Walk Worthy
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We are back in our journey through Ephesians today, and we are about to get to a very important word that I’m sure you’ve either been waiting for or dreading for a long time.
Therefore.
Some of you may be waiting for this word because it means we’re about to get into the practical stuff. What do I do with my life? How am I supposed to live out this Christian thing? I’m sitting here, and my marriage needs help, my family needs help, my friends need help, my body and my mind need help, and I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.
Others of you may be dreading this word because it means movement. It means action and commitment and next steps, and you’re not ready for that yet. You’re already doing too much as it is, you’ve been running and pushing and trying to be the best Christian you can be, and a this point it all just feels like big act, a big show, and to give you one more step, one more thing to do, is like those cartoons where the guy is holding a massive load on his shoulders and then this tiny feather drifts on top of the pile and it all just explodes.
Here’s my recommendation to all of you. Let’s walk together with “therefore” as gently and lovingly as we can. My heart is not to burden you or press you or delay you when it comes to following Jesus. My heart is that you would know the good news that Jesus offers, let it transform every you are, and then see good news overflow out of your life into everyone around you.
With that, we now reach the hinge-point of Paul’s letter. There are two parts to Ephesians. Part 1 is who you are, Part 2 is how you live. And I hope you have realized this truth by now, but you cannot truly understand how you live unless you first come to grips with who you are. When it comes to Christianity, the church, life with Jesus, Your identity precedes your activity. Always.
So with all that, let’s pray and dive in.
PRAY
Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received,
The first command Paul gives to the Ephesians: walk worthy, according to the calling you have received.
Here’s one of those words that I think trips us up in life, in our careers, in our communities, and particularly in Christianity. It’s the word, worthy. There is a huge search in this world to be worthy. And I think that’s because we equate being worthy to being deserving.
I want to be worthy of my spouse’s attention and affection.
I want to be worthy of a good-paying job with benefits and promotions.
I want to be worthy of faithful friends.
I want to be worthy of my status in the community.
I want to be worthy of heaven.
I want to be worthy of eternal life.
Our worth tends to be directly connected to what we believe we deserve. And some of you believe that you deserve everything, more than you have, for some reason or another. And others of you believe you don’t deserve what you have, that you are not worthy of the hands you’ve been dealt. Our happiness is directly influenced by our sense of worth, or, what we think we deserve when all is said and done.
Now, is that what Paul is saying here, when he urges followers in the church to walk worthy? Is Paul saying here that if we want to be called God’s children, if we want the wealth of God’s kindness and love, if we want to be experience the abundant life of heaven, and if we want to experience freedom from oppression and the powers of the world, we need to prove our worth before God?
You can breath a sigh of relief. Because the answer here is not at all.
Here is the good news I need you to hear, first and foremost. The gospel changes everything. It overturns every order of power and worth and value that this world claims to impart, because the world fights to elevate man to the place of God. But we believe and testify here that Jesus Christ, in the fullness of God, brought his kingdom to you. He saved you, he freed you, he gave you the right to become children of God. When Paul talks to you about walking worthy, he’s pointing you back to the extraordinary status you have in Jesus Christ. When you are brought into the heavenly family of Jesus, everything changes. You no longer live in pursuit of eternity. You now live in light of it.
That means that as a member of this new heavenly family, your role on earth shifts. And now, as an eternal creature, your entire life points to the future reality of heaven and earth uniting in full. Everything you say and do as a transformed citizen of heaven points forward to that future reality.
Your marriage becomes a signpost to God’s plans for the cosmos.
Your family becomes a signpost that points to a reconciled world.
Your job becomes a signpost.
The ways in which you work and play and love and live point to God’s plans for all things to be one day united under him. You are the first fruits of that future reality.
So, what does walking worthy look like? You might think it would include stuff like healing people and raising the dead, or always having your religious life on point, or living a morally sinless and perfect life? You might be surprised by what Paul has to say…
Not What (or Where), but How
Not What (or Where), but How
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.
Paul has this opportunity to describe the Christian life, and the first chance he has, he doesn’t describe external actions, but others-centered character. He uses words like humility, gentleness, patience, love. When it comes to walking worthy, how you walk is vital. And this is because of all this language Paul has been using up until this time. He’s talked about how you have been filled with the fullness of God. He talks about how you are temples that house his spirit. He talks about you being the body of Christ. And all this language is pointing to the fact that you and your life in community with the church represent the presence of God in the world. And how you live and act and talk and relate to one another reveals everything about who God is to a humanity that, left to its own devices, will otherwise craft him in their own image.
Paul says that this is our calling, to demonstrate to the world the plans and purposes and character and nature of God, so that others may see him and know him and join the family of God, that they might also become sons and daughters. And so our living this out, our walking, begins with our inner character, not our outer activity.
If I “do the right thing” and then judge you harshly for messing up, then I present to you a God who demands perfection and judges you when you aren’t.
If I go to church every Sunday and take my Bible to work, and then treat my co-workers terribly, then I present a God who expects ritual commitment over relational empathy.
If I raise my family just so and express disappointment and disgust every time my kids tell a lie, then they will grow up into honest people, who honestly want nothing to do with me or with God.
Church, it may sound like I’m making up illustrations for you, but these are real accounts of people I’ve met who either will not follow Jesus or stopped following Jesus for these very reasons. And it comes back to one of those old adages. You will be known by the company you keep. And if God keeps company, as the world sees it, with a bunch of self-righteous, know-it-all, judgmental hypocrites, then they want nothing to do with that God. And my concern, like Paul’s, is that we in the church have spent far too much of our time worrying about our outer appearances as good Christians than about our inner desires and natures as sold-out followers of Jesus Christ.
So, with that being said, let’s walk through a few of these words together, because if Paul puts them first, before anything else, we better get this right before we go anywhere else.
Humility and Gentleness
Humility and Gentleness
First, Paul calls you to walk with *all* humility and gentleness. Paul pushes these words together here, so we need to take them as one. All humility and gentleness, meaning every once of our action and attitude ought to be steeped and saturated with this mindset, before anything else, this comes first.
To humble means literally to have a ”lowliness of mind”. It means seeing yourself as you are, not as a better than others, not as superior, but as in need of the same mercy and grace as anyone else. Gentleness connects with that because if you see yourself as a servant, not as a superior, than you will redirect your strength to lift others up, rather than tear down.
This may seem like weakness to you, but it requires more strength and resolve than anything. Because humility and gentleness isn’t about thinking less of yourself, but about thinking of yourself less. It’s rooted in the reality that you are a child of heaven, and so every joy, every satisfaction, all of your sincere deepest longings have been fulfilled in Christ, and so you don’t have to think of yourself anymore; you are so loved by God, cherished by God, cared for by God, that you no don’t need to prove yourself to him or anyone; you have been freed to love and cherish and care.
And it’s powerful that Paul starts with these heart attitudes, because in the gospels, Jesus himself describes the attitude of his own heart only once, in Matthew chapter 11, and here’s what he says:
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
If you’ve been a part of our Sunday Morning Book Club, you’ve been reading about this with us. Dane Outland, who wrote the book Gentle and Lowly, says that Jesus refers to himself because he is the most understanding and accessible person who ever walked this earth. The heart of Jesus directed his attention and drove his affections toward sinners and sufferers, and he drew near to them not with his arms folded, but wide open, ready to embrace the dirtiest and most downcast.
That‘s Jesus as he describes himself. Should we be surprised then that the very place Paul says we should start is here? That followers of Jesus would pattern their very hearts after his? Jesus was gentle and lowly in everything he did. Now you have been called to walk the same path. You have been called to live a life that is gentle and lowly, understanding and accessible, so that your heart might point to his.
Patience
Patience
Next Paul says to walk with patience. The word here in Greek is telling; it literally means to be a great distance from anger. There’s this passage in the Old Testament where YHWH, God, talks about the nature of his heart toward others, and he says that he is first and foremost, compassionate and gracious (you might also call that “gentle and lowly in heart!”), and then he says that he is slow to anger. In other words, he’s patient with us. He knows about all the things that trip you up and twist you up, and he knows that you don’t have it all together, and because he loves you, he doesn’t give up on you.
Bearing With One Another
Bearing With One Another
The other thing here that Pauls says is that we are to bear with one another in love. And in that same passage in the Old Testament (Exodus 34:6-7; look it up!), YHWH says that he is abounding in loving kindness, and that he forgives all of the brokenness and betrayal and the limitations that we carry in our humanity. And the word “forgive” in Hebrew means to bear the burden. It means God sees those things (your Bible calls them sin, iniquity, and rebellion), and he offers his own shoulders to bear the weight of sin and death that threatens to crush and destroy you. Because God loves you, he is ease your burdens and and give you rest.
If you remember, Jesus says almost the same thing in Matthew 11:28. And now, guess what? You are now called to walk the same path, not just with humility and gentleness, but with patience and forgiveness as well. In your homes, you are patient and kind and forgiving. In your schools, you are shoulder the loads of hurting classmates. In your jobs, you bear burdens and endure messiness. In your church community, you leave anger behind and choose understanding instead. You forgive others when you have been wronged, and you love where hate and contempt might otherwise take pride of place in your heart.
Remember: It’s Not You
Remember: It’s Not You
Now, here’s the thing: I’m looking at this list that Paul provides as a starting point, an orientation marker for the path we are supposed to take when we follow after Jesus. And I don’t know about you, but I’m reading it and I’m thinking, I kinda wish Paul just gave me a list of things to do, because this actually seems way more difficult. I can get family to church every Sunday, I can read my Bible everyday if that’s what’s required of me, I can say one nice thing a day and eat my green vegetables, and be a generally good person by the world’s standards.
But humility? Gentleness? Patience? Forgiveness? Like, at a heart level? This seems like more than I can do.
Church, that’s actually the point. You aren’t responsible to have the heart attitude by your own strength and will. And you are doing this because you hope God will see how nice you are and let you into heaven. You are walking this out because this is what Christ is doing to you and through you right now. If you don’t believe me, go back and read Ephesians 1-3 this week. Read it multiple times if you have to in order to get it in your head and in your heart. When you are saved by grace through faith, it is not of yourselves. You cannot boast in your new heart attitude. Jesus redirects your love from you toward others. Jesus reorients your countenance from apathy to empathy. And you are strenghtened by a power that is not your own and a love that is not your own, so that you might be be able to walk this way.
You become a signpost to the world, pointing to the reconciling plans and purposes of God, to show just how transformational the work of God truly is, to take broken and hurting and selfish and distant people like us and heal our hearts and make us one.
Look at the end of verse 3. Paul says that all of this is so that we might “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Now, notice, we don’t do the work of unifying people in Christ. Who does? The Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God connects each one of us together and makes us a community with and for one another. We don’t do the unifying. But we passionately preserve it. And how? Through the bond of peace. Through remember what makes us one, what makes us a community in the first place. That peace is Jesus (Eph. 2:14). Jesus broke down every barrier, every wall that separated us from one another and permitted us to love freely and unconditionally as he does. It is not you, it is only him.
This leads to the last point Paul makes here: and that is that ultimate marker of a Christian in this world, the thing ultimately will reveal God’s goals and plans for humanity. It’s the ultimate signpost, and it’s here in verse 4:
The Ultimate Signpost: Unity
The Ultimate Signpost: Unity
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.
Paul, right here, reveals your calling. Every Christian is called, not just the pastors and the elders and the missionaries. Every single follower of Jesus is called to this service: It’s to be one body, to be the church in loving and patient community with one another, to show the world what being reconciled to God truly, actually, authentically means.
Look how many times Paul uses the word “one” here. Just a quick glance will tell you that being one is pretty important, right? Now let’s look a little closer. How many times does Paul use the word One in this verse?
Seven times. The number of spiritual perfection in the Bible. Now look deeper. What does Paul say is “one”?
One Body: the church.
One Holy Spirit that dwells in and drives and comforts and convicts the hearts of every individual believer, the same Spirit the births the church and promotes unity dwells here, right now.
One Hope: Every follower looks for the same thing, not to go to heaven when you die. Our hope is that one day Jesus will return and unite all of heaven of earth together under his reign and rule forever, and all creation will bow before him in worship and love.
One Lord: Jesus Christ, the true king and ruler and authority
One Faith: We are saved by grace through faith, each and every one of us, in the same way, through the same Christ, by the same love, in the same belief and repentance.
One Baptism: We all go into the water the same way, rich and poor, young and old, and we die to our old way of living and raised to life as new creations.
One God and Father of all: Under all of it, is the Creator of the Universe who longs to draw all of his creation into his fold.
These seven “ones” make up the core of Christian theology. And what Paul is urging the church is to make sure that your bond is this, not anything else. Much of our division in the church community, a division that poisons the unity of Christian family and colors the perceptions of those outside the church is not rooted in these core truths, but in petty disagreements. Our churches divide and break separate worship not because of devotion to God is different, but because of things like leadership structures and styles, ministry programs, song preferences, minor doctrinal molehills, and really just anything we feel that’s ”off” from what we want.
Now I get that the church needs different expressions of community to reach people who aren’t being reached in one form or another. We’re going to get into the diversity of the church in a couple weeks, and that part of the beauty of the church. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about when church communities fracture and drift apart, real people, friends and brothers and sisters, who grow impatient and frustrated with each other for reasons other than that which is meant to bind us together. Walking worthy means we know what ties us together, and we lean into that and love and endure through it.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So as you prepare to walk, as you get ready to go and line up your lives with Jesus, all I want to ask you is, what’s on your heart? What’s your goal when you live and work and play? What’s the outpouring of your relationship with God? Because your activity reveals where your identity is found. The worthy walk is a walk empowered and formed and directed by Christ. If he’s not your everything, if you are not at rest in him and changed by him, the worthy walk will be a stumble. But thankfully, we serve a God who is humble, gentle, forgiving, and loving. That is what makes him worthy of our worship and worthy of our hope and mission.
PRAY