Sermon Tone Analysis

Ephesians 1:3-5; Ephesians 2:1-10; Ephesians 2:19-22; Ephesians 3:4-6; Romans 12:1; Ephesians 3:1; Philippians 1:15; Philippians 1:12

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

Please take your Bibles and turn in them with me to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4.

June 1, 1995 a skinny kid from Cicero, New York got on his first plane flight ever and landed in a new world.

I spent the next two months in Navy boot camp where it seemed people would rather yell at you than talk to you and you were always in a hurry to get everywhere.

I was told when to get up, when to go to sleep, how long my hair could be, what to wear, how to fold my clothes and even how to label them to the specific inch.

It was pure indoctrination into the Navy way.

We learned that to be early is to be on time and to be on time is to be late.

We learned the importance of attention to detail.

The purpose was to take 120 individuals and change their way of thinking enough so that they would fit in to the organization of the Navy.

To take orders when given.

To put the interests of the organization above their own - and even above their families which we were reminded weren’t issued to us in our sea bags.

For those who couldn’t quite get it there was Extra Military Instruction - to help remind them of the new way of thinking that would help them thrive in the Navy.

For the first three chapters of Ephesians Paul has been providing the Ephesian church a sort of Extra Christian Instruction.

All of the things Paul taught them were things they knew - after all he had spent three years there

and warning them with tears

But it seems that in the intervening years, some had forgotten what he had taught them

Our adoption as sons of God

Our condition as sinners, God’s awesome work on our behalf for salvation, the free gift of grace, but also the responsibility of humans to perform the works prepared beforehand

That Christ is the cornerstone of the church and that we are being built on Him

The mystery of Christ made known - that salvation is not just for the Jews but also for the Gentiles

All of these deep doctrinal truths are necessary for understanding and for flourishing within the body of Christ, within this new entity that God has effected as a result of Christ’s death on the cross - unifying both Jews and Gentiles in the blood of His Son and creating the church.

It seems that somewhere along the line divisions had entered the church or maybe in an effort to forestall this - because it had happened in so many other places where he’d ministered - Paul is making a preemptive strike to remind the Ephesian believers what the Gospel meant for them.

Sometimes we need the same reminders - to remember what this entity that we’re a part of is all about - so that we can then focus on the ramifications and implications for this in our lives.

Starting this morning and for the next several months we’ll be building on the doctrinal teaching that Paul has already delivered to us in the first 3 chapters as we look at the practical applications of these truths in our lives.

Let’s start this morning as we look at Ephesians 4:1-6.

Christ Vision

Therefore, I the prisoner in the Lord, urge you

In light of all of this - live this way

This is the advice given to dear friends - Paul is imploring but in a friendly way

Notice first his point of view - I the prisoner in the Lord.

This is the second time in the book that Paul has referred to his captivity as a prisoner of the Lord.

The first time in Ephesians 3:1

was to remind the Ephesians that even if he was currently residing in a Roman prison - or a rented house on house arrest - that ultimately God was sovereign over his imprisonment and that he was imprisoned on behalf of the Gospel.

I think this reference is a bit different.

Paul is about to entreat the Ephesians to act in a certain manner, to live in a way that is counterintuitive to all that our human nature aspires to.

Here he is reminding the Ephesians of his status as a prisoner of the Lord not to remind them of His sovereignty over Paul’s imprisonment but rather to define for them how sold out they must be if they expect to be successful in this new way of life that he is about to call them to.

From the time that he met Christ on the Damascus road Paul was completely sold out to Christ.

He repudiated everything in favor of knowing Christ - even telling the Philippian church that he counted all things loss “for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Paul saw all of life through the lens of the Gospel and how his choices in life, his actions and even his imprisonment would affect the name and the Gospel of Christ.

Commenting on this phrase Dr. MacArthur writes

Ephesians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (The Call to the Worthy Walk)

Paul had the ability to see everything in the light of how it affected Christ.

He saw everything vertically before he saw it horizontally.

His motives were Christ’s, his standards were Christ’s, his objectives were Christ’s, his vision was Christ’s, his entire orientation was Christ’s.

Everything he thought, planned, said, and did was in relation to his Lord.

He was in the fullest sense a captive of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We would do well to see life the same way - all of life.

We are very good at compartmentalizing our lives and thinking that there is church time and there is me time.

Oftentimes the me time outweighs the church time.

From birth we are practiced in the art of me and me time.

We are practiced in the art of seeing life through the lens of how it impacts us - its why we get annoyed with other people, why we get frustrated when our team loses, dinner is cold or a promotion at work gets handed to someone else.

Because it puts us out.

What if one of our New Years Resolutions was to see the world through Gospel colored lenses.

What if we looked at the world and our lives through the lens of how does this impact our relationship with Christ.

Now I’m not saying don’t have hobbies or past times.

Don’t have any other interests except for Christ - but the question is how do those interests help you in your relationship with Christ and your growth into His image?

Paul says I urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received.

Urge here is a strong word.

Even if it is offered in a friendly manner, Paul is not offering them an alternative to the way that they are now living - he is telling them this is the divine standard that you should be living up to.

These are the standards of life a Christian epitomizes.

Parakalo - the same word used when he wrote to Philemon where he appealed to him rather than commanded him to accept his runaway slave back

It is also the turning point for the entire book - much like in Romans.

Romans 1-11 Paul spends time making a doctrinal case and in Romans 12:1 he shifts to the practical implications of the salvation he has been describing.

What is our Calling?

Ephesians 4:1; Philippians 1:27; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Ephesians 2:2, 10

This is reminiscient of what he wrote in both Philippians 1:27 and Colossians 1:10

The images of walking and running are frequent in Paul’s letters.

In Ephesians 2:1-10 he bookends the passage with references to how we walk

The image of one walking implies movement.

It implies progression.

Paul’s audience would have this image in their minds - that the only way they got anywhere was by walking.

Today we have the ability to walk 100s of miles and not actually get anywhere.

I have a treadmill in the basement of my house where, if I so desired, I could walk 500 miles in the next year and see nothing and get no where.

This is not how our Christian life is meant to be.

We are not to be treadmill Christians always covering the same ground and never progressing in our Christianity.

We are also not meant to be signpost Christians.

Charles Spurgeon describes them this way

Too many ministers are like the signposts on country roads; they hold out their hands and point the way, but never walk the road themselves.

They, like the posts, still stand where they always did.

God deliver us from being signposts on the road to heaven, and not going there ourselves!

We are not called to simply walk - we are to walk worthy.

The word for worthy is Axios, the root of which means to balance the scales.

The idea behind the word is that the weight on one side of a scale should be equal to that on the other side so they balance out.

For instance the wages that a person earned would be equal to the amount of work they put in that day.

The calling we have all received is to the Gospel.

The sovereign call of God that is brings people to Christ.

It is the calling spoken of in Ephesians 2:4 where God moves of His own volition to make some alive in Christ - those of His own choosing or election.

This is the Gospel that Paul preached everywhere he went

This calling is a gift from God.

Given completely at God’s initiative and love

It is a gift

It cannot be earned

It is given solely by the benevolent volition of God.

It is the great paradox of salvation - no man can be saved except that he receive Christ as his Savior, but no man can choose Christ unless he has already been chosen by God the Father and Christ the Son.

This is the Gospel that Paul preached to the Ephesians and what he calls them (and by extension us) to walk worthy of

The call here is to walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel.

Preaching on this passage Spurgeon summed it up this way

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol.

XL (Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon (Ephesians 4))