“United We Stand” Ephesians 4:1-6
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this sermon on February 26, 2023
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
Foreign.
Thank you, worship team, for leading us today. As the kids are making their way out, you can take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four.
As we look at Ephesians 4 today, verses 1 through 6, we’re looking at the topic of United We Stand. Paul was preparing the church for what he knew was going to be a continual struggle until Jesus Christ returns. We’ve already looked at there was division in the church between the Jews and the Gentiles. When they both came to faith, there was so much animosity between them that they had to work at reconciling their differences and accepting one another. So even from the beginning days, Satan’s strategy was to cause division in the church.
First it was between the Jews and Gentiles, and then there were disagreements between different towns, different churches. Eventually the Western church divided from the Eastern church. And then there were denominations that were formed within those denominations. Then there were further divisions of schisms. And in churches today, families are not united with families, members are not united with members in the way that they’re supposed to be.
And what Paul is telling us and what we’re going to look at today is that we must work at unity in the church if we are going to continue to stand and to represent Jesus Christ faithfully in the world. I’ll begin reading in verse 1 of Ephesians 4. Therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all may we pray for God’s direction. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that you’ve given us this special revelation that we know with certainty how to obtain your righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.
And Father, we also thank you that it gives us instructions on how we are supposed to live so that we might faithfully represent your Son in the world as salt and light. And we ask that you would give us understanding of it today, prompt our hearts to show us what areas we need to work on, where it needs to be applied, and empower us by your Spirit to carry through what we cannot do in our own strength. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. The first word There is a familiar word with Paul.
It’s therefore. And it usually marks a break in the letters that he is writing to the churches. He begins out his letters to the churches by giving us doctrine. He tells us the truth that we need to know and what God has done for us. And then when we get to therefore, on the other side of that doctrine is this explanation, explanation of now this is how you’re supposed to live in light of what you’ve been taught.
We’ve looked at the doctrines in chapters one through three about what God has done for us. And we’ve looked at how he’s called us into a special relationship with Him. We’ve also looked at what that relationship is supposed to look like. God wants it to be a growing intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ that we learn more and more about him, so we appreciate him more. We’ve learned that the inner power of the Holy Spirit is supplied daily to us when we submit to his leading and when we maintain a pure life.
And we’ve looked at the indwelling presence of Jesus in our day to day life that he just isn’t here for us on Sunday morning, but he’s with us all the time and he wants to have a personal relationship with us. We also looked that we’re supposed to have an inner understanding of God’s great love for us and his great love for others. And it’s his love that drives all of this in us. And lastly we looked at the inner fullness of God that dwells completely in us so that we don’t have to carry out living the Christian life in our own strength, but we can rely fully on God to accomplish in us what he wants to accomplish. So Paul says, therefore this is what you need to do in light of everything that I’ve shared so far.
And he uses this word, he says, I urge you to walk worthy. What does it mean to urge? Here he isn’t just saying, yeah, go out and do this on your own. You need to go and do this in your own strength. Instead, the word urge is more this.
Come, walk with me, let me help you to walk in this way. Let me encourage you and aid you in this. The Greeks would have used this word when they talked about a lawyer. He was urged to come into court to help a person with counsel and to defend them. He didn’t just tell them what to do, but he actually came alongside of them.
It was also used of a person that was urged or called in to help someone who could not do something by themselves. And it’s also used when leaders gave speeches to the soldiers, they urged and encouraged them, in spite of the upcoming battle, that yes, it was going to be a great challenge, but they would be able to succeed. So Paul’s saying, because of the doctrine, I’m urging you, I’m coming alongside of you and I’m telling you what you need to choose now not to do in your own strength, but in God’s strength. And what is it that he’s calling them to do? We continue to read in verse one, I urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received.
Walk worthy of the calling you have received. What does it mean to walk worthy here? This is just a normal stroll down the road. This word walk is talking about how we live our daily life. Not just our life on Sunday, not just our life at night, not on certain days of the week, but that all of your life you are supposed to be walking, walking in a worthy manner, every area of it, every day, every year.
And he’s going to give us a list of qualities that should be evident in our life. Because as people watch us walking throughout life, they observe us and they see what’s going in our life. And walking worthy means that when they look at us, they see that we are actually walking worthy. We’re told in the scripture that we’re supposed to be salt and light in the world. And there’s a balance there for that.
Salt gives taste. It can be a pleasant thing on McDonald’s french fries. But if you pour it into a wound, what does it do? It causes it to sting. There’s this balance there of what salt does.
Light is the same way when you get up in a dark room at night so you don’t trip over things. It’s very helpful to have a light. But then I think about going to the eye doctor. When they put that light where they look way back in your eyes, it becomes very, very painful. But it’s still a good thing.
Our lives are supposed to be lives of walking in balance, walking worthy. Now, we talk about worthy here. We’re not talking about this inherent worthiness that we have because we’re super valuable or we’re special. God is worthy because that is who he is. God is worthy in and of himself.
What we’re talking about here is it’s a choice to live in a proper righteous way according to God’s word. When we think about these words here in the Greek, actually, they’re associated with a system of scales and weights. Right? Now, when you go to the store and you buy bananas, you just put it on the scanner. But I remember a time that they had to actually put it on a scale that was hanging down.
Any of y’ all remember that? See how much it weighed? And they look at the numbers. It kind of looked like a clock. Well, before they even had that, they used to have scales and weights.
And maybe you’ve seen some in pictures. There’s like a tray on this side and a tray on this side. There’s a chain that goes up, there’s a bar that grows across the top, and there’s a stand in the very middle that holds it. And if you push down on this plate, what happens to this plate goes up. If you push down this side, this one goes up.
So before they had these fancy scales, if you were going to a market and you needed to, say, you buy a pound of rice, they would have a weight that they would put on this side that they knew that it weighed one pound. And then they would start to pour rice on this side until the scales would do what? Finally, when they came to a balance, you knew that you had a pound of rice. Now, what we’re looking at here is we’re supposed to live our life in this great balance. Now, what’s on this side of the scale is everything that Paul has told us in Ephesians 1 through 3.
It’s all the things that God has said he has done for us, what he has called us to do, what he is equipping us to do, that never changes. What God has promised is certain. But on this side of the scale, Paul is saying, now, this is how you have to choose to live. And if you live your life in balance with what God says, your scales are going to look like this. But if you start to let up on how you live, people are going to see that the scale is changing, or maybe you’ll do too much and the scale changes this way.
What we’re talking about is living in a balanced way so that what you know about God matches the way that we live. We live properly because of what he has done for us. We’re talking about a life walk and we’re talking about a life calling on this side of the scale. God’s calling on our life on this side, the way we have our life walk are supposed to balance together. Your life calling is from God.
It is perfect. It is true. He’s provided us everything we need. And once again, that never changes. But what Paul is saying is what we have to do is watch in our life to make sure that we match up with what we Know.
Therefore, it’s obvious on the scales by their tipping, that either as a professing believer, you’re living up to what God’s word says, or you’re not living up to what God’s word says. And I can tell you that the world is continually watching believers, and they’re saying, yeah, they say they’re a Christian, but their life just doesn’t match up with what Jesus life was. And even when you do try to live in this balance, actually the world even tries harder to find fault in you, to see that the scales are tipping one way or the other. Daniel was a great example of this. In Daniel, chapter six, verses three through five, we read this.
Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and the satraps because he had an extraordinary spirit. In other words, that was his life call. God had called him to be an extraordinary person to live according to his faith. And because of this, the king planned to set him over the whole realm. The administrators and satraps therefore kept trying to find a charge against Daniel regarding the kingdom, even though he was living according to what he knew about God.
It just made them all the harder trying to find him being corrupt, but he was trustworthy. There was no negligence or corruption found in him. So therefore these men said, we will never find any charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God. Daniel had the doctrine, the life call, and he had the life walk, and people saw that in him. This life walk, it’s a way of living where we deliberately choose, where we deliberately develop, and we deliberately carry out the commands of Scripture in our life.
And what is it this calling looks like that we’re supposed to be worthy of? If we go back to Ephesians 1, where we’ve been in the past, in verse 4, it says we’re supposed to walk worthy because God has made us holy and blameless. And people need to see that in our lives we’re supposed to walk worthy of our calling. In verse 5, as sons of God, when people look at this balance in our life, they need to see, yes, his life or her life matches what he preaches and what he says. In verse 11 of chapter one, where royal heirs were supposed to be worthy and demonstrate that to the world in verse 12, we’re supposed to live to the praise and glory of God.
Our life should show that we are called to that. And verse 13 says that we bear the mark of the Holy Spirit, meaning that when he’s baptized us into the Lord, it’s. It’s like we have on our team jacket and we walk through town. We bear it proudly and we live in such a way as to represent our team well. We walk worthy of the mark of the Holy Spirit upon our life.
What does it look like to walk worthy? Paul gives us five things Here he tells that we are supposed to be have all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. That’s what we want to spend some time now looking at. What do each of these terms mean? What is it that Paul is telling us that we do in our lives?
What do we strive for that gives us this balance between what we know and how we live? The first one is all humility. That all means oneness, totality. It’s the whole pie or the whole chicken. Whatever it is, it isn’t a pick and choose.
This humility that we are supposed to have is to be all consuming of the way we live. What does it mean to have humility? We look at the Greek culture. To them, this was something that people don’t need to be humble. That’s a negative thing.
But as with so many other things in scripture, what looks appropriate? God turns it on its head. Like those that were wise didn’t accept Jesus coming. Those that were blind saw him and understood. Those that were deaf were the ones that believed when they heard, whereas those that were able to hear, some of them did not believe.
God uses the weak things in the world to demonstrate his strength. And so it is with humility. What would seem to be a negative characteristic. Paul says we’re supposed to live this way. So what is humility?
Humility, first is esteeming ourselves as small in comparison to God. We don’t place ourselves above Him. We don’t even see ourselves anywhere near in comparison to Him. He is so utterly far above us in every way, we bow to him in humility. We bow to him with a humble spirit.
But on the one side is esteeming ourselves as small in comparison to God. On the other side, it’s having a correct estimate of ourselves in comparison to others. Meaning we don’t think that others are better than us, but we also don’t see ourselves as better than them. Some negative words that would show the opposite of all humility would be someone who’s prideful. They’re boasting, they’re haughty, they’re always considering oneself better than others and they’re disdainful of other people.
Rob Mattoon has these three statements that kind of Boil it down to what it is. Humility is the acceptance of your place appointed by God, whether in the front or in the rear, meaning whatever position God has given you in life, you accept that because it’s part of your calling. Number two, true humility does not convince oneself that you are worthless. It’s not saying, well, I’m not worthy of anything, I’m not of value, that, that’s not humility. But instead it recognizes that what I am not able to do, that God is working in my life.
And thirdly, true humility revels in God’s grace instead of one’s own accomplishments and abilities. Someone who truly has all humility is excited when they see God working in them so that they can give glory to him instead of to themselves. A truly humble individual. Be in balance, not thinking too highly of himself or herself, nor on the other extreme putting themselves down. That’s what it means to have all humility.
Let’s think about gentleness. Your translation in the Bible might have the word meekness. Now this is not the same as weakness. Instead, thinking about the balances again, it’s an inner balance that is demonstrated outwardly. The Greek philosopher Aristotle explained it this way.
Gentleness is the middle standing between two extremes. One extreme is getting angry without reason. You know, some people, they’re just angry all the time without reason. That’s, that’s one extreme. But the other extreme is never getting angry at all.
You see a child being hurt or you read something terrible on the news and you don’t get angry about it. There’s, there’s a problem with that. There has to be this balance between not getting angry without reason and not getting angry at all. Gentleness is getting angry at the right time, in the right measure and for the right reason. We can think about a great river if it’s running through and it’s unbridled, it just does whatever it wants and it goes through.
And then all of a sudden it stops. But if you put a dam up so that it controls that river now you can have electricity, you can have water metered out throughout the year so that there’s proper irrigation. That river becomes something that’s gentle, but it still has this, this great power behind it. It’s knowing when to respond and when not. We had a friend named Michelle and her mom had just had knee surgery.
How many of you had knee surgery? We went over to visit her. She was sitting there in her Recliner and her 2 year old grandson comes in with his bat. You know, just oblivious everything and he swung that bat and he whacked her knee. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
We’re all. And she just smiled and said, that’s okay. And we knew that she was in excruciating pain, but she had this gentleness about her. She was able to control what she could have spewed out instead of doing the right thing at the right time. We’re supposed to have all humility.
We’re supposed to have gentleness, but we’re also supposed to be patient. The patient person is able to avenge themselves, yet they refrain to do so until the time is right and they are able to proceed properly. Patience is the person that they get angered or aggravated by someone and they want to say something, but they know it’s not the right time and it’s not the right place and they’re going to hold off and pray about it. The patient person readily instead relies on God to remedy a situation according to his wisdom and power. Abraham was a great example of patience.
In the Old Testament. He waited for God to fulfill his promises. He wasn’t always perfect in it. Sometimes he wasn’t patient, sometimes his wife wasn’t patient. And it caused problems in their life.
But generally, overall, he was waiting on God’s promises to come about. Joseph was also very patient. He waited through his imprisonment. He waited patiently under the slavery at Potiphar’s house because he knew eventually that God was going to work all these things out for good. God himself is the greatest example of patience.
He refrains from showing his wrath against sin. And he does this in his patience so that many will come to faith. Doesn’t mean that he can’t show his wrath, because someday he will at the proper time and in the proper place. But right now he’s waiting patiently. And so it is with us.
We’re not to be impulsive in our response to others failures or to their inadequacies and their bad behaviors. If we’re going to be united as a church so we don’t fall, we have to practice humility. We have to practice gentleness. We have to practice this patience. And the fourth thing that Paul tells us is that we have to bear with one another in love.
Bearing up means to be back to back with someone so that if one of you starts to fall, the other one’s going to prop them up. In other words, we’re not supposed to live our life alone in the church. And we are here for one another, bearing one another, holding one another up. The picture is throughout Scripture that We’re not supposed to be divided. Jesus is the vine and all of us are the branches.
We’re all connected. It talks about the church being the body of Christ. We all have different functions, we do different things, but we’re still united. Or it talks about us being stones. And in a building now, a building can’t stand if any stones are removed.
The body can’t function unless it’s all together. How many of you got up today and your legs said we’re not going to church, we’re staying home. It just doesn’t work that way. Now some of you may have left your brains somewhere along the way. I do that sometimes and I’m not all here.
But we’re meant to function and be united. And we have to practice these things, bearing with one another. But the key here is that we are bearing with another in something that is called love. And this love here, it isn’t the love that you have for a friend. Wow, this is my buddy.
We get along great, we think the same way, we like to do the same things. We’re just great when we get together. No, know this love is love that you have for people that are also very different from you. It isn’t the love of a family that you feel this beholden meant to family members because you’re genetically related and you just have to get along. No, we’re talking about love here that even if people are different, even if they’re difficult to get along with, we’re supposed to love them by willfully doing what is best for them to the extent that we are willing to be self sacrificial, putting others needs above our own, bearing pain even unto death if necessary to accomplish what is best for them.
And our prime example for this is Jesus Christ in scripture, that he underwent the pain, the suffering, the death on the cross, that we might have eternal life even in our sinfulness. Our complete difference from him, not like him at all. He was willing to love us and give us all these things.
Some people rub other people the wrong way. Do you know anybody that does that to you?
I go back to the example that we’re stones in a building. So a mason comes along and they look for the stones that almost fit together, but they never perfectly fit together. And if they just put those stones one upon another, then they would rub together and they would irritate one another. But the mason instead uses mortar. And that’s the example of love.
The mortar that comes between the stones, stones that holds them together, allows them not to irritate one another, not to rub against one another in such a way that they hurt one another. Instead, they’re united in love. Love says, I will love them no matter what, no matter how difficult they are, and no matter how much they might even hurt me or be against me, I am there for them to sacrifice.
Paul goes on now he says we need to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. This desire to be unified, it requires not some effort, it requires every effort on our part. All of us are difficult to get along with at some point, and we have to work at it not being that way. We have to work at keeping the unity of the Spirit through what we call the bond of peace. Every effort means that we eagerly do whatever it takes.
The same word can be translated to study. It’s like your kids go to school. They don’t just absorb the information. They have to work at learning. They have to do homework.
If they do homework anymore, I don’t know, maybe they’ve given that up in school. But they have to practice. They have to memorize. And so it is that we have to study how to have unity in the Spirit. The word bond there means referring to tendons or ligaments that they join bone and muscle together so that they can function.
And when we have this desire to create peace within the fellowship of believers, that’s what allows us to function properly when we’re joined together. The opposite of peace would be someone who is always trying to cause dissension, or they’re always trying to cause division within the body of Christ. This is how we are supposed to live in order to balance what we know that God has done for us and what he has taught us. Let’s go on to verse four. Now verse four, five, and six, say this.
There’s one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. In other words, Paul’s going back to remind us of the doctrine on this side. What God has said. There’s all this oneness. And in order for your life walk to balance your life calling, we need to see oneness in the church on this side.
Our outward unity demonstrates the common goals that we have of evangelism and discipleship and worship and service. And if we’re not united together, we can’t fulfill those things in the world. Our outward unity is supposed to be a picture of what inwardly the Holy Spirit is doing. With us, this external has to balance the scales with the internal. And Paul reminds us of these doctrinal things that just hammer it in.
We’re supposed to be one because we are one body. We are the the Body of Christ. We belong together. We can only function properly together. When all of our differences are combined, that’s when we fully represent Jesus Christ.
And we can do two things here. We can exclude other people from the body, but we can also sometimes exclude ourselves and just say, well, I’m not going to participate because my feelings are hurt or for whatever the reason is. The question you have to answer today, are you accepting others and are you also including yourself within the body of Christ because you recognize the doctrinal truth that we are one body. But also Paul tells us that there is one spirit. The Spirit is the guiding force in our life.
He indwells us and he wants to give us direct direction day by day. He’s like the boss at a plant. And if you have one boss and everybody asks the one boss what to do that day, then the plant will go fine. But if you have someone over there and they decide, well, I’m going to be the boss today, and someone over there decides they’re going to be the boss today, and five people listen to them, and six people listen to them, and the other people listen to this boss, what’s going to happen to the plant or what they’re doing and it’s not going to succeed. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be that person in our life that we all come to him and say, what do you want us to do today?
And if we are under his control, then everything will work properly in the Body of Christ. When we are all controlled by him, we function properly. We don’t have to figure everything out. We don’t have to understand everything. We just have to follow him daily.
So the question there is, are you daily seeking to be filled with the Spirit and being obedient to Him? If you are, the balance in your life is showing what the doctrine teaches. One body, one spirit, one hope. We must all profess the same hope in Christ Jesus. And that hope is that we expect his imminent return, meaning it could happen at any moment.
We also expect him to come and pronounce judgment on the world and also to reward his followers. And then we look forward to the new creation and then spend an eternity with Him. This is our hope that we’re all going to be spending together in eternity with every other believer. If you live that way today, you’re going to Invest in other people in the church, you’re going to appreciate them, you’re going to accept them, and you’re going to learn to love them. Now, because if you don’t appreciate other believers in the body, you don’t accept them and you don’t love them.
You know, you’re going to be spending a long time in eternity. You need to work on working together with them. Now, are you enjoying being with believers because that is the hope we’re all going to be together? Or are you outside of that and you really want to be with non believers more? Then my question would be to you.
Do you really have the same hope that we have in Jesus Christ? Because if you would rather be with the lost, then maybe you’re not looking so much forward to eternity to be with those who love the Lord. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord. What that means is that there can be no other master or idol in your life that you choose to serve. Money can’t be more important to you than the Lord.
Power can’t be more important to you than the Lord. Prestige, possessions, people, sex, any of these things, if they are over and above Jesus Christ in your life, if they are driving you to live in a certain way, then you have not shown that we have one Lord, which is the doctrine. You’re not showing it with your life, with the balance that you’re supposed to be. Next, Paul mentions one faith. It is faith in Christ alone.
We’re not saved by any good works. We’re not saved by being baptized. We’re not saved by our heritage. We’re not saved by our church attendance. We’re not saved by giving anything.
There’s only one faith. There’s only one way to salvation. That’s by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. That he came and he lived on the earth, a sinless life, God in the flesh, that he died on the cross, he was buried, and he rose from the dead, and he did all of this out of love so that all we have to do is accept it and not add anything to it on our own part. One faith.
Then Paul says that there is one baptism. He’s referring to First Corinthians, 12:13, where we read, for by one Spirit, we. We are all baptized into one body. It’s not the physical baptism, the outward baptism, but when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit baptizes you. He washes you, he cleanses you, and you now are identified with Jesus Christ.
The question is, do you sense this identification with Jesus Christ even more so. Do you desire it? Do you want people to say, yes, that person loves Jesus. That person is a follower of Christ because the Spirit wants you to identify with the Son, and He wants that to be seen in the world, in your balance. Physical baptism is just your outward demonstration of what has happened when you were spiritually baptized on the inside.
And at that baptism you are proudly proclaiming, yes, this is what has happened on the inside. To me, I’m part of the fellowship of believers. I’ve placed my faith in Jesus Christ. Now I want to share that with everyone. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
And then we end with this doctrinal statement about God. There is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all. And in all. This is the truth that we’re supposed to acknowledge outwardly to others. We know that God is one.
We need to acknowledge that with our life. There is no other God that we serve or no other God that we talk about. He is the Father of all. If we are believers in Jesus Christ, we’re part of his family, and all other believers are sisters and brothers in Christ, and we need to treat them such in oneness. But he’s also above all that we can’t compare him to anything in this world or on this earth.
He’s not like any person or any being. He’s so far above all things that he is incomprehensible. And we will spend all eternity learning more and more and more about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We’ll never get bored because there will always be more to learn and appreciate about Him. He’s one.
He’s Father of all. He is above all. He’s also through all, and he is in all. He is with us. And by his word we are living today.
We owe everything to him because of who he is. So as we come to a close today, you need to examine your heart and your life. Do you understand the doctrine on this side? And are you living your life to bear out these five character qualities so that people will see the balance there? And the purpose is that God might be glorified that people would be attracted to salvation through Jesus Christ.
Because if you’re out of kilter or you’re constantly living your life up and down like this, there’s nothing there that makes you true. Salt and light in the world that would draw people to His Son, Jesus Christ. Would you bow with me? In prayer. Heavenly Father, help us to live our life in balance with what we know profess to be true.
Father, we thank you that we don’t have to do this in our own strength. We just have to turn to you and say, God help us. We just have to have the desire, Father, to move in this direction. And you’re going to be there. Like Paul is saying, I urge you, meaning I’m going to walk beside you.
I’m going to carry you through this and help you to live your life in balance, that we might represent Jesus Christ adequately in the world. In his name we pray. Amen.