Ephesians chapter 4. We're going to read 16 verses. We're going to cover maybe a verse tonight. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1. Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, admonish 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's one body, one spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who was over all and through all in all. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men. Now this expression, He ascended, what does it mean except that He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things. And He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service. to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for your Son. Thank you for your Spirit. Thank you for these divine truths to which you've opened our eyes. Thank you for revealing mysteries long hidden from generation after generation of men. Thank You for calling us by an effectual call into Your family. Thank You for rescuing us from eternal fire. Lord, we pray now You would teach us by Your Spirit and in power. In Christ's name, amen. I want to begin with a brief overview of the second half of this letter. Chapter 4 of Ephesians begins with the sixth of eight long sentences in this letter. Verse 6 verses are one sentence. And then verses 11 through 16 are again one sentence. And as we just read, Paul's emphasis in these first 16 verses is essentially the unity of the body of Christ and the building up of each member and of the church itself to spiritual maturity. This unity is not something that's imposed from outside. It's not external. It's not mechanical. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about something that proceeds from within, from within the organism of the church, by virtue of the fact that Christ himself indwells his church. And the question for us is, are we submitting to His rule? Are we submitting to His guidance? You look at the first six verses here. We see that Paul shows that the church is of one spirit. Therefore, it is to be spiritually one. One spirit, one body. Believers, Paul is telling us, must make every effort to preserve this unity that has been imparted by the Spirit. If you look at verses 4 through 6, you see there a seven-fold declaration of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. And in the second half of this opening section of 16 verses, verses 7 through 16, we see something else. We see diversity within the unity of the saints. This is not a diversity that's in opposition to unity. And it's not based on matters such as race, and gender, and economic class, or anything like that. The diversity is based upon the gifts that Christ has bestowed on each member of this body. The gifts each one in the church has received from God. You see verse 7, he says to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. We have a unified body, but a diversity of gifts within the body. And you look at verses 7 through 13. We see that one purpose of Christ's ascension and exaltation was that He might give gifts to the church. Gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And they have a specific purpose. Look at what it says. The equipping of the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ, with the objective that we all obtain to both spiritual maturity and unity in the faith. That's the objective. And that each member would grow in spiritual maturity. We should never be stagnant as Christians. And we're going to see that Paul gives us a prescription for advancing in those goals that he had set out back in his prayers. Remember, he prayed at the end of chapter 1. He prayed at the end of chapter 3. And now he's going to give us a prescription for achieving those goals, for pursuing those goals. Verses 1 through 16. then, are going to set the stage for a series of specific exhortations that begin in chapter 4, verse 25. You can see he begins, "...Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor. Be angry, do not sin. He who steals must steal no longer. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth." And on, and on, and on. And until well into chapter 6, Paul lays out this way of Christian life as God desires to see it. In the first three chapters of Ephesians, there's only one imperative, one instruction of that sort. But in chapters 4, 5, and 6, there are 40 imperatives. Let not, do this, do not do this, etc. So we've seen through our several weeks in chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul's been laying a foundation. And the foundation he's been laying is for the exhortations that we find in these next three chapters. For three chapters, Paul has set forth the doctrine of the eternal plan and purpose of God. and His working out of His eternal purpose in His eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all things are centered and in whom all things are to be summed up. Chapter 1, Paul showed that in eternity past, the Father chose some in Christ and predestined them to be adopted as His sons, despite what He knew would be their sin and rebellion against Him. did this not on the basis of anything anyone had done or he foresaw anyone would do. He did it out of the riches of his grace and for his own glory. These adopted sons, all those born again in Christ, have been granted forgiveness of their sins, all their sins, through the work of Christ on the cross. And they now have an inheritance in glory assured to them. you couldn't have greater gifts. They've been given the Spirit of God Himself as a seal and a pledge of this inheritance. I hope we have an appreciation of the magnitude of these gifts. Chapter 2, we recall that at the very beginning He reminds us, because of Adam's sin, all of Adam's descendants, all of us, came into this world spiritually dead and unable to know or understand the things of the Spirit of God. Same thing he taught back in 1 Corinthians, first two chapters. Rather, all Adam's descendants come into this world children of wrath, under the rule of Satan, our own lusts, and the ways of the fallen world. And not only that, but without the power to make ourselves spiritually alive. But God, chapter 2, verse 4. But God, because of His great love, even when we were dead, dead in our transgressions, made us alive with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places. This was entirely a sovereign, unilateral work of God, all by His grace, based on no works, no thoughts, no words of any man. And God, in chapter 2, then revealed to Paul. And Paul then revealed to his readers that the 1,500-year division between the sons of Jacob and all other peoples had come to an end at the cross. That's where it ended. At the cross, Christ had not only redeemed all His people through the shedding of His blood, but He had abolished all the distinctions between the two groups, Jews and Gentiles. And Paul showed us that through union with Him, Jewish and Gentile believers in Him are now one body, one people of God. National Israel was no longer the people of God. the ceremonies of Judaism were now rendered obsolete. Christ at the cross fulfilled all that Israel and the religion of Judaism had foreshadowed, and God had now established a new community of the people of God. A lot of people didn't like that then. A lot of people don't like it now. But that's what Paul clearly wrote. Chapter 2, verse 15, he made the two, Jew and Gentile, into one new man. So the bringing of Jews and Gentiles now into one body in Christ had been kept a mystery from all previous generations. But now God was bringing the mystery to light through Paul and the apostles. in order to make His eternal purpose and plan known through the church, not only to the men to whom He was writing and preaching, but to the angelic beings, so that the eternal purpose of God might be made known to them. So we've seen through three chapters of this letter that all of the blessings given by God to those He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world were accomplished in and through Christ at the cross. Cross is one of the two central events of all of human history, the other being the resurrection. And now, Paul assured us, all who've been joined to Christ by His Spirit through faith in Him have access to the Father. So this was God's plan from all eternity, before He created anything, to bring all things together in Christ, His Son. This was His purpose in election, in creation, in the incarnation, in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in His ascension and now exaltation to glory. This was always God's purpose. And so Paul prayed to the Father two times now in these first three chapters. First in chapter one, that the Ephesian converts would know God intimately and experience His power. Because He has empowered all those He's made alive again. And he prayed in chapter three that we would know and experience the power of Christ's love. That was his petition, that God, out of the abundance of His glorious attributes, would grant to His readers strength, inner strength, knowledge, and understanding of these blessings that had flowed to them from the riches of His glory. that God would grant inner strength, enabling us to have a greater comprehension of what God has done in us and for us and in His entire church in and through Christ. Paul's praying for that for us. And the ultimate goal that Paul was asking for was that his readers, having been rooted and established in the love of God, we would gain the fullest possible comprehension of Christ's love for us. And we may experientially know His love. And we may be able to comprehend the magnitude of His love for us. To have intimate, experiential knowledge of that love. And when we have that, it will manifest itself in our own love of God and love of others. Love of others, Paul is showing us, helps us understand Christ's love for us. Love of others is Christ's love. The greater our understanding of His love for us, the greater will be our love for Him. In other words, His love for us moves us. Should move us to love for Him and for others. John wrote, we love because He first loved us. We love. And there's no object there. We just, the fact that we love is because He has loved us. 1st John 4, 19. So this prayer that Paul concluded chapter 3 with, we may say it lays the last brick of the foundation that he's laid in three chapters for the exhortations in chapters 4, 5, and 6. Because those who've been born again of the Spirit, who've been strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit. Those in whom Christ dwells have been transformed. You can see it. It's easy to see. Such people are no longer rooted and grounded in sin. No longer existing in the iniquity in which we were conceived. Now we're rooted and grounded in the love of God. Now having been established in love, Paul exhorts us to walk in a manner worthy of that calling. Now I don't know anybody who has ever said to me, Well, I'm now walking in a manner worthy of His calling. But this is the objective. And this is, for all intents and purposes, the command of God the Holy Spirit. Verse 1, Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, And this word gets translated different ways. ...implore or exhort or admonish you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. For three chapters, Paul's taught the doctrine of salvation. He's equipped his readers with knowledge. That's what we get out of the first three chapters. Knowledge, doctrine. But all knowledge has two components. It has the truths that are set forth, and then it has the application of those truths. What does a man do in light of those truths? Now in terms of biblical doctrine, head knowledge alone, without application, will make little difference in the lives of anyone, individuals, or in the body of Christ as a whole. And on the other hand, all practices without any basis in biblical doctrine, which may be charitable, may not be. But all practices without any basis in the gospel have the potential to lead to erroneous and even heretical doctrine. In other words, both sound doctrine and the application of that doctrine are essential to Christian life. We don't get in to God's kingdom because we pass a test of our intellectual knowledge. It's our application of that knowledge that demonstrates that we are in and of Christ. Paul in his letters very frequently presents divine doctrine first as the basis for the way of living that he teaches thereafter. Think about Romans chapters 1 through 11. What do we find there? Well, clearly in those first 11 chapters, Paul lays out doctrine. But what does he say then as he turns to chapter 12? He says this, he says, Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." Serving God is worship, no matter how menial the task. And Paul says, Romans 12, 2, Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Our lives are the expression of what we really believe. And Ephesians has more specific practical applications for our daily life than any other book in the New Testament. For example, we read that Jewish and Gentile believers are now united. They're now one body in Christ. Well, that had immense ramifications for their ways of life, for their way of relating to one another, for their way of living with one another. The point is this, and here's what Paul's teaching us. What a person believes, what a person truly believes, will determine how that person lives. Shouldn't come as any surprise to us. There's no separating one's doctrine or his theology from his conduct, the way he lives, his lifestyle. Your lifestyle, the way you live, reveals what you really believe. If one doesn't believe, One doesn't believe he's going to be judged by God, by a righteous and just God. He's going to live according to whatever set of standards he chooses or invents for himself. He may live according to no standards at all because what he believes is there's no consequence for my actions. If one believes that he will be judged, but according to his own or some human standard of good and evil, he'll seek to comply with that standard that he has invented or accepted as a way to avoid punishment after his death. The practice, on the other hand, without doctrine, may provide one with self-satisfaction, a certain kind of feeling. But apart from the gospel, practice, even charitable practice, cannot lead to a belief in saving truth. The gospel is the instrument God uses to bring one to saving truth. So, works of love and charity absolutely should flow from us. But not because of any righteousness of our own or any goodness in ourselves, but because of and in response to the love of Christ for us. And all He's done. All those gifts we've talked about in three chapters. Most set their own standards. We see it all around us now. Standards are moving more rapidly than at any time maybe in history. Whatever they feel is right, or whatever permits them to live in any way they choose to live, any way they please, that becomes their standard. This is okay. God wouldn't send me to hell. Oh? The unbelieving world has always created its own standards. My good outweighs my bad. Long as I don't harm anyone else. I must be a good person. I'm tolerant of whatever anybody else does, no matter how much it offends God. I try to help others. This is all various forms of atheism and works righteousness. And everybody in this group that sets their own standards is heading to hell. None of these ways, none of these paths are the way to God. There's one way to eternal life with God. What did Jesus say? I'm the way. I'm the truth. I'm the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And you've heard this. And if you're listening to this, you've probably come to believe that truth. No one comes to the Father but through Christ. We know that in our minds. And now the issue that Paul raises here in these next three chapters is this, is your intellectual belief manifested in your life, in your thoughts, not just your actions, but your thoughts, your words, and your conduct. That's what Paul's going to be challenging us with for the next three chapters. If God has made you spiritually alive and reconciled you to Himself in Christ and predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son, then He also has prescribed that you live as He has called you to live. Not only the keeping of His commandments, by the way. It isn't just a matter of not doing certain things. It's living in accord with them as Jesus explained them in the Sermon on the Mount. If you're angry with your brother, you've committed murder. If you say you're a fool, you've committed murder. To disobey Jesus' command is to fail to love our brethren, to fail to love our neighbor, and to fail to love our enemy. So now, having revealed to us the eternal plan and purpose of God with its goal of summing up everything in Christ. And in light of God's having made us spiritually alive with Christ, and His having predestined us to adoption as sons, and His having saved us from eternal condemnation, Paul admonishes us and all his readers to live lives that are in keeping with what he now speaks of as our calling. What's our calling? Well, Paul talked about our calling often. in Romans chapter 8, verse 30. I'll go back one verse to Romans 8, 29. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. Now in verse 30, he says this, And those whom he predestined, he also called. And if you read on, And these whom he called, he also justified. If you have been called, effectually called by God, you've been justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. If you're among these called, You've been justified, declared not guilty. So here we are in verse 1 of chapter 4. And we don't want to forget, and Paul doesn't want us to forget, he's in prison still. Doesn't change anything about what he writes, what his focus is. And as he moves from his prayer here, in this doxology that he finished chapter 3 with, to this series of exhortations. He instructs us on how we must live. Now, we're resistant to this. We don't like somebody telling us how we ought to live. But we best receive this. Because He's telling us how we must live in response to the grace of God, which He wrote throughout three chapters now. Those three chapters were to say, here's what He's done for you. Now, here's what He demands of you. In light of everything we've received by His grace, we must now live as new creatures in Christ. As the new creatures in Christ that we now are. Paul shows us that our doctrine must be applied in our conduct. Have no doubt what Paul writes here in chapters 4, 5, and 6 has as much application to us as it did to his first century readers. I implore you, I exhort you, I admonish you to walk, to live in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. I believe admonish is probably the best rendering here. Lenski says he resists the idea of beseech. He says Paul's not pleading here. Paul's instructing. He's not making suggestions here, folks. He's giving instructions under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. And in our response to the grace of God and to His instruction as to how we're called to live, we see the expression of what we really believe. He's going to start very quickly talking about things like humility and gentleness. Say, well, that's for other people. That's not for me. That's not what the Holy Spirit says. Our response to what he's saying here, as well as to the grace he showed us in the first three chapters, is extremely critical. Chapters 4, 5, and 6, Paul describes what kind of living this is. What the life of the called person should look like, must look like. And Paul expected churches to accept his authority. He often used words that sounded something less than commands, more like exhortation, encouragement. But you know as well as I, this is coming from God the Holy Spirit. What's written here is coming from God. So Paul writes here, as he did in Romans 8.30, and as we'll see in 1 Peter 2.9, of the effectual calling of God. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called. He's talking about the effectual calling of the gospel. A work that God does in us. That work that he talked about in the beginning of chapter 2, when He made you alive while you were dead in your transgressions and unable to do anything about it. Those he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, he called, and he also justified and glorified. All who have received the gift of this effectual call have been justified, declared not guilty of our sins, and have been given the assurance of eternal glory. For looking for loopholes, you're looking in the wrong place. There aren't any here. All those blessings are contained in the effectual call, justification, glory. First Peter 2.9, Peter wrote, God has called us out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. Same call. Before our calling, what were we? What were we? Spiritually dead, lost, and blind. Spiritually blind. The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Because they're spiritually discerned. And one whose spirit is dead cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God. He's spiritually blind. Before we were born again, we couldn't see Christ. We couldn't even realize we were blind. What did we think was the way to happiness? The way of the world. We listened to what the world said. We looked at the stuff of the world and thought that was the way to happiness. No. We were spiritually bankrupt. That's why we thought those things. When God called us, He opened our eyes to the saving truths of the gospel, called us out of death into life, awakened us to this new life, and has given us the power to live the life He calls us to live. To live in a manner worthy of His calling. Because we're now spiritually alive, and don't miss this, we are now able, able to live for God. If you've received this heavenly blessing, all these blessings of which we've been reading about for many, many weeks, He calls you to live in accordance with His commands. And living in accordance with His commands demonstrates that you believe what you say you believe. And it demonstrates you really are one of His children. If we're still of the world, we should be concerned. The one who's been called by God as his adopted child is instructed to live as a child of God, not as one who is of the world. In a manner worthy of his calling, even though we live in a world governed by Satan. And Paul speaks of one's conduct, one's way of life, as his walk. It's a word he uses, I think, about 30 times in the New Testament. His walk. And he always uses this word to describe one's conduct or way of life. Our walk. Colossians 1.9, for this reason, Also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Why? That sounds like his prayer at the end of chapter 3 in some ways. But why does he pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of His will? So that we will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects. bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 11. It reminds us readers there, you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. And the same thought we find in Philippians. You notice these three letters, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians, which were the last of the general epistles Paul wrote. This becomes very much his focus. Yes, he teaches important doctrine. But again in Philippians 127, he says, Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you, that you're standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel." Well, this became a consistent theme in Paul's final letters. In the following weeks, we're going to examine the particulars of what it is to walk in a manner worthy of his calling. And we're going to find there are no loopholes, as I said. His point is, we must conduct ourselves in harmony with the responsibilities which this new relationship to God has called us to think and speak and act in a manner which the heavenly Father expects His children to speak and think and act. to believe His teachings, trusting in His promises, and obeying His will. In other words, Hendrickson says, if you are believers and wish to be known as such, live as believers. In other words, again Hendrickson, be what you now are. In verses 2 and 3, Paul will begin to explain and expound on this point. But we're going to see for three chapters that walking in a manner worthy of our calling demands conscious effort on the part of those called. Conscious effort. God's bestowed His blessings on us. He's equipped us. He's empowered us by His Spirit to do what He calls us to do. Now what are we going to choose to do? Listen to Him or listen to ourselves. He's given us knowledge of the right way of life. We can't go through the rest of even chapter 4 and say we don't know what God wants of us. He wants humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. That's what He wants from us. But He doesn't live our lives for us. Our lives are to be our loving response to His love and His grace. And we're going to begin to look at what that means next week. Lord willing. Well, let's take a quiet moment that this Word of Christ may dwell in our hearts. Let us reflect on what our Lord has taught us this evening. And then we'll close in prayer.