Walk in a Manner Worthy of the Calling With Which You Have Been Called

Well, hello again. It's good to see you. It's been a few, well, it's been a little while since I've been here, but it's always nice to be back, so I'm glad to be here. Some of you actually are new, and I don't think I've met you before, so let's make sure we meet afterwards. Turn in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 4. I'm actually going to read two passages to you this morning, and starting with Ephesians 4, 1 to 6, please stand as we read God's Word. Ephesians 4, starting in verse 1. Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is 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. And now turn to, or just read on the screen from Psalm 133. Psalm 133. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, coming down upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. So back to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul starts.

With the word therefore. And you'll see this in most of the epistles in the New Testament. There's a turning point where things shift, right? From what came before to what comes after. Usually doctrine and life. Doctrine and practice. And everything that comes after the therefore is actually the point. It's actually the point, right? This is how arguments work, and these epistles are all arguments. They're trying to get us not just to mentally acknowledge or give assent to facts, right? The doctrine that he lays out for us so forcefully and beautifully in Ephesians 1-3 is for a point. It's to get work done. It's to make us change, right?

It's to do something. If all you have is the beginning of Ephesians, it will go bad on you. Doctrine without application, without practice, without life, without living it out, goes bad on you. This is why the Apostle Paul says knowledge puffs up. What he means by that is knowledge that's not applied puffs up. It makes us proud. Don't be proud of the fact that you believe. what's in Ephesians 1 to 3. That's kind of stupid, you know, because the point of Ephesians 1 to 3 is to humble us. Think about what has gone before. I'm not going to read it all, obviously. I'm not going to preach Ephesians 1 to 3, but I just want you to have this in your mind so that this makes sense. Ephesians 1 to 3 is like the mountain peaks in the Grand Canyon of the New Testament, right?

You have been chosen in Christ. You have been predestined. He has shed his blood for the forgiveness of your sins. You were dead in trespasses and sins. He made you alive with Christ, seated you at his right hand in the heavenly places. All of this doctrine, he has taken Jews and Gentiles who believe and put them together in one body, built them up together into a temple of the Lord. All of this doctrine. has a point. And that's the rest of the book. It's this point. It's this application. And the place where he begins this application is really interesting, as we'll see. So he says this, therefore. So that's what the therefore means. He has laid out truth, and now he's going to apply the truth. Therefore I, he says, the prisoner of the Lord. Now just stop and think about that for a second.

Why does he say that? Well, because it's true, obviously. He is a prisoner. He's actually in prison at this point, writing this letter. He's in Rome, waiting trial before Caesar himself. But why is he saying that? Why is he calling himself the prisoner of the Lord? Is it because he's bragging? Is he boasting? Is this one of these moments where he's just trying to... you know, get a leg up on these lowly, you know, Ephesians who have it so easy. I am the prisoner of the Lord. You know, look, see, I'm in prison. Take a selfie and boast about it. No, he's not boasting. So, okay, is he whining? Is he complaining? You know, I'm the prisoner of the Lord. Such a pain.

No. He is reminding them. He is in a sense using this as leverage to get the work done that he wants to get done. He is reminding them. He has suffered for the sake of the truth. He has suffered for the sake of the gospel. He is not a hypocrite. He wants them to feel the weight of this, of what he's about to say. He's a prisoner of the Lord. He has stood before rulers and magistrates and priests and all of this, and now he's about to go before the emperor of Rome, right? This is life or death. This whole thing is life or death. Your faith, the truth, is life or death. And as a matter of fact, all of us, if you're a true Christian, you are in some way a prisoner of the Lord. That's what it means. You don't belong to yourself anymore, right?

The Apostle Paul says, you were bought with a price. You are not your own. You're a slave of Jesus Christ. So in one sense, he's using this kind of as leverage to get them to take us seriously. On another sense, he's just saying, look, this is what you are too. I'm reminding you of what's normal for a Christian, right? You are the slave of God. You are a prisoner. You are under obligation, not to please yourself, Serve the Lord. And so he takes that weight and he says this, Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, all the weight of chapters 1 to 3, all the weight of your election, of your redemption, of Christ working in you, of Christ saving you, bringing you out of death into life, and of you being not your own but belonging to him, right? He takes all of that and he says this, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you. Now just hold on to that word for a second. When's the last time any of you used that word? No?

It's not a word we typically use because we take nothing seriously. So other translations use urge. Anyone use that word lately? No? King James uses beseech. Anyone use that lately? You feel that there's some weight in those words, no matter which one you use, right? Urge, implore, beseech. This is a word that means... It's a word that means to come alongside someone. Literally, that's kind of built into the word, the Greek. So to come alongside to someone and call out to them. Right? This is a word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. You've heard that word maybe before if you've been in church. The paraclete, the one who comes alongside and calls out to us. It's the same word, basically. It can mean encourage. It can mean like, you know, well.

Urge, right? Exhort. This is not a calm word. This is not a word that you use when you don't really care whether they listen to you or not. This is intense. He says, therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, I beg you. To what? I beg you, I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. What does he mean by walk? Walk is just, it's probably the most frequently used, it's the word he uses most often for the Christian life, for living the Christian life. It's walk, right? And so what that tells us is living the Christian life is not what you do when you're sitting around. It's active. It's, you know, it requires work. It requires energy.

It's a process, right? It's all kind of in the idea of walking. If you're walking, you're going somewhere. And that's the word he often uses for the Christian life. It's to live your life, to go about the work of your life, to go about the activity of life. You're going somewhere. You're walking. And he says, I implore you, what? To walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called. So think about this. What does this mean, the calling with which you've been called? He has laid that out for three chapters, right? You were chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, raised from death to life, given work to do, he says in chapter 2, right? Prepared, created for good works that God prepared beforehand that you should do them. You have been called to be...

To know the Lord God Almighty as your Father. This is not the stuff you yawn at. If you yawn at this, you've never tasted it. Right? This is amazing. If you think this has nothing to do with your life, then you are not a Christian. How can you be a Christian and know this truth and have heard it over and over again and think, yeah, that's right, whatever. Right? This is not. This is not how it works. This is true. This is like the most amazing thing in the universe here. The calling that you have received. This is one of the most frequent ways that the Bible talks about Christians, right? Those who are called. The church, what that word church means, right? It's one of these words we use all the time, don't know what it means. It means those who are called out. It means called out ones.

Called out of the world. That's what it means to be a Christian. To be called out, to be made separate. It is one of these words that is just constant. So here's another example in Jude. Jude says this, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the called. That's just a synonym. That is a word for a Christian. If you're a Christian, you are called. He says, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. So to be called is to have, it carries the idea of being separate, but also of having a duty placed on you. You've been called to this, right? This is your calling. It's not just talking about, it's not at all talking about your job. That's another way we use that word, calling. This is your life. You have been called to be something else.

And that calling is huge. It is not this little milquetoast, little fuzzy rabbit thing that you can just take for granted and live your life in an easy way because you're an American and you've got plumbing and running water and a nice car and all that stuff. This is not something that just easily slides right into that. This is massive. And he says, I implore you, I beg you, I beseech you, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called. So here's a, there's a, you know, there's a comparison going on here. The word worthy here, actually, you guys remember some of you maybe have actually seen these in real life, maybe not. We don't use them anymore. Remember the old weights, the scales at the old stores, right?

That just used gravity and levers and stuff, not electronics. And you'd walk into the store and say, I want a pound of cheese. And so the guy gets out the pound weight and puts it on the one side and it goes down. And then he starts filling it up with cheese. Until what? Until they're equal to one another. That's this word. That's this word. Worthy. Equal to. So now put this together and think about it. He says this, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, beg you to walk in a manner so to live in such a way as a Christian that equals the calling with which you've been called. So picture it, right? You take this calling and you put it on the one side of the scale. And that calling is not light and wispy, right? It's massively heavy.

You have been called to serve and honor and know the Lord God Almighty. To obey him with all your heart. To love him with all your heart. To love your neighbor as yourself. To reflect the image of God to the world around you. The image of Jesus Christ. To do good works. You've been called with this heavy, heavy, heavy calling. And it's down here, boom, on the bottom of this scale. On one side. And you're to put life on the other side, right? Like the guy putting slices of cheese, right? You put life, you put your life, the way you live, your behavior, your attitudes, your obedience, all of that. You keep putting it on there until you have this, all right? That's the image. That's the command. That's what he's urging us to do.

To live a life in such a way that the scale is equal. Now, has anyone gotten there yet? But that's what he begs you to do. Take this seriously. Take your life as a Christian seriously. What's very easy to do in our day, and especially if you've grown up in the church, which I know many of us have. If you've grown up in the church, it's the easiest thing in the world to take none of this seriously. Because it's just your culture, the culture of your family, the culture of your relatives, whatever. And you've never had to suffer anything to be a Christian. Well, the Apostle Paul has. And so he begs you, he implores you, walk in such a way, live in such a way that your life equals this great calling that you've been given. Okay? Now, we could, if we hadn't read this already.

We could imagine all kinds of things that might come next. What do you mean, Paul? Like, go out in a blaze of glory, right? That's the only thing that could possibly measure up to this massive calling, right? I mean, do something like amazing. You know, burn yourself. Light yourself on fire. Just go out in a blaze of glory. And let everyone see how amazing... You are. Okay, that doesn't work, does it? So what does he say? What do you mean, Paul? How am I supposed to do this? Verse 2. Here's how. With all humility and gentleness and patience. That's not what we would expect to hear. He's calling us to live in a manner worthy of this amazing calling. And the first thing he does is say, yeah, what I mean is be humble. In fact, All humility. Not just a little bit. But be humble in every possible way that you can. Humble in every possible circumstance that you can. Be humble all the time. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, remember. We are to consider others better than ourselves. To not think highly of ourselves. To know our place.

None of the things that we have do we deserve. We didn't produce them ourselves. You didn't produce your faith. He's already said in Ephesians 2 that he gave it to you. By grace you're saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. Even your faith isn't yours. What makes you different from anyone else? God does. It's so easy for Christians to look down our noses at everyone else. You're lazy. You're immoral, right? You're sodomites. And so we stand above, we wrap ourselves in the robes of our righteousness, right? Stand up and condemn everybody. Because obviously we're better than them. That's what it means to live according to my calling is to recognize how great I am, right? And how terrible everyone else is. No.

The first thing it means is with all humility. With all humility and gentleness, he says. Meekness. Being tender with people. The Apostle Paul says in Titus, showing every consideration for all men. Showing every consideration for all men. Being gentle. Like you would with a little child. So with all humility and gentleness, with patience. You all know what patience is. You all know how easy it is to lose it. Patience comes from humility and gentleness. If you're not patient, it's because you're neither humble nor gentle. You expect everybody to do everything according to your schedule, according to your thoughts, according to your plan, according to your script. Right? I want it what I want. I want it now. And I don't care about you. That's not patient.

You see how you have to be humble and meek and gentle in order to be patient. So with all humility and gentleness, with patience, what? Showing tolerance for one another in love. Bearing with one another in love. Putting up with one another in love. So now think, what is he actually talking about here? What he's actually talking about is life in the church. He's not even talking about life at the drive-thru lane, where we tend to be. neither humble, gentle, nor patient. He's not even talking about that. I mean, it certainly applies. What he's talking about is life together in the church. Because he says next, we'll come back to this tolerance in a second, but he says next, in verse 3, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. This is all directed to Christians living together in the church. And so one of the things he says here, humble, gentle, patient, bearing with one another, showing tolerance for one another in love. Now, what does that assume? What does that take for granted about life in the church? You're going to get on each other's nerves. You're going to sin against each other. This is why over and over again, when, you know, the apostles write to the church, they always tell us to forgive each other. If you just flip a page over and look at the last verse of chapter 4,

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. There is no need for forgiveness if there's no sin. Why does he always tell us to forgive each other? Because we're always sinning against each other. It's what it means for now to be a Christian. We are sinners and we sin against each other and we sin especially against the people that we're closest with. In the family and in the family of the church. Right? This doesn't surprise you, I hope. I was in a meeting a little while ago with a man. And we were talking about a situation. And we were talking about his life and his family. And he, you know, he had been sinned against. Some of his family had been sinned against. And this is a man who was prone to bitterness.

Prone to holding grudges, right? And he comes in and I'm talking to him and he says, I expect to be sinned against out there, outside the church. But when I come into the church, I expect things to go differently, right? I expect things to be different inside the church. I expect to be sinned against out there. But when I come into the church, I expect everyone to be different. And I said to him, dude, dude. Have you ever read the Bible? Look at what is always assumed. Why in the world would you think that when you, yeah, you're going to get sinned against out there, but if you come into the church, that's the one place where everyone's perfect and you'll never be sinned against. Are you kidding me? Of course, if that's what you expect, then when you are sinned against, you will become bitter, cynical, jaded, and you'll just isolate yourself from the church and you will be proud.

And not gentle and not patient. And you won't put up with anybody. When you're sinned against. But this calls you to put up with one another when you're sinned against. In love, he says. Showing tolerance for one another in love. Love covers a multitude of sins. Are you so proud that you can sin against people left and right, but when they sin against you, well, no, I can't stand for this. Then he says this in verse 3. All of this really comes down to this, verse 3. Being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now, again, just slow down and look at these words. This is something, he says, that requires an amazing amount of work. Diligence is the word he uses, right? Be diligent.

Being diligent is not what, you're not diligent with things that are easy. You are diligent with things that are hard. Another way to translate this is make every effort. This is not something that just passively happens. This is the result of work. You are required to work hard at this. At what? Well, be diligent. Make every effort. Work hard to preserve the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. The unity, this, This unity he's talking about is not made by men. It's not made by us. It's not something that we produce. That's not what he's calling us to do. You can't produce this. It's the unity of the Spirit. It's the unity produced by the Holy Spirit. It's the unity that comes from being of one family, the family of God, the household of God, having one Father.

having one lord having one faith having one hope this is the unity that comes from god it's produced by the holy spirit it's it comes with being a christian but you can't produce it but boy can you destroy it so this unity produced by the holy spirit is something that you must protect that's well the word he uses in this one is preserve preserve That means guard. It means keep. Now, what kinds of things do you guard and preserve and protect and keep? What kinds of things? Precious things. Precious things. Beautiful things. You guard them. You preserve them. You protect them, right? This unity produced by the Holy Spirit is one of the most important possessions of the church. Jesus said, They will know you are my disciples because of your love for one another. He prays in John 17 that God would make his people one. Just as he himself and God the Father are one. This is an amazing unity. There is no sunlight between the Father and the Son. You understand? Perfectly united. And he says make them one just like that. This is what Jesus died for.

To get for us. This oneness. This unity with each other. It is incredibly important. It is the thing that is kind of the lynchpin of our witness in the world. That's what he said in John 17. They will know that I sent you. They will know that you're mine when they see your unity. When they see your love for one another. And so God takes this incredibly seriously. This is something that takes all kinds of work and effort to preserve. And because it's so important, breaking it, this unity produced by the Holy Spirit, breaking it is incredibly serious. I want to read to you from 1 Corinthians 3, where the Apostle Paul is talking about the church. He's talking about the body of Christ. He's talking about the church.

And one of the images for the church in 1 Corinthians is it's a temple of the Holy Spirit. And it's built up of parts, and we're the parts. But what's being built by God is a temple. And this is what he says in 1 Corinthians 3.16. Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will what? Anybody know? God will destroy him. This is not talking about your physical body. This is not talking about smoking and eating too much bacon, all right? This is talking about the church. Do you not know that you're a temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you, the one who produces this unity, right? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are. But sowing discord among brothers, ah, you know.

We just, you know, that's such a, it's no big deal. Do you feel the weight of this? If you fail to guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and instead you work for division, division destroys the church, and if you destroy the church, God will destroy you. That's what he says. This is why in Titus, again, the Apostle Paul says this, Titus 3, or 4, 3, yeah, Titus 3, 10. Reject a factious man. Factious just means divisive, right? Factions, someone who creates factions, calls people, you know, to pull away over here, throws, you know, criticisms and complaints. Pulls people over here, hey, did you see how so-and-so said this? Yeah, oh yeah, well yeah. Then I saw, oh yeah. I think, yeah. You know how this works. He says, reject a factious man after a first and second warning. This is three strikes, you're out. Right? Literally. Brother, you are being divisive.

The way that you're acting, the way that you're talking, the way that you're pulling people away, you're being divisive. You need to stop. Okay, yeah, okay. Brother, remember we told you this a week ago. You're being divisive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. Brother, leave. That's it. That's what he says. Reject, reject a factious man. After a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is... You ready for this? Perverted and sinning, being self-condemned. Now, is that how you think of yourself when you're getting together with your clique and criticizing other people in the church? Is that how you feel about yourself? Perverted, sinning, self-condemned? It doesn't matter how you feel about yourself. This is the judgment of God. This is intense. You're destroying the church of God.

you better watch out because God will destroy you. And you must be diligent. Make every effort, not just to not destroy the unity of the Spirit, but you must make every effort on the positive side to preserve it. That's different. That's even more intense. There's no neutral ground here. It's not either, you know, you can't just live in the middle here. You're either destroying or you are preserving. Diligently. Diligently working hard. to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So examine yourself. How are you failing with this? Failing doesn't just mean actively destroying. Failing means not actively, diligently preserving this unity produced by the Holy Spirit. It's a precious thing. In some ways, the smaller the church, the more dangerous this is, you know, because everybody knows everybody.

And little sins become big problems. Little pebbles in the shoe, you know, become really painful when you're a little church. And just a little bit of failure to preserve the unity of the Spirit produces all kinds of bad fruit. Now look at this last few verses here very quickly. What is the weight that he brings to bear on this? He's already brought a lot of weight. Therefore, so all chapter 1, 2, and 3, prisoner of the Lord, implore the calling with which you've been called, right? All humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Then he says this in verse 4. There is 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. Why is he doing that? He's bringing the heaviest things he could possibly bring down on us. This is, we're talking about God. We're talking about the Holy Spirit. We're talking about the Lord Jesus. We're talking about the Trinity. We're talking about the very hope that you have of a Christian, as a Christian. You hope to be... In the presence of God with him, saved from your sins, standing before him with joy, raised from the dead in a new body. This is your hope, right? Well, that's your brother's hope too. You claim God as your father. Well, God is his, God is her father too. You claim to be a subject of the Lord Jesus. Well, so does he, so does she. You claim to have the Holy Spirit. So does he, so does she.

You are one. So what are you willing to break that for? Your politics? The petty little squabbles that we get in over stupid things? Well, you don't understand. They sinned against me. Yeah, I know. So does God. That's why he keeps telling you, forgive one another just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you. And Jesus says, as a matter of fact, in the Lord's Prayer, remember this? Where we say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And at the very end of the prayer, he says, now, if you don't forgive, our Heavenly Father will not forgive you. So you're willing to destroy the unity of the Spirit, to destroy the church, for what? You just don't like each other. Well, that's why he says, bear with one another in love. The church, right, God takes all kinds of weird and different...

people that would never naturally hang out together. If your church is a church where, you know, where all the people would, if you remove Christ, remove the Holy Spirit, remove God the Father, remove the calling with which you've been called, take it all away, and these people would still be the ones who hang out together, then something's terribly wrong. Because that's not the unity of the Spirit. But if that's the level at which you think about this, yeah, I know he's in my church, but I don't like him because, you know, he's, you know, I don't fill in the blank. He's different from me. So the unity that Jesus bought with his blood is no more powerful than your tastes and preferences and politics. That's pretty awful. So I implore you, like Paul does here, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called, with humility, with all humility, with gentleness, with patience, putting up with one another.

working as hard as you possibly can to preserve this unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. To fail to do that is to deny everything you claim to believe about what's actually important, what's actually true. God will help you. God will give you grace for this. The very next line in Ephesians 4 verse 7 says this, but to each one of us grace was given. So remember that. God will give you the power and the ability to do this, to be humble. That's what he's working in. That's what he's working in us. But he calls us to be diligent. So may God help us. Let's pray together.