Resonating God's Glory (Ephesians 4:1-3)
Ephesians 4:1--3 (ESV) --- 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Because Paul has been praying for them to be strengthened with God's power through his Spirit in their inner being, he wants them to do their part. It's one thing to say, "Do what you are supposed to do." It's another thing to say, "I'm praying for you to be strong enough to overcome all of the trials that you are about to face." Paul doesn't just rely on the Ephesians to transform the Ephesians. He is making the point that God is working on them to make them what they are supposed to be.
Why is Paul so interested in the Ephesians being strengthened and transformed? Why does he want them to be steadfast when they face trials and temptations? Because they have a mission, and so do we. Verse 1 points us to that mission which was laid out repeatedly in the first three chapters.
God's Call Summarized
In the first three chapters, Paul reveals how God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. He has adopted us as his sons and daughters, redeemed us, reconciled us, forgiven us, and sealed us by the Holy Spirit. But, if that wasn't enough, he has also called us to live as his temple on the earth. Our mission is to demonstrate God's glory to the nations by being the light of the world. This is what God inspires Paul to tell us in the first three chapters. We were dead and useless like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, but God has given us his son to make us alive and capable of great works that praise his name.
But How?
The question remains, though, "How do we shine as lights to the praise of God's glory?" The first essential ingredient is prayer. Paul ends that section detailing his prayer for God to strengthen the Ephesians so that they might be strong enough to glorify God in the difficult situations that they face. The second way is hinted to in the prayer when he says, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." He wants the Ephesians to shine as lights for God's glory by having much greater faith.
Romans 10:17 (ESV) --- 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
He wants them to know the scriptures so they can be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and so that they can grow to produce fruit for God's glory. He says he wants them to "know the love of Christ which surpasses all understanding." If we don't grow in the knowledge of the love of Christ, we will never become lights in the world around us. We will be a shell of what we could be. Externally, we might look like someone who loves God, but internally the passions of this world will compete with our passion for God. God gave us his son to win the competition once and for all. If that is not what you see in your life, the love of Christ is not in you to the point where it should be.
I say all of this as I wonder about myself. Is my desire to know the love of Christ still there and still growing. There is so much to learn! May we never stop praying for strength and learning about the love of Christ. In our weakness and failures, let us pray for God's healing hand to be upon us to heal all of our spiritual sicknesses. Remember and believe that God can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think. Don't say, "I'll never be able to overcome this." With God's help, we can do more than overcome some passions that are competing with his love. We can grow in love beyond our wildest imaginations! To doubt that we can grow stronger and overcome trials or temptation is to doubt that God is working to sanctify us and transform us into his holy people. Believe God will help you overcome your sins and weaknesses, not with pride or arrogance but with hope in God.
What Does It Look Like
Now that we have summarized the first three chapters and discussed the hope we have in God's calling for us to be his blessed people who praise his name let's talk about chapters 4-6. These chapters are full of exhortation. In other words, Paul is calling for a response. If God has made us his sons and daughters and blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing, how should we respond?
Ephesians 4:1 (ESV) --- 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
In light of the great blessings they have received, Paul urges them to live worthy of their calling. Again, God didn't choose them because they were worthy. We are all unworthy of the salvation and privilege we have received, but Paul urges them to live like they are worthy of it. Think about what that implies. How righteous does Paul want them to live? Does he want them to remove one or two sins from their lives? Does he want them to come to church services and make an appearance once a month? He is telling them to live wholly transformed lives. He wants them to be as righteous as Christ.
We ought to respond with total devotion and love. It's incredible to me how devoted people get to clubs and teams. People are willing to make tremendous sacrifices in their lives to maintain their relationship with certain groups and to help them succeed. They will travel long distances to watch football games, risk being arrested for a cause, giving up their money, time, and nearly every other relationship to be a part of an earthly group that gets them minimal satisfaction and fulfillment. I enjoy watching Alabama football, but it's interesting to see how people have reacted to their winning streak. Many of the fans have grown more fanatic, but many of us just expect Alabama to win at this point. I remember the early days were people were going crazy over this stuff. The feeling of winning a national championship was new, and it drove people to make considerable sacrifices to witness the winning that was going on. Some people get in their motor home and drive all over the country to watch every game.
How fanatic should we be about the Lord's church?
What Should We Do?
We have talked about how living to the praise of God's glory being difficult, but if you understand that to mean living like Christ, it becomes impossible. We need to pray hard and study hard to grow by the grace of God! This is not something that will just happen to us as we go through our every day, daily routines. We have to adjust our routines to live like Christ. We have to adjust our shopping habits, our recreational habits, our working habits, and our relationship habits so that they resemble what Christ would do if he were in my position.
That's what Chapters 4-6 help us understand. That's what we will be studying about and trying to grow toward over the next couple of months as we study this half of the book.
But, today, let's look at the first thing Paul brings up. We will be focused on this for the next several weeks because it is HUGE for our growth and transformation.
Ephesians 4:1--3 (ESV) --- 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Unity
The first thing he mentions is our need to have transformed hearts. We cannot glorify God with the works of the flesh raging inside of us. How many of us know brethren who slander and hate others. It's so easy to just think negatively of someone who doesn't do something they should do. Larry Rouse just finished discussing our tendency to be bitter toward our brethren in the gospel meeting. I think this is an easy trap to fall into. We have the opposite of what Paul tells us to have here. We trade humility for pride, harshness for gentleness, self-righteousness for patience, and abuse for bearing with one another in love. This will not produce God's glorification! If we want to glorify God, the first thing we must do is address the toxic heart that is within us. We must overcome the anger and bitterness that has taken root and choose to be long-suffering toward those who don't deserve it. That is what Christ would do in our situation. He would extend a helping hand toward those who have been struggling with a good and honest heart. That is the nature that we should have inside of us.
Too often, we assume the worst and over-generalize without taking the time to investigate. If we stop lying to ourselves and stop being so proud of what we know and do, we might develop friendships and unity that will create tremendous spiritual growth. Notice that Paul wants them to have this heart transformation so that they can work together.
Glorifying God and shining a light for the world to see is hard work. That's why he created the church as one unified body. He will continue discussing this in the first sixteen verses of this Chapter, so there is more about this coming. But here we see that the transformation of our lives to living worthy of the calling we have received isn't the result of "Self-help." We need to let the love of Christ transform our hearts so we can work together and grow together.
What does this mean?
This means that if you are the type of person who refuses to bear with the weak and foolish around you, you need Christ dwelling in your heart. Instead of being led by the Spirit of God (the way that God wants you to live). You are being led by the "prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in the sons of disobedience." This is the primary contrast that we need to understand.
Jesus was the perfect man, but he did not walk around high and mighty, looking down on others. Instead of being harsh and abusive, he was gentle and loving. He was full of love and compassion for the weakest of mankind. Those who knew they were total "screw-ups" found the greatest blessing. I think of Zacchaeus, who had robbed men and worked hard to live worthy of the salvation Jesus came to bring. He gave up so much, and Jesus loved him. I'm sure he wasn't a perfect man, but he was working toward the goal. This is the way Jesus loves people that the most righteous did not tolerate. He was humble, gentle, patient, and long-suffering. We have seen in Matthew that Jesus is like this toward his disciples. Aren't we thankful that he is that way toward us? Let us show that gratitude by living this way toward one another.
I have often found that my pride, harshness, self-righteousness, and abusive talk would have been unjustified. I would have been swallowing both feet if I had opened my mouth. Instead of being divisive, I could have been encouraging and helpful. This is the way of light, not darkness. I love what he says in verse 3, "making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." Our desire should be to maintain unity and a tight-knit bond with one another.
Are we United?
If you were to do a critical analysis of the Christians who meet here, would you say that we are united? That might depend on many factors and be highly subjective so let's ask it a little differently. Are we all united on a particular doctrine or principle like the fact that the Bible is true, it is from God, and it is about God. Do you believe that? Do you know that all the people who come here week in and week out are united with you on that belief? If the answer is no to either one of those questions, we are not as united as we could be. The crazy thing is that this is one of the most foundational principles that we teach week in and week out, but we spend such little time together that I don't know where many of you stand on this foundational principle. Unity is where we stand together, but we can't stand together if divided on a foundational issue.
I imagine no one would keep coming to this group and submit to my kind of lessons unless they believe that the Bible is true. But one thing I have noticed since becoming a Christian is that we tend to avoid conversations about specific topics for fear of different opinions.
Bible Class Unity
That means that we should want to stop division before it starts by discussing our differences with love and respect. Our Bible classes are supposed to be a safe place for that type of discussion and growth. We have a problem here. We have plenty of capable teachers but not enough interested students. I know Jeremiah takes a little getting used to, but it's not that hard to follow along with, and it is fascinating. Some great applications help us grow. Bible class is an excellent opportunity for us to share views and grow together.
Work Unity
Outside of Bible classes, we need unity in our efforts to evangelize, serve the suffering. If we have an issue with each other, we have to discuss the issue with humility, gentleness, patience, and love. But we also have to be willing to spend time working together with people we may never have thought of working with. We can't just call it good once we get along. We need to take the next step and work alongside those we love to bring greater glory to God. That's what he desires the body to do.