Ephesians: Walk Worthy of the Calling #9 A Worthy Walk Together Ephesians 4:1-6 Dr. Matthew Cassidy 11/4/2012 Good morning. Today we are going to look at a couple of verses which hinge the whole book of Ephesians 4:1-6. Who You Are Ought to Affect How You Act A little princess is about to make her debut during which she will stand up, walk across a stage, and then introduce herself to her kingdom. Now, would it be a bad thing that right when she was getting up, the queen mother whispers to her, You are a princess. Walk like one! That would not be rude but that would be appropriate because it would be true she is a princess and she needs to act like a princess. That is hard to grasp for you and me. So, how about this? An eighteen-year-old boy is now a man, the last day of boot camp as a Marine and he is going through the drills. He is suffering from fatigue and is crawling under the razor wire while they are shooting over his head. He is starting to go into full-blown panic. One of his buddies crawls up next to him in the mud and says, Suck it up. You are a Marine act like one! Is that harsh or is it true? It is true because he is a Marine and he is supposed to act like a Marine. The idea is who you are ought to affect how you act. That is exactly what Paul is doing in Ephesians 4:1. Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. In that single sentence, it is packed with information. It starts off with I, Paul, a prisoner of the Lord. Sometimes when Paul says that, I go: Oh no, he is going to really want me to do something I don t want to do and he is going to say I have the right to tell you to do this. In other words, He is saying: Hey, I am just in prison and I am going to ask you to do something that is sacrificial. You can t say anything when a guy who is a prisoner of the Lord who is also in prison is saying: I urge you. And he means that. Some translations read: I beseech you. I beg you. I am insisting that you do this. He is saying: I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. The last thing I want you to notice here is the word therefore. The New American Standard Version actually starts the verse with: Therefore. The reason is that this is a hinge verse and it is typical of Paul s Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 1 of 12
writing. After he front loads a lot of doctrine, then he says in light of that truth, you are going to want to live this way. This is a very similar phrase, which is found in Romans 12:1 and a lot of you know that verse. In light of all the doctrine found in Romans 1-11, therefore, So, this is a similar therefore. Look, in light of those things to be true that we talked about, you have to live a certain way. Are you convinced about what the Bible says are true? So, the book of Ephesians roughly is broken in half. The first three chapters talk about doctrine, beliefs and things that are absolutely true. Chapters 4-6 talk about how to act. So, we are talking about who you are and then how to act. We are talking about doctrine and then disciples -- principles and then practices. Some people say: I don t need all the doctrine. Those are big words and what difference does that make? That concept is beyond the imagination of the writers of the Bible. You don t care about knowing things? You just want to do them? The writers of the Bible would say: You can t do until you know. The better you understand the truths that you are a princess, the more likely you are to act like one. Otherwise, you are just pretending. Iin fact, if you get stuck in a behavior that is inconsistent with who you are, there is some merit to saying: Maybe you ought to practice learning a new drill or skill and part of that practice is stumbling. But sometimes, it is better to go all the way back to the beginning and saying: Are you really convinced of the things that the Bible says are true about you? Without apology, let me read a summary of what we have gone through in Chapters 1-3 thus far in this book of Ephesians. You are chosen by God to be holy and blameless. You were adopted by Him into the holy family. You have been forgiven of every sin past, present, and future because of the death of Christ. You have been redeemed that is, paid for with an extravagant price. You have been given a lavish inheritance that you will experience throughout all eternity. You have been sealed and secured by the Holy Spirit. You have been made alive in Christ and seated in the heavenlies with Him. You have been made fellow citizens with all the saints of God, past, present and future. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 2 of 12
Because of all this, you are His. That is why Paul says: As a prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you to live a life worthy of the calling that you have received. Here is how you are supposed to live. Go to verse 3: Why Unity in the Church? Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Make every single effort you can to keep the unity of the Spirit. That is key to how you are supposed to act. All the verses in Chapter 4:1-16 are about the unity of the Spirit that is in the body of Christ. So, when Paul is begging us to act like what we have been called to, he is calling us to act in unity. Again, let me remind you what the Church is it is Jews and Gentiles, different cultures, different races, different expectations, different rituals + the Holy Spirit and that is the Church. If you can imagine the hostility between these groups, Paul is saying: No, no, no, you have to work together I am urging you to work towards unity because it is the Church that is going to bring the Gospel message to the world. If you focus on what you have that is distinct from each other, nothing will get done. So focus on the things you have in common. Focus on the things you have that are similar to one another. The question about why is there unity? Why could there be unity between Jew and Gentile except for this? Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body [the Church] and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Remember, last week, I told you to listen for the wedding party: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Bride of Christ. Here we are again, just a few verses later. Look at what he is saying we have in common. You can focus on the differences, if you want, between Jews and Gentiles and your ethnic backgrounds and the differences in rituals and pagan worship; or, you could focus on this, that you are now attached to the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in you and you are the Bride of Christ. The second thing I think he is trying to emphasize in these verses 4-6, besides the fact that you are attached to this holy family now, look at what you have in common, all of you. But also this you are a Christian and a Christian is not by definition a person who is ethical and kind and giving to people in need. That is all fine and well but the definition is what he is talking about here, that we are part of one Body, that we have been forgiven by Jesus Christ, that we have become a son to the Father and the Spirit dwells in us. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 3 of 12
As one author put it, you are not nice --- you are new. You are a whole new creature, individually, and that creature is intertwined with others. That is the Church. You have to focus on what you have in common because it is so much bigger and better than anything else you have. You are sitting in the heavenlies with God and so Paul says: I urge you therefore to pursue everything you can for the unity of the Spirit because that is what you have with one another, one body the Church, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. You are one family. It is everywhere. When the Lord teaches us to pray he says: pray to our Father not my Father, not individuals but our Father. We are all praying this together. I think a crude but simple definition of maturity is: to care less and less about more and more; and to care more and more about less and less. Paul is saying that. Why do you care so much about all these things that will probably end up dividing you? You care so much about so much. You are supposed to care a little about a few things and the few things are the things that distinguish you and make you a believer, a follower of Christ, part of the Bride. Let me show you how the logic rolls out here as I read verse 1 and I will skip 2 and then verses 3-6. Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Well, how should I live? 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Why? 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Do you see the logical progression that rolls out? The Body of Christ is to be one in working within itself, to do the will of God. Characteristics of a Worthy Walk Well, so how do you do that? How does it happen? What attributes do you need? What are the characteristics that you must have to put on every effort to pursue this unity? Before we talk about the details of those four characteristics, I want you to be thinking about a situation where a church you have attended in the past or even here, where the church did something that Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 4 of 12
you didn t like not something that is just wrong like having someone in leadership who has committed adultery or embezzling money something that is against the way you would do it. How did you respond to that? Paul is going to walk us through how we could respond to that. Here is what Paul says and the characteristics to deal with that. Ephesians 4:1, 2 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. :3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. So the first descriptive word there is humility. In keeping the peace, you need to be humble. Humble does not mean thinking poorly of yourself. That is what some think or even attribute to someone; oh, look, he is humble, and the guy is walking around with his head down, thinking he is a loser or not worthy of other people s attention. That is not what the Bible says. Humility in the Bible is not thinking badly about yourself; it is not even thinking about yourself. It is self-forgetfulness. It is thinking about other people first. It is thinking about you the way God thinks about you. You have infinite worth, so much so that God would send His Son to die for you and to be raised again for you, so that you could be righteous. But your life is not focused in on yourself. It is looking at opportunities to serve other people, to help other people, and to be concerned for other people. The point in humility for this passage is that if you are humble, you don t care about [and this is hard for us to grasp sometimes] being a Jew or a Greek, or being Irish or German or African whatever those things are that make us different and sometimes unique. If we focus on those things and make them too important, then it prohibits us from being unified. Paul says: Let s just lighten up a lot about ourselves and focus more on the power of what the Church could be if we were doing all we can for the unity of the Spirit. The second attribute is gentleness or meekness. Walk in a manner worthy of your calling means to walk in gentleness. Some of your translations read meekness, which is best defined as power under control. Think of a giant gorilla petting a little kitten. There is an enormous beast that has unparalleled strength in many respects and he is just petting a kitten. Moses was described the meekest man at that time. Does that mean weak? It does not mean that he was weak. He stood face to face, never looking at his sandals, to Pharaoh, the king/god of Egypt. At least ten times, Moses called Pharaoh out. He was the leader of Israel in their pilgrimage across the desert, leading millions of people. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 5 of 12
Jesus is called meek. He turns over the tables in the temple of the embezzlers and the con men. He was not a weak man. He stares down Pontius Pilate and Herod. This is what we like to see in our movies: when the innocent man is bound and tied and he is strong but he is incapable of defending himself and he is standing face-to-face with the bad guy, there is only one thing he can do and everybody is waiting. Just spit you can spit. We love it when the good guy who has been beaten and is staring face-to-face with his torturer and he spits at him. We think, at least you got something in there. But what does Jesus do in the face of Herod, in the face of Pilate, in the face of His torturers He prays. That is meekness. A war horse was called meek because they were extremely powerful and they would go into combat under the complete control of their rider. There is a little rhyme: If you think meekness is weakness, try meekness for a week. Apologize to a subordinate when they have done 90% wrong, whether it is your child or a coworker that is what meekness means. You have the power to fire or to spank but you go there and you lower yourself to their level, sit down low and get on the ground, and you apologize as though you did it all wrong, expecting nothing in response because quite often you won t get any positive response. That is meekness and that is what Paul is saying when he says: walk in a manner worthy of your calling. He is urging us to do this for the unity of the Spirit and you will need to do that with humility and with meekness. The next characteristic is patience. Patience means patience. Other translations are more description: long-suffering, or even better long-forgiving, long-tolerating. Patience is your taking grief for a longer period of time than you would like. For the unity of the Church, for the unity of the Spirit, in a Church we are supposed to do this for one another. We don t have to respond right away to every offense. I am not suggesting that if there is something wrong in a church that you cannot say what is going on is wrong. Don t misunderstand that. But it is how you talk, how you deal with it. We had a staff member who was not in the right place a few years ago and things needed to be done. I have a friend who was in leadership here and he understood this passage about the unity of the Church. So he called me up and said: Hey, Matt, I don t want to talk to you about this but I have to. I said: Okay, what s up? He said: Do you know what I know about this person? I said: I don t know what you know. He said: Here is what I know. I said: Yeah, I know almost all of those things and just a couple of details I did not know. He said: Well, okay. I just wanted you to know. I said: I know. You don t want to talk anymore about it and I can t talk any more about it. I want you to know this. I appreciate your humility in this situation in knowing you are talking about the Church and how careful you are. I appreciate your meekness that you know you could have said things harsher and louder but you didn t. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 6 of 12
Here is what I am asking you to do. I want you to be patient because we are taking care of this but we are praying for God to do this in a way so as to preserve as much peace and unity as possible in our congregation. He said: I can be patient, now that I know that you know I can be patient. I will be praying that too, that God does some really wonderful things so that it is not a divisive issue but a unifying issue. I said: That is the prayer. He knew that we were talking about the Church and he knew he had to be humble and he had to be meek and he had to be patient for it to go well. That is what Paul is praying about. The last attribute that he talks about here is bearing others in love. So the key word, you would think, is love in this because the New Testament is saturated with the idea of love as the brand new ethic. But I love the word bearing instead because love is when you get married; bearing is after the honeymoon and you realize I am going to have to bear this relationship with love. It is a choice and it is laborious and you are going to do it. It is an act of the will, not with romantic expectations and hype. Paul s Challenge Our Application Paul s challenge here in our application is that we are united. Because of who we are, we are going to act a certain way. We are going to move from hostility to peace, where we would normally be hostile towards one another. Where we would be demanding, we are going to move towards grace. Where we would be judging one another by our own standards, we are going to be granting all sorts of exceptions and give instead of take. Unity is not uniformity. Whenever Paul talks about unity, he is usually talking about it in the epistles where it is the Church and how it should get along. When he talks about unity, it is in the context of differences. In this case and in the books of Corinthians and Romans, which are other letters he writes, he is talking about the body of Christ. He says there are hands and feet, eyes and ears, and everybody is different but we are all doing different things that we need to do. So it is not about cloning. You can see this in some organizations where everybody looks the same, dresses the same, and steals each other s vocabulary. That is not the way God makes people. So that is not the way the Church works. It is in the context of differences that we are able to come together in this thing we have together, the Church, that we are all under one Savior, and we all have the same Spirit, and one God and Father. So, how does it happen then if unity is not uniformity? How does it happen that when Paul writes about the body of Christ and how we are different (some are eyes, some ears, some hands, Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 7 of 12
some feet) why is it that there is always drama? Here is why. I am going to use the word I to mean me but I want you to hear the word I to mean you. I think I am normal and I think you should be like me. I am the standard. I think I am right and I think you should work it out until you understand that. What works for me (since I am the standard) works for everyone. The way I learn is the way you should learn. The things that have changed my life, boy, everyone ought to go through that because it will change your life. That is why. I am a hand and everybody ought to be a hand and everybody ought to learn like me and everybody ought to do what I do and everybody ought to understand the life of a hand. Right now, I am in a reading group and we were just reading about the conversion of C. S. Lewis. It is a long story but his ultimate conversion experience is after he has talked to a lot of his mentors, advisors, and those who loved the Lord who were around him, he was on vacation with his brother. He got into a side car (of a motorcycle) and they are driving from their house to the zoo. He was not a follower of Christ. He gets in the side car and says: He was not the Lord of King of my life when I got into that side car. My brother started the motorcycle and we drove to the zoo. When I arrived, I was a follower of Christ. I don t know where it happened on a trip. I just know that when I started, I was not a follower of Christ but when I arrived at the zoo, I was a Christian. I think that is a fabulous story. Today, many people would say if that happened to them: Oh I know just the thing for all of you. I am going to start this side car trip to the zoo ministry and we are all going to get in a side car and everybody sign up. We will have various trips and we are going to go from my house to the zoo because that changed my life. It will change your life too. I will put you in that car back and forth until you have a Jesus moment. That is how there is disunity in the Church. We think that what happens to us, every one else has to go through that. The way I learn, you must learn. The things I like, you must like. That is not unity. So here are a couple of questions. How do you respond to the Church when the Church says no? Again, this is not on ethical issues but in issues of what are supposed to be preferences. You are supposed to care less and less about more and more; and you should care more and more about less and less. What about one of those things you care about? What about the Bible study method that you like? What happens when the Church says no to that Bible study method, that it won t be here this year; or it doesn t get front promotion? Or your cause for justice, or the place where you think all the missions focus ought to go because your life was changed there and you know people there, or your social cause, or your music style, or where camp ought Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 8 of 12
to be held, or how to do life groups? What happens when you hear that the Church is not going to do something the way they did it before that favors you? How do you respond? Do you go and talk to other people that go to that Bible study, that prayer group, that niche ministry and explain how they don t get it? Do you talk about how the Church needs to get with understanding who you are and that the rest of the Church should do that? Do you even consider leaving the Church? People have left our church. They leave churches all the times for reasons that are baffling to me. But there is a part of me that says: If you can t change your attitude, maybe you ought to change your address. But here is what happens sometimes. One or two things happen. You will find something at another church that will bug you because you care too much about too much. Or, you will find a church that is just like you and do you want that? Look, the way the church works is we get different body parts, the hands, the feet, the eyes, and the ears, and we are all supposed to be working together like a body; when it works together, it is magic. Part of the magic is rubbing up against each other and when we are rubbing on each other, we are rubbing the bad stuff off. If you join a church where everybody is like you and they all learn the same way and all the teaching is the same way and the music is just the right way, you never have to rub bad stuff off. Generally, organizations like that spend a lot of their time judging the other churches who are not like them. It is not a safe place. So, you could pray and ask for help. You could take on attributes of humility, that it is not about you, and meekness and patience and love. Here is another test to see how things are going with you. It is not what happens when the church says no to your stuff. What happens when the Church says yes to other stuff? Are you authentically happy for that other ministry getting money, or the spotlight, or the attention, or whatever it might be? Because the alternative for you being happy for them is that you would be jealous for your stuff. Listen to how this could be perceived. It would be like your children on Christmas Day surrounded by a bunch of gifts, and your older son said: Hey, how come I didn t get a bike this year because my little sister got a bike, how come I didn t get a bike? You as the parent sit there and say: Oh, come on. You got a bike when you were her age and now she is old enough to have her own brand new bike. Why can t you be happy for her? She was happy for you when you turned six and got your first brand new bike. When there is jealousy about other ministries, it means there is a deep immaturity in a person s soul that cannot enjoy someone else s success. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. We are supposed to be Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 9 of 12
speaking with words of humility and meekness and patience and bearing with one another in love. That is the way the Church is supposed to work. Is that the way you speak when you get a no or when someone else gets a yes? Let me read the verses again. Ephesians 4:1-6 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body (the Church) and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Here at Grace, about eight years ago, we made a very significant commitment to this idea of unity of Spirit. We started applying Matthew 18, if you know that outline, and we did not wait for it to apply to adultery. If people were caught in sins, we just tried to help them. Some of the sins people were caught in were gossip and dividing the church. They did not understand how dangerous that lifestyle is. We tried to do it in ways that were criticized because sometimes we were too gentle and too patient and some people were wondering why we didn t address it faster. It was probably because we needed to err on the other side. But here is how you can help. This works everywhere by the way. It especially works in the Church and it is for the Church but, listen, you should try this at home, try this at work, try it on your soccer team. When people talk about ripping something open, with gossip and slander or carrying on a conversation that doesn t need to be had, you say: Wait, wait, this seems like it is really bugging you. Option A: You should go directly to that person and talk to them about it by Tuesday I will give you 10 days if it is really hurting you that much. They say: Oh, it doesn t bug me that much at all. You say: Okay, good, then let s do Option B and let s not talk about it ever again. Those are the two choices. You can talk to one person and bounce stuff off of them, asking: Am I seeing this right? But after that, if it matters that much, if it keeps coming up, say: You need to talk to that person directly. No? Then we don t need to talk about it again. We had a guy between services who said: Yeah, I keep dealing with that. I said: There is a third option for you as the participant. I can t have a friendship that continues to talk about my church that way. Here is the overarching principle and it makes it easy. Talking about your Church is like talking about your mother. It is the Bride of Christ, guys. Even if you had a terrible mother, nobody else gets to Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 10 of 12
talk about her, right? I heard you had a terrible mother. You say: Yep. And that is all you are going to say about that. I am not saying we don t have problems here or the church down the street either. I won t entertain those conversations either. But listen, nobody gets to talk about your mother. This is the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Church. So when somebody starts talking, you just say: Hey, that seems like you have some deep stuff there. Maybe you could get reconciled with those people involved. No? Okay, then let s not talk about it again. You talked about it again and I don t want to be around when lightning hits you. This is serious, a spiritual thing. I urge you brothers to live a life worthy of your calling. What are you called? You are called Christians. Walk like Christ. He was meek and humble and patient and loving. What are you called to? You are called to the Church and she is the Bride of Christ. Who you are ought to affect how you act. Alexander the Great was famous for a lot of things but one of them was his temper. I think this is a true story; I heard this years ago. It was after one of their most violent battles and it was going back and forth. Of course, eventually Alexander s army won. After that, they had trials of the men who were involved in that. Usually it was the death penalty because there was zero tolerance for anyone who did not follow orders. One young man walked in and it was his time before Alexander; he was shackled and bound and brought in by two guards. Alexander was leaning into that person like he did all the time and he saw this young man was rather attractive and about 15 or 16 years old with blonde hair and blue eyes, like himself. There was an immediate exhale and the tension in the room left. Alexander asked: What is this young man being charged for? The soldier said: Evading the battle. He ran. He turned coward. Well, that is immediate death. They could spear them in the back as they retreat. Alexander was furious and then you could see him start to get enraged again. Then he looked at the boy again and felt compassion toward him; maybe he likened the boy to himself when he was innocent still. He reflected back to when it was simpler and easier in life. So Alexander leaned back in his chair and to the surprise of all the men in the room, he said: Son, what is your name? The boy looked up and said: My name is Alexander. With that, Alexander the Great jumped out of his throne and ran down the stairs and grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to a column and started choking him. Then he said: Change your conduct or change your name. I wonder if Paul would say something like that to some of us. I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of your calling. You are called a Christian and you are part of the Church. As a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling. Make every effort to keep unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Be that. Do that. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 11 of 12
Lord, I ask that your Spirit would guide ours. I bet there are some people here whose hearts are heavy because they have spoken ill of your Bride, because of pettiness or immaturity, they threw mud on her gown. Lord, I ask that they would feel the full forgiveness of that today and they would resolve to do whatever is necessary to make things right, to take every effort to make things unified again to write a letter, to put out fires of gossip, to make a phone call or go to lunch. Lord, help us to see that all we have in common and not in our little individual preferences. God, let us be instruments of peace that we would be the people who present the Bride spotless, without wrinkle or blemish. God, give us the willingness to be lonely if we have to lose a whole set of friends, the strength to be courageous if we have to confront, the attributes of patience and long suffering. But Lord, let us be meek, humble, and bear with one another in love. God, we pray this with every expectation your Spirit would desire this in this Church. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Ephesians9.4.1-6.web.Cassidy.docx Page 12 of 12