Over the past few weeks, we've spent a lot of time talking about God's once-mysterious plan for the entire created order. This plan can be understood in a couple different ways. One, would be that God is creating one family, made up of all different types of people, who live in peace with him, and peace with each other. Another way of talking about God's plan, is to say that God is building a new temple, the church. When God made the church his new temple on earth, He changed things, so that we have access to God everywhere. More than that, God is with us, in a special way, everywhere. And how is God's presence among us, and in us? It's through his Holy Spirit, in particular.
Now, all of this is something we already experience. But Paul also talks about all of this, as something that can be even more so. We are God's temple, and God lives in us, and among us. But we can be a better home for God's Spirit. God can fill us more completely. God can be with us, more completely. And we have the Holy Spirit. But we can be more empowered through his Spirit, so that we are strengthened in our faithfulness, and better anchored in our faith. We can be more enlightened by the Spirit, so that we understand God's big cosmic plan, and our own role in that. Basically, in a word, there is more that God would like to give. God wants to fill the church with all of his fullness. And last week, we cheated ahead to Ephesians 5:18, where Paul commands the church, "Be filled with the Holy Spirit."
How can we be filled with this fullness? How can we be filled with Holy Spirit? If God would like to give us more, how can we get this "more" from God?
I think the answer isn't very complicated. Part of it, though, is very costly.
Usually, I think the first step to receiving this "more" from God, to being filled with the Holy Spirit, is to yield yourself entirely to God, and to His Holy Spirit. There's a surrender that each one of makes, where we give up the entirety of who we are to God, and give him ownership and control. Usually, we do this in prayer. We tell God something like this, "God, I yield myself entirely to you. I yield my family, and my finances, and my job. I surrender everything to you. I give it to you. I give my life to you, to use as you wish." And when you pray something like that to God, you might find that you catch yourself at some point. As you work your way through the things in life that are important to you, you'll find that there's something you'd really rather not surrender to God. That one thing, in particular, is really important to you. And maybe, your voice catches as you yield that to God, because you know it's something that God might actually take from you. You suspect that if you willingly gave God total control over your life, He would very quickly take that one particular thing from you. For me, that one particular thing is my job at [ ]. Most of the time when I pray this prayer, and yield my job to God, I feel this sense of pain and loss. Maybe that sounds cold-blooded, being able to happily surrender everyone and everything else in life, except my job. But my job is a gift from God in many ways, and I'd really rather not lose that gift. And my guess is that the men here, at least, get it. When Jesus called Peter, and he left his job, Peter is giving up the hardest thing. And the fact that his job involved fishing off a boat... it's every North Dakotan's worst nightmare come true.
So the first step to receiving more from God, is to yield yourself entirely from God. Basically, you empty yourself out, so that there's nothing left. And when you're going through this process of surrendering to God, and telling him specifically, "I give you my spouse, and my parents, and my kids, and my money, and my job, and the entirety of myself-- if, at some point in that, you find your words catching, because you really don't want to surrender that particular thing-- that's the thing you probably have to surrender the most. Yielding stuff doesn't mean that God will take it. But yielding, means allowing him to take it.
The second step to receiving more from God, is to ask. Paul has told us that God has made available all of the spiritual blessings in the heavens. He's held nothing back. But, at the same time, we haven't necessarily received all of those blessings. And that's why Paul prays for the church. He asks. Paul asks God to give the Ephesians the Spirit of wisdom and Revelation, so that their hearts would be enlightened. Paul asks God to give his Holy Spirit, in an apparently bigger and more powerful and more full way, so that the Ephesians can be empowered for faithfulness.
Once you're emptied, you ask God for more of himself, more of Holy Spirit, more of his power, and our God, who is fabulously wealthy, and who loves to give good gifts, will fill you up in your emptiness. And this is something that we can ask God for, not only for ourselves, but for this church as a whole. Every week, I ask God to give you the Spirit of enlightenment, so that you understand God's plan. Every week, I ask God to empower you through His Spirit, filling you more completely, so that you are empowered to live faithfully toward God and each other. We can ask God to do this for each other, and then we find ourselves really curious, to see how God will answer our prayers.
I say all of this, because as we continue into Ephesians, it's really easy to lose sight of this backdrop of God's help. Starting in chapter 4, Paul pivots to focusing more on our responsibility. God has this calling on each of our lives, and on us as a whole-- as a church. And Paul encourages us to rise up, and walk worthily of this calling. This is something we take ownership, and responsibility, for.
And we just need to keep in mind that this walk isn't something we do on our strength, apart from the Holy Spirit. It's not like this is suddenly just up to us, like we are baby birds, and God kicks us out of the nest, and hope we figure out how to fly. This walk is something that we do in partnership with the Holy Spirit. We walk step in step with the Spirit, in a way that's worthy of our calling. The idea is that we walk out of this place of fullness.
Let's ease into today's passage by just reading Ephesians 4:1:
(1) And so then, I encourage you-- I, the prisoner in the Lord -- worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called,
How should we walk, in light of God's plan, and God's blessings? The answer is deceptively simple. The entirety of verses 1-6 is one single sentence in the Greek. The main point is in verse 1, and then everything else unpacks this one main point. And in verse 1, there's one key word that's focused, and central to the whole thing. That one word, is Worthily. If all you remember from this morning's sermon is one thing, let it be this: "walk worthily."
Now, Paul here uses the image of walking, which is deeply rooted in OT language. The idea is that each one of us goes through life, constantly at a fork in the road. At every given moment, we have to make a decision about which path we will take. We can take the path God walks, and that God has set before us. This path, is the one of righteousness, and faithfulness, and love. Or we can take the path that demons walk, the path where we are ruled by our flesh and our mind. We can take that path, of sin and rebellion against God. All of life is lived at this fork in the road, and we constantly have to decide which path we will walk on next.
Now, this walking language is something Paul has already used a couple times in Ephesians. In Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul talks about how 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. Let's read those verses:
(2:1) and (it was) you (plural)--
the ones being dead in your wrongdoings and sins,
(2) in which you all formerly walked
in accordance with the age of this world,
in accordance with the ruler of the authority of the air-- the one now working in the sons of disobedience--
(3) in which we also all lived formerly in the desires of our flesh,
doing the will of the flesh and of the mind,
and we were children by nature for wrath as also the rest of them --
Paul then returned to this walking imagery in Eph 2:10:
(10) For his creation/work, we are, ["his" is focused]
created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared before hand,
in order that in them we may walk.
So you used to walk on this dark, ugly path, doing terrible things. Paul showed you this mirror of you who used to be. You saw your "before" picture, and all of it was pretty hideous. But now, God has made you into this new creation, so that you can do good works, and so that you walk in those good works. What God has done, is set a new path before you. And on this path, God has set up hundreds of little stops all along the way, where you have opportunities to live faithfully toward God, and toward people. At every given moment at work, you have two paths before you. Just to pick an almost random example, if you're a school cook, you can take the path of doing all your work, as though Jesus is your boss. You can be kind to each of the kids, and not get upset or offended when they complain. You can be kind to your coworkers. You can be a good employee to your boss. You can be a light in the darkness. That's the path that God has set before you each day, and God invites you to walk that path.
Really, what we're seeing here, with this walking imagery, is a different way of thinking about what it means to be lost, and what it means to be saved. From God's perspective, the fundamental problem that you faced, before you were Christians, was that you were walking down the wrong road in life. It's a bad road, with a bad end.
Sometimes you'll see a young person who is making a mess of their life. They're rebellious and angry. They make life hard, by picking fights, and being difficult for no reason. Little things are treated like big things, for no reason. The way they're living hurts everyone around them, but mostly they are just hurting themselves. And when that young person is still in grade school, or middle school, you sometimes look into their future, and you worry for them. You know that those paths tend to lead to a really difficult outcome in life-- a lack of success at work, unstable marriages, abuse of their spouse or kids, divorce, drugs, jail. People destroy their lives in many ways, but the path to that destruction often starts when people are young. And with some people, it's like you can see it all happening in slow motion, long before the full outcome starts to be revealed.
I think this example pretty simply describes the situation that God found himself in, with people. God looked at humanity with sadness, because He saw the path we were all on. He knew we were slaves to Sin, and the flesh, and to satan. And God, in love, picked us up from this road of sin, and slavery, and death, and set us on this path of faithfulness and obedience to God. That's one picture of salvation-- being picked up by God through Jesus, and having a different path set before us.
This brings us back to Eph. 4:1.
(1) And so then, I encourage you-- I, the prisoner in the Lord -- worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called,
If God saved you so that you would walk on this better path, doing good deeds, what should you do? Walk on that path. Do those 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 get to call God "Father." Act in a way that brings honor to your Father. Walk worthily.
So this is the one main point. Walk worthily. Verses 2-6 explain what exactly this looks like:
(1) And so then, I encourage you-- I, the prisoner in the Lord -- to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called,
(2) with all humility and meekness/gentleness,
with steadfastness/patience,
putting up with one another in love,
(3) rushing to protect the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
(4) one body and one Spirit,
just as you also were called with one hope of your calling,
(5) one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
(6) one God and Father of all-- The One over/in charge of 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. There is a unity to everything that God is, and does. There's one body, One God, One Lord, One Spirit, one faith, one baptism. One of everything. One in everything. One in charge of everything. And to walk worthily, means to maintain that oneness with each other.
Really, what we see in these verses, is that they revolve entirely around how we treat each other. It's about the church. Walking worthily is about keeping the unity of the Spirit, and living in peace with each other. Later in Paul's letter, he will talk about walking worthily by being a good spouse, and child, and parent, and employee. There will be an outward focus. But Paul starts, by talking about the church, and the way we talk to each other, and the way we treat each other.
Do you see that?
I'm guessing this will come as a surprise to some of us, because we tend to view our faith as an individual, private thing. When we tell people the good news, we ask them, "Do you want to have a personal relationship to God?"
Right?
Or if we manage to break through the level of casual conversation with each other, and have a deep, meaningful conversation, we might ask someone we care about, "How is your walk with God?" And if we asked that, we'd probably expect them to answer by talking about things like their devotional life, or their prayer life. They might talk about what they're learning in 1 Corinthians. They might talk about whether God feels really close, or really far away. They might hang their head, and scuff their heels, and say, "I know I should pray more." That's what
Baptists do, at any rate. I'm not so sure about Lutherans.
But if Paul asked me, "How are you doing spiritually? How is your walk with God?," he'd expect a very different answer. Paul would be most interested in how I'm treating all of you. So he might be pleased that I'm finding his letter to the Corinthians helpful, but he'd probably clarify his question, by asking me about how I'm treating the people around me. What Paul wants to hear, is something along these lines: "Well, if I'm being honest, my brother-in-Christ said something to me the other day that bothered me, and truthfully, I'm really kind of mad at him. I haven't forgiven him. It bothers me to see him. And when we look at each other, we both know that things aren't right." In all of this, my devotional life may be fantastic. I may go through my day singing worship songs, and praising the God who loves me. I may feel like God is really close. But am I walking worthily of my calling? Am I really walking the road God has set before me? Not at all. When Paul talks about walking worthily, his first focus is on my relationships with all of you, and if I'm living in peace with you.
So we have this one main big idea, walking worthily. Let's now go through how Paul unpacks this, bit by bit, in verses 2-6.
In verse 2, walking worthily, means walking with humility and gentleness.
The first way Paul unpacks this, is talking about two things that are the opposite of pride. Walking with humility, means walking in a way that realizes that church isn't about me. My goal isn't to get my way, and have things done my way. My goal isn't to make sure that my voice is heard. My goal isn't to make sure that I win any argument or dispute that rises up among us. Walking worthily means being humble. You are more important than me. And my focus needs to be on you, and not on myself.
Paul then talks about walking worthily, in terms of gentleness. My wife has an aunt who has been an early elementary teacher for something like 40 or 50 years. When you first meet Diane, after you talk with her for about a minute, you'll find yourself wanting to ask her, "What grade do you teach?" She doesn't have to tell you she's one of those classic, fabulous elementary school teachers. She's an amazing listener. Her presence is gentle, and calming. She makes you feel valued, and loved. And when she talks, her words wash over you like a soothing creek. If I had to have a disagreement with anyone in any of God's churches, I'd pick Diane. I would think it's impossible for any disagreement with Diane to end badly. And if it does, it'd be because I'm not nearly as humble or gentle as she is. I'd be the problem.
For some of you, being a Diane comes pretty naturally. For others of us, walking with gentleness is something that's only possible, if we are super super filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen? Walking with gentleness, means when I'm at this fork in the road, having to make a choice about whether I will raise my voice with you, and insist on getting things my way, and make sure I win--- that I instead choose to be Diane. And when I know I'm about to enter a situation where things might get heated, and where I might be tempted to get really heated, walking worthily means praying ahead of time, "Father, please empower me through your Spirit to be a gentle person, to not feel the need to defend myself, to not feel the need to get my way, to value my unity with my brother-in-Christ above all else."
Next on the list, in verse 2: 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 bothers you to no end. Other people don't always walk in humility and gentleness. Other people are slow to change their ways, when they need to be changed. And that's super frustrating. So 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."
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 card games, or board games. You don't like the NFL. You're interested in really boring things, like golf, and fishing. But I put up with you. And you put up with me.
And do you see that little two word ending to this? "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 given their allegiance to King Jesus, and are part of this family. It'd be nice if eventually we reach the point where we can just say, we love each other, naturally and easily. But we start here, "putting up with one another in love." And maybe one week, when you give your peace to each other, you can all slightly change how you do it. You can all smile hugely at each other so that no one gets the wrong idea, and for one week, say, "I put up with you in love."
Next, is verse 3:
rushing to protect 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? Each of us has different ideas about church should look like. We all have things that are super important to us. When those things aren't happening, we find ourselves wanting to get upset. When someone wants to change something that's important to us, we find ourselves wanting to get upset. We lose the unity that the Spirit creates. We lose the bond of peace.
There will always be reasons to fight, and reasons to be upset with each other. And the more involved you get with this church, the more you'll find yourself struggling with that. Conflict is inevitable. What do you do when things get heated, and the unity is lost? Verse 3 says,
"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, through Jesus, and through his Holy Spirit, is creating one family who lives at peace with him, and with each other. When that peace is broken, it breaks the unity of the Spirit. You're wrecking the thing that God created. So when 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. Make the peace.
Now, 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 your brother or sister in Christ, 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. And sometimes, you won't quite be sure if the unity is broken or not. There's no harm in going up to your brother or sister in Christ, after you've worked through something, or got a little heated, and just double checking that things are okay with them. Just ask, "Are we good?"
All of this is really hard. But there's something even harder. In many churches, there is bad blood between members. There's some unsettled dispute, that just festers. Usually, this dispute was public enough at some point, that it's no secret. Everyone knows that those two people, or those two families, are at odds with each other. Even now, you maybe that you want to turn and look at two people in this church, because there's a little bit of bad blood. If that's the case in this church, and I have no idea if it is, part of rushing to keep the unity of the Spirit, is helping your brothers and sisters in Christ reconcile. When you know there's bad blood, you should-- in humility, and gentleness-- work to bring them back together. Help them, so they forgive each other, and are once again truly united in the Spirit.
Verse 4:
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 all of us decided to start a social group from scratch, my guess is that it wouldn't look quite like this church. We don't have a whole lot in common, really. When we hang out, we tend to run out of casual conversation pieces within 5 minutes, and it can start to feel really awkward.
But we have the most important things in common. We are one body, who share one Spirit. We have one Lord. We share one faith. We all had the one baptism. 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. Live in a way that mirrors that. Live as one body, one family.
So 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. We don't create spiritual monasteries, where we separate ourselves out, and walk a lonely path with God, and toward God. We walk worthily, out of a place of empowerment through the Holy Spirit. And the starting place for walking worthily is right here in this room. Walk in humility, understanding you're not a big deal. Walk gently, like the very best elementary school teachers. And when you fail, and that unity of the Spirit is broken, you rush to fix it. Walk worthily of your calling, as a member of this church body.
Translation of Ephesians 4:1-6
(1) And so then, I encourage you-- I, the prisoner in the Lord -- worthily to walk of the calling with which you were called,
(2) with all humility and meekness/gentleness,
with steadfastness/patience,
putting up with one another in love,
(3) rushing to protect the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
(4) one body and one Spirit,
just as you also were called with one hope of your calling,
(5) one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
(6) one God and Father of all-- The One over/in charge of all, and through all and in all.
