Walk Worthy Series

AMC, 05.10.2025

Text: Ephesians 4:1-13,

Theme: Walk worthy of your Call

Greetings: The Lord is good and His love endures forever!

Text analysis: ‘Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.’ (Ephesians 4:1),‘Make every effort to keep the unity’ (Ephesians 4:3), ‘to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up’ (Ephesians 4:12), ‘And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.’(Ephesians 4:30).

Today, I would like to remind Paul’s call to us to give attention to maintain the Unity, Appreciate the Diversity, and await for the eternity. Unity is impossible without having agape love, acceptance of diversity is hardest reality without understanding the dimension of the Faith, and we can’t await for eternity without having hope in Jesus. Unity, diversity and eternity are the expressions of Love, faith and Hope.

Call:

At the outset, let me explain the word CALL from the biblical perspective. The first three chapters of this epistle vividly describes the doctrines of the gospel. Last three chapters describes on the practical life. It’s a moral section of Paul’s letter. It is designed for the direction of our lives and manners. I therefore, being prisoner in the Lord, pray you that you lead a life worthy of the divine calling.

Christian life is a call from Christ for distinctive and a definite purpose. kaleo (Call) in the New Testament is synonymous to select or choose. Kaleo is a technical term for special relationships. The “calling” is mentioned because of the obligation it imposes upon us.

2. MAINTAIN UNITY

Illustration:

Once a pig and a chicken decided to open a restaurant. A chicken and a pig propose opening a restaurant together. The chicken proposed to provide daily an egg. The pig role is to provide ham. In the business ultimately one has to lose and one has to gain. One is involvement and the other is commitment.

William Barclay: ‘Jesus has brought to a disunited world the way to unity. This way is through faith in him and it is the Church's task to proclaim this message to all the world. The Church is the Christ's instrument of universal reconciliation between man and man, and man and God within the world.’

Call to maintain unity in Christ. Make “every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Basically, they were Jews and Gentiles from varying customs, culture, family backgrounds, food habits and dress codes. Therefore there was a need for unity.

In Jesus we share one body, one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father. The sevenfold use of the word “ONE” (4:4–6) forms the center of a poetic statement of the church’s unity. These common areas are greater than any potential difference anyone can claim.

The means of unity are Lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, and forbearing one another in love, (Ephesians 4:2).

Matthew Henry: “The best Christians have need to bear one with another, and to make the best one of another, to provoke one another's graces and not their passions.”

Meekness is an excellent disposition of soul and unwilling to provoke others. Long-suffering implies a patient bearing of hurts and harms without seeking revenge. Forbearing one another signifies bearing their infirmities out of a principle of love.

Barclay: ‘Christian humility comes from self-knowledge. It is the virtue by which a man becomes conscious of his own unworthiness. It is the gem casket of all the virtues.’

“It is not a desirable thing that all Churches should melt into one another and become one; for the complete fusion of all Churches into one ecclesiastical corporation would inevitably produce another form of Popery, since history teaches us that large ecclesiastical bodies grow more or less corrupt as a matter of course.” (Spurgeon).

The unity is the matter of the heart and not the matter of principles or programs. It is not the one day event but a lifelong commitment to one another in Christ. It does not lie in one set of thoughts, nor in one form and mode of worship but understands in the Spirit.

The unity of the church is a reflection of God’s gift of reconciliation in Christ. This unity of heart doesn’t demand for uniformity but acceptance, and appreciation of the diversity.  

2. APPRECIATE DIVERSITY

Illustration:

We all are individually having different strengths and capacities but if it all put together then you see the strong bond of Unity. In the construction sites we can see the Steel Rods for the pillars when all of them are joined together, bonded together they sustain for years together and becomes load bearers. Individual strength is limited but unity is stronger and mightier.