Let's start today, by simply reading our passage. Ephesians 4:1-6:
Therefore , I exhort you, I, the prisoner of the Lord, worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called,
with all humility and meekness,
with patience,
putting up with one another in love,
hurrying to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
one body and one spirit,
just as also you were called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
who (is) over all and through all and in all.
Verses 1-6 are one single sentence in the Greek. The main point is in verse 1, and then everything else explains this one main point. What is this point?:
The reason that God sent Jesus, according to Eph. 2, is because God is creating one people who live in peace with him, and peace with each other, and live obediently toward God. Jesus is our peace. If you want to be at peace with God, and with people, and be part of God's family, you repent of your sins, you place your allegiance/faith in King Jesus, and you get baptized as your pledge to God. My hope this morning is that this describes all of you. You've heard God's call as good news, and obeyed it.
But now what? How should you now walk, now that you are part of God's family, and at peace with God and with each other? The answer is deceptively simple:
Worthily. Worthily is emphasized in the Greek through word order. This is the one word you need to hear, above all the others here. "Therefore , I exhort you, I, the prisoner of the Lord, worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called."
In Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul says that "you Gentiles" used to walk a certain way. You had a road that you traveled in your life, and that road was a road of wrongdoing and sin. You were the walking dead.
And (it was) you--
the ones being dead in your wrongdoing and sins,
in which you formerly walked
according to the age of this world,
according to the ruler of the authority of the air-- the one now working in the sons of disobedience.
Paul then returned to this road imagery in Eph 2:10.
For FOR HIM we are a made thing,
created in King Jesus for good works,
which God prepared before hand,
in order that in them we would walk.
In Eph. 2, Paul gives one explanation for why God made you a new creation in Jesus. God created you in King Jesus FOR HIM, for GOOD WORKS, which God prepared before hand, in order that IN THEM we might walk. Your problem, from God's perspective, was that you walking down the wrong road in life. You were on the road of sin, apart from God, that leads to death. God wanted you on the road of obedience, that leads to eternal life (Rom 6:22; Gal. 6:6-8). So one of the ways of thinking about what salvation means, is it means God picking you up from this road of sin, and putting you on the road of obedience toward God.
This brings us back to Eph. 4:1.
Therefore , I exhort you, I, the prisoner of the Lord, worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called.
If God saved you so that you would walk in good deeds, what should you do? Walk in good deeds. Walk worthily of God's calling. Being part of God's family is a tremendous privilege. You are God's adopted children. You now call God "Father." Act like this is a privilege. Act like God has glorified you (3:8). Act like God has made you his holy temple, where he now lives. Walk worthily.
Verses 2-6 explain what exactly this looks like:
Therefore, I exhort you, I, the prisoner of the Lord, worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called,
with all humility and meekness,
with patience,
putting up with one another in love,
hurrying to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
one body and one spirit,
just as also you were called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
who (is) over all and through all and in all.
If we were going to sit down and make a list of what it means to walk worthily of our calling, I'm not sure that our lists would immediately begin like Paul's here. I'm confident that they don't, actually. Walking worthily of your calling means, first and foremost, living in peace with each other. I mean this very specifically. Look around the room. Seriously. Look. You need to live in peace with each other. That's right at the top of God's list of what it means to walk worthily of your calling.
We struggle to really understand how important this is, because we view our faith as an individual thing. When we tell people the good news, we ask them, "Do you want to have a personal relationship to God?" When we ask people how they are doing spiritually, we ask, "How is your walk with God?" When we talk about how we are doing spiritually, we say, "I don't feel close to God right now." Or maybe I do. We wonder, truthfully, why we even need church. Why not just stay at home on a Sunday morning, sipping coffee, maybe doing devotions as a family, and wrap things up in time for the pregame football show? Why are we even here?
If Ephesians 2 taught you anything, I hope it's that God's plan is much bigger than this. God is making one nation, one people, one family, who will live in peace with him, and with each other. Asking people if they want a personal relationship with God, or with Jesus, is misleading. It's missing the point. "Do you want to be part of God's family, that lives in peace with God and with each other? Do you want to be able to call God 'Father'?"
This is what God has called you to. And now that you've heard this calling as good news, and responded to it, walk worthily of that call.
Verses 2-6 explain very concretely what this means. [Everything that follows is a bullet point, expanding on verse 1].
It means, verse 2, walking with humility and meekness.
A lot of your Bibles translate the second word as "gentle." The idea with p?a?t?? isn't really gentleness. It doesn't mean talking like a kindergarten teacher, or not being forceful. The main dictionary (lexicon) for Greek gives this definition: "the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one's self-importance" (BDAG). It means, "don't view yourself as being hot stuff in the church."
If our starting point for thinking about church is that we need to live in unity, at peace with each other, then we should be thinking about what breaks that peace. What is it that keeps us from maintaining unity? I think that pride is somewhere way up near the top of this list. Pride is a terrible thing.
Who among us is most likely to think they are indispensable to the church? Who is impressed with their own self-importance, and thinks the church should be built around us?
I think there's three particular groups of people who struggle with this.
(1) If you are someone who is important outside the walls of this church, you are more likely to view yourself as being super important inside. Do you have a great job? Are you someone that society respects? Are you used to being in charge at work, making the tough decisions? Are you wealthy? If this is you, it's really easy to carry that over to the church. You are the MAN. You were born to lead. If this is you-- if you are rich, or important in society-- you need to be careful among God's people. For you, walking worthily, in humility and meekness, is going to be difficult.
(2) I think the second group of people who struggle to walk in humility and meekness are people in leadership positions at church. It's one thing to sit in church on a Sunday morning, and secretly wish that the worship time was longer or shorter, or that you sang different songs. Or that the sermons would be longer or shorter, or topical or going through books of the Bible. Or that someone else was up front. Or that the church would do this program, and not that one. It's one thing to be sitting there, and not really able to do anything about it except resist the urge to complain, and another to be sitting there as a leader in the church. If you are a leader in the church-- an elder, a pastor, a worship leader, a director of women's ministry, you can get your way. That's exciting, right? That's a great perk of being a leader. A great reason to become an elder. If you want more say in how the church does everything, become a leader. Be the man.
If you are in church leadership in any role, there are going to be times when you find yourself disagreeing with other people about what you should do. There will be times when you'll have an overwhelming urge to take your good idea, your vision for what the church should look like, and force it through. You can call it a lot of things. "Giving the people a vision." "Being a strong (servant) leader." "A high and holy calling from God." "Being a prophet for the people."
But if you find yourself grabbing people by the throat, and ramming ideas and programs down it, you need to stop and think about if what you're doing, and how you're doing it, shows humility and meekness. I'm not saying, "Don't lead." But leading as a servant is a dodgy business. Be careful. Walk with humility and meekness. Church is not about you. It's not about using your position to get what you want. It means serving the church, in humility. It means being a slave to the church (Mark 10:35-45). It's means not confusing your personal preferences with what's best for the church.
(3) The third group of people that I think struggle with walk with humility and meekness is people who haven't really committed to the church. Most of us, when we first choose a church, do so with a consumer mentality. Why am I here, and not at the church down the street? For some of you, it's because your family is from here. This is the church you have roots in. For others, it's because this is the church that best meets your perceived needs. You enjoy the worship, the preaching is tolerable, and it's not too far from home. All things considered, it's like a 6/10, and the church down the road is like a 4. You view church, basically, as being about you. If this is you, you're going to struggle to walk in humility and meekness. If something in this church changes that was really important to you, you drive home after church and realize that it's no longer a 6/10. It's like a 3. You realize, "I don't even want to go there anymore." At no point did you ever think, "I can see why the church did this change. I personally don't like it-- I wish they hadn't-- but in humility and meekness, out of my love for the church and the desire to keep the unity and peace-- I am okay with it.
Next on the list: walking with patience.
There are times when you're going to get frustrated with each other. Sometimes people-- other people, never you-- are stubborn, and they refuse to change. Or they keep doing the same thing, over and over, that you don't like, and it tears you up. Or they annoy you to no end. I don't know. Other people don't always walk in humility and meekness. And that's super frustrating. Be patient with each other. This is how you walk worthily of your calling.
So next on the list, is this: "Putting up with one another in love." What it means to walk worthily of your calling is "putting up with one another in love." I think this is a hilarious translation. Truly. But my Greek reader's version, and the main lexicon, both give this as their main translation (gloss). So there you have it. "Putting up with one another in love."
There are people in this church, that when they start talking to you, it's all you can do to not walk away from them, or start daydreaming. Put up with one another. If I was starting a social group from scratch, it wouldn't look like this church. Some of you don't play Rook or board games. You're interested in really boring things. Golf? Fishing? But I put up with you. And you put up with me. And don't miss the little bit at the end. "Putting up with one another in love." We don't put up with each other, only until we can get in the car after service and complain to our spouses about them. We don't put up with people, and gossip about them, or backstab them, as soon as they're not around. We put up with one another in love, knowing that they are part of God's family. And we are happy they have placed their allegiance in King Jesus, and are part of this family. It'd be nice if eventually we reach the point where we can just say, loving each other. But start here. Put up with one another in love.
NEXT:
rushing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
There are times in church when we fight, and our unity breaks down. What do we fight over? What bothers us, makes us upset with each other? All of us have different things that are really important to us. I have a friend who is a music-lover, and she has very definite ideas about worship. She gets frustrated when the worship is too loud, or when it's not long enough, or when the lyrics are dumb, or when all the songs are in the same key signature. I don't even know what a key signature is. Or if I'm using the word right. All I know is, not every song should be in C? G? Beats me.
Some of you are better students of the Bible and theology than others. I don't say this to shame you, or anything else. I'm just saying, that's how it is. The more carefully, and longer, you've studied the Bible, the more problems you are going to have with what churches teach. Many Christians in church, when they listen to teachers, really aren't very discerning. But a few of you, I'm guessing, it seems like every time someone teaches, at some point in the lesson you find yourself cringing or flinching. Did he really just teach that? You say, "I know that's not biblical, because Paul says such and such in Romans." You hear everything. And the more important the Bible is to you, the bigger deal these disagreements become.
Sometimes, these disagreements are over something that's absolutely core to our faith. If someone is teaching something heretical, and you can't convince them they are wrong, and the church leadership refuses to address your concerns, leave. Absolutely. Don't support that ministry; don't be part of it. Find a different church. But if you are arguing about something that's not actually central, you have to learn to keep perspective on it. This has been a hard thing for me. I'd like to think I'm making progress.
There will always be reasons to fight, and reasons to be upset with each other. And conflict is inevitable. What do you do when it happens? Going back to the verse:
"rushing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,"
If your unity has broken down, you rush to fix it. You know that God is creating one family who will live at peace with him and with each other. If that peace is broken, it needs to be fixed right now. If you said or did something you shouldn't have, you rush to apologize. If someone hurt you, you rush to forgive. Keep the peace.
Your natural reaction, when your peace is broken, is not going to be work to keep the unity of the Spirit. The natural reaction is going to be to avoid them, or gossip about them, or backstab them. If it's bad enough, you'll leave the church. Or maybe you'll let it simmer, forever. If something has happened between you and someone else in this church, you HURRY to make things right. The Holy Spirit has united all of us , and when that unity is broken, you RUSH to fix it. There is an urgency to church unity.
one body and one spirit,
just as also you were called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
who (is) over all and through all and in all.
I said earlier that some of you maybe feel like you have nothing in common with each other. If we were starting a social group, it wouldn't look like this church. If we were hanging out, we'd run out of casual conversation pieces within 5 minutes, and just awkwardly stare at the ground or each other. Awkward. But we have the most important things in common. We are one body, and one spirit. We have one Lord. We share one faith. We all had the one baptism. (If you haven't been baptized, by the way, you need to get baptized.) We have one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.
It maybe doesn't seem like we have much in common, but when it comes to the most important things in life, we are all united. God has made us one, in Jesus. God is making ONE people, ONE family, for himself in Christ. So live as one family.
What does it mean to walk worthily of your calling? It doesn't mean you, as a Lone Ranger Christian, struggling to live faithfully toward God in isolation. Walking worthily means living in humility as part of God's people, in peace with each other, rushing to keep that peace. How should you walk? Walk worthily. Walk worthily, as a member of this church body.
