
Because you know what, you are going to come across stress in the church…because there are people in the church.
And weird thing about people, we tend to do what comes naturally to us…and what is natural is sinning.
But we need to be diligent in our pursuit of unity and peace.
Remember a couple of weeks ago “Give peace a chance”.
Diligence is just one of the steps of faith that comes as a result of the life change we experience in Christ.
Conclusion:
Let’s review:
• Humbleness
• Gentleness
• Patience
• Tolerance
• Diligence
Steps of faith that come as a result of a changed life that should be evident in the born again believer.
Are these evident in your life?
If not, have you crossed that line of faith?
How…ABC
If you have accepted the free gift of salvation…is it evident in your life?
Has your life literally been changed?
Are these steps of faith we just looked at evident in your life?
