I invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four, I just want to read to you the first verse And really the bulk of what we are seeking to understand this morning is how this verse hinges us from the first half of Ephesians to the second half of Ephesians. So in some sense you could say we're just looking at that one word, therefore. Ephesians four, verse one. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would, by your word and your spirit, help us to understand the greatness of the salvation you have given to us, so that we would live in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Lord, help us not to get things backward. Help us to get things in the order in which you set them. And be amazed at what you have done and what you have called us to. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you are a Christian, then there is an expectation for how you are to live. Of course, you should know this. Sometimes just the word Christian is synonymous with maybe being a good person. Sometimes people don't interpret it that way. But some people would try to extract from Christianity and make the essence of it just a pure, ethical, moral religion. In other words, they would want to see that if you could just distill Christianity down to its very essence, you might say that it's just a set of moral teachings or an ethic. That's why many non-Christians like their idea of Jesus as a good moral teacher, because his moral teachings are excellent, and so they feel that they can kind of extract that from the Bible, like someone might extract from your body a vial of blood and just say, that represents what we need to know about you. That sample alone, that moral teaching is all that you need. That's what some people would think. Now, of course, we cannot ignore that the Bible does have an ethic. It does have moral teaching. It does have an expectation for how you are to live. We must not ignore that commandments have been given in the Bible, but we have to understand that how you live is not religion neutral. And what I mean by that is that the Christian ethic and morality cannot be taken out of the context of the whole of the faith and be superimposed on other religions and that they can just keep the same commandments. The Christian ethic and morality is so fundamentally connected to the events and facts that compose our faith that they're as much connected to it as a rose is connected to the root of the rose bush. The good works that are expected and commanded of Christians cannot come from other religions and other worldviews, because other religions and other worldviews do not have the same root that produces the Christian morality and Christian ethic. A truly Christian life comes from the truth of Christianity, which is basically this. God has sent his Son to save sinners. And Jesus Christ has died and risen, and in doing so, he has accomplished great things for his people. Those accomplishments, what Christ has done, then leads his people to live a certain way. It cannot be the other way around. It cannot be that you live a certain way and therefore God is compelled to do certain things for you. It is rather God has done certain things for you in Christ and that compels you to live a certain way. If you are living the Christian life and you are struggling to live the Christian life, and who isn't, that I want you to be encouraged from this passage in Ephesians 4, verse 1, that really the essence or the root of your life is not in what you do, but rather in what has been done for you. And yet I have to quickly add, that what has been done for you that really defines who you are, what you belong to, and therefore how you must then live. That reality is not meant to overwhelm you, but rather it is meant to free you from the fear that an inadequate Christian life is somehow the devastation of the root of your Christian life. We all fail. We all have difficulties every day. All shortcomings are revealed to us day by day after day after day, week after week. But the essence of what makes you a Christian is Christ's death and resurrection. And it does not rest on your performance. But Christ's death and resurrection so fundamentally transforms you that it has to have an effect on how you live here and now. This root of Christ's death and resurrection and the fruit of your life should free you from a debilitating performance anxiety in which you are constantly worried that you're just not measuring up The truth of Ephesians 4.1, rather, should free you to be overjoyed, not at how you fail, but at how Christ has freed you to live, how you have been called to live. Because if you remember your former manner of life, what was it getting you? When you were living in all of your prides, in all of your jealousies, in all of your coveting, in all of your lusting, in all of your gluttony, in all of your angers, and hatreds, and fears, what was that getting for you? What was it accomplishing for you, except perhaps to give you, at best, momentary satisfaction, and at worst, rob you of all contentment and joy? But by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, he has called you out of the gutter of life and elevated you to his resurrection life, so that now you get to live not in the muck and mire of your former manner of life, but now in true living. So ultimately, Ephesians 4.1 is an encouragement about what God has done, and that encouragement is found in the therefore, pointing back to all that Paul has written in Ephesians 1 through 3. And it is then an exhortation to you to live in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, which Paul will explain to you for the rest of the book. This view that you are called to a life that is worthy of the calling to which you have been called is that you will have progress in your moral life and that is tied to the work of Christ in you and that What Christ has done and how you live paradigm is really reflected in the whole structure of the book of Ephesians. The first three chapters of Ephesians is heavy doctrinal content. We spent the last few months digging into this. It has taken us months to work through the deep theology and we could take months and years more to look at it. Heavy doctrinal content is what anchors this book And then it shifts in chapter four. Now it moves into the moral and ethic that the Christian needs to live. This is the last three chapters, and it has perhaps the heaviest moral content and practical content in the New Testament. Paul's writings here are in some ways more practical than you find anywhere else in scripture in chapter four through six of Ephesians. And you can see this hinge from theology to practice by the opening statement of Ephesians 4, 1, I therefore. Some translations have an then there, but it's definitely this inferential conjunction, which means that Paul is drawing a conclusion based on what he's just said. He has spent the first three chapters giving us this lofty theology. And in chapters four through six, he'll now give us some very practical morality. This is typical of the way that Paul works, by the way, and you may be familiar with this as you read his letters and the scriptures. In the book of Romans, Paul takes 11 chapters to develop this robust theology of salvation. And then in chapter 12, Paul says in verse 1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, basically wrapping up all of this rich theology into this one word, therefore, because of all that God has done. Therefore, brothers, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. He does it again in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 1, after spending three chapters developing the content of Paul's ministry among the Thessalonians. Paul then again shifts, and he says, Finally then, brothers, because of all that has happened in the ministry to you, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. We know that Paul is doing the same thing here because of the very grammar of what we've seen in this book. Only once in chapters 1 through 3 of Ephesians does Paul issue a command. In Ephesians 2 verse 11, there's an imperative there. It's, therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh. The command there is remember, which is a command to just look back at your previous state of life. But in chapters 4-6, Paul gives 40 commands. And so you can tell just by the nature of how Paul writes that he wants you to have the practicality of your Christian life rooted in the truth of what God has done. This is called the indicative imperative paradigm. Indicative is a statement of fact. Imperative is a command that you must follow. Paul gives indicatives in chapters one through three. He gives imperatives in chapters four through six. The reason he gives imperatives in chapter four through six is because of the truths of chapters one through three. You have to get this right, because if you try to follow the commands of Scripture without believing the promises of Scripture, you will never have the strength to obey God. This is why Paul writes the way that he does. Paul is making Christian living dependent on Christian truth. This has great application for us because if you are just trying to live the Christian life because you find its principles to be good and right, and you're doing that without drawing from the supernatural truth of what God has done for you in Christ, And you are basically like a tree with no root that is kind of tottering on the surface, that has no sustenance to keep it growing. And you will be frustrated because you will know what God expects of you, but you will not grow. Why? Because you have no root. The root is the truth of what God has done for you in Christ. On the other hand, you may be a theological powerhouse. You can move mountains with your quotations of Spurgeon and Warfield and Calvin. But when you get into the kitchen with your wife and you cannot speak a single loving word to her, then you are like a seed that gets watered daily but refuses to grow. The truth that you know in your heads is only as good as the fruit that it produces in your life. Some of you may need to be reminded that being saved means that you have a new life. And this new life is meant to be actually lived by you. It can be easy to fall into the trap that salvation is only being saved from the wrath of God. It's not less than that, but it is more than that. Being set into true, eternal life means that you can live here and now on this earth how God wants you to live. Because you have new life. You have new life. Your spiritual life and your set-apartness is exceptionally important. When God saves a people, He saves them to set them apart. This is why we find some of the laws in the Old Testament to be so strange, like what kind of fabric the Israelites could wear and not wear, and what kind of food they could eat and not eat. The reason for this was not just to make them look weird. It was rather to make them look distinct, to sanctify them, to set them apart. And when you come to faith in Christ, you are set apart to be among God's people. You are to look different. You are to be sanctified. Sanctification is a lifelong process then by which you become more and more like Christ. You kids who are in Adventure Club have learned that recently. What sanctification is, a lifelong process by which you are more and more like Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4 3 tells us, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. He wants you to be holy. Have you ever scratched in your head thinking, what does God want me to do? What does God want of me in my life? Well, look at 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, and wonder no more. He wants you to be holy. As soon as you are saved, as soon as you repent and believe, as soon as you are born again, you are then set on a path of Christ-likeness. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. This is a path of transformation. out of your old way of living and into the new way of living. And your pursuit of holy living is not intended just to be a decision on your part that you just want to be a better you. That's not what sanctification is. It is tied to the reality that God in His sovereignty has set you apart by the blood of Christ to belong to Him and has given you power by the Spirit to walk in His ways And so now you must live as you have been called. It's not you deciding you should be a better version of you. It is God deciding that you should be holy. And so your sanctification rightly pursued is on the basis of what Christ has done, what God has decided. And so as we go into the next portion of Ephesians in our study together as a church, we need to keep this in mind, that your sanctification has to be rooted in what God has done, and yet you need to walk in the newness of life that he has given you. This way of thinking will keep you from being burdened, with a constant feeling that you're just not measuring up, and it will give you hope that this is the way that God wants you to live. So I want to spend a little bit more time this morning just looking in Ephesians 1-3 at what God has done for you, and then 4-6 what God expects of you. In Ephesians 1-3, again, it tells us what God has done. Paul is saying in Ephesians 4 verse 1, "...I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." The calling to which you have been called. That is what God has done for you. And we are commanded to walk worthy of that. Walk means your daily pattern of life. A manner worthy literally means, according to one commentator, bringing up the other beam of the scales, bringing into equilibrium, and therefore equivalent. We might find that to be very daunting. Walk in a manner worthy of the manner to which you've been called. But it basically means God has done all of this for you. And now your life needs to show that that is what He has done for you. Philippians 1.27 says, Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. And Colossians 1.10, Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. It may sound overwhelming and impossible, but it really starts with your calling. To walk in a way equivalent to your calling. This is God's summons on your life to bring you into his kingdom, into his family, and into his very own life. He's drawn you into this by a sovereign power, and now you are to walk in a manner that is in agreement with what he has done for you. So what has he done for you? Well, you can just kind of scan over the opening chapters of Ephesians and see what He has done for you. In verse 3, He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. In chapter 1, verse 4, it tells us that He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Ephesians 1.5, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ. Verse 7, we have redemption through His blood and forgiveness. Verse 9, He has made known to us the mystery of His will, which is to unite all things in Christ. Verse 11, He has made us His inheritance. Verse 13, He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit and guarantees through Him our redemption. Verse 18, He enlightens the eyes of our hearts to know the hope He has called us to, and He does this in accord with His power. Chapter 2, verse 4, He sovereignly and mercifully makes us alive when we were formerly dead in our sins, and this is all of grace and not of works. Chapter 2, verse 10, He made us and created us in Christ Jesus for good works. 2 verse 13, He took us who we were far away from God and His promises and covenants, and He has brought us near to Himself. In verse 15, he makes former enemies to be united in Christ as one new man and grants peace and reconciliation with God and man. In verse 18, he grants us access to himself in the spirit through Christ. Verse 19, he makes us citizens with all the saints and members of his household. Verse 22, he is building us together into the very temple of God, his dwelling place. Chapter 3, verse 6, he makes us heirs and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Chapter 3, verse 9, he reveals to us what his plan is that has been hidden for ages but now revealed, that the wisdom of God would be manifest in his church. Chapter 3, verse 17, he strengthens us through his spirit to have Christ dwell in us. In verse 18, he gives us strength to comprehend the matchless love of Christ. Now, if you're keeping track of those things, those are all things that God has done to and for his people. There were no commands in there about what you are to do. It's rather all what God has done for you. Sometimes the Christian life has just been described as asking the question, what in the world has happened to me? Because God has broken into your life in such a magnificent way that everything is kind of turned upside down and inside out from what you had known when you were living in your sin and deadness. You're kind of asking yourself, what is going on? What has happened to my life? My life is revolutionized. I used to just be in the gutter, but now I'm an heir of God's kingdom, a child in God's household, a stone in God's temple. I know the purpose that the world exists for. I belong to an institution that reveals God's manifold wisdom to angels. I have been brought out of death into life. I have been forgiven of my sins. I have been raised with Christ. I have been made for good works. I was chosen by Him before the world was even made. This is my calling. This is what He has done for me." We should be overwhelmed by what God has done for us. But then it should beckon us to think, God has done all this for me. What does this mean for how I am to live now? Not so much, what do I do for God, for He doesn't need anything as if we can serve Him and provide some lack in Him, but rather, He has given all of this to me, free of charge, all of grace, How do I now live? And that's why Paul says in chapter 4, verse 1, therefore, therefore, because of all of this, therefore, I, Paul, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Paul urges his listeners. This is an urgent exhortation. It must happen. This is not a weak apostolic suggestion. This is a prisoner of the Lord, a prisoner in the Lord, a prisoner for the Lord. one who is under the authority of Christ, he is imprisoned for serving Christ, and he is authoritatively commanding the Ephesians towards action. He has labored to make known the greatness of their salvation, he's poured out his heart to them, and now he urges them I urge you, some translations, I beg you, but it's not as though Paul is a beggar, rather he is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is commanding them towards this end. This is not one of those let go and let God moments. If by let go and let God, you mean that you have no responsibility now, Let go, meaning surrender. Let God just do everything. And I understand that is appropriate in some times, but that's not what's going on here. This is because God has done all of this, now you live this way. This is urgent. This is a know and believe what God has done, and in light of that, actions of God, and an expectation that he will answer prayers for help to live how you need to, now walk as he wants you to walk. Paul uses some strong language at times to describe just how diligent the Christian life ought to be. In 1 Corinthians 9, verse 26, Paul says, I discipline my body and keep it under control. And again, in 1 Timothy 4, verse 7, Paul says, train yourself for godliness. This is because of what God has done for us. This is now our responsibility to walk to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Walk is gonna be a key word for these latter chapters of Ephesians, but Paul uses this word earlier in Ephesians chapter two. In verse one, he says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Do you remember how you used to walk? what the pattern of your life used to be. Paul describes it for you in case you've forgotten. He tells you that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You walked in those. You are the walking dead, the living dead. You are following the course of this world. You are walking not after God, but after Satan. That's how you used to walk. But because of what God has done for you, in Ephesians 2, verse 5, he says, he has made you alive in Christ. So now you are commanded no longer to walk in death, but walk in life. And so Paul says in Ephesians 4, 17, now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. Basically, don't walk like you used to. What's the point of God doing all of this? Choosing you, adopting you, redeeming you, forgiving you, putting you into one new man, the church. Raising you up to life in Christ. If you just keep on walking in the gutter, that's not where it's supposed to lead. The pattern of your life now, because of all that God has done, ought to be that in the newness of life that he has given you, you walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which he has called you. Ephesians 2 verse 10 says, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is what you were made for. This is the dynamic Paul has in mind. God has saved you, and he has set you free to walk in newness of life. In Ephesians 5, verse 2, he says, And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Walk in love as Christ has loved you. Christ is both the source and the example for how we are to live. Well, Paul, having told you all of this, that you must walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, gives us many commands in chapters four through six. And again, we will take the next several months in the book of Ephesians to work through these commandments, but I want to give you a sampling of these so that you can hear what Paul is actually urging you towards as he urges you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. In chapter 4 verse 2, he adds to that walk by saying, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This sets the tone for how we are to live now, having been set apart from our old way of living and into the church, we now have a responsibility in the church to walk in this way with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love and maintaining unity with the brothers and sisters. Then he tells us in chapter four, verse 17, that we're no longer to walk as the Gentiles do. And in chapter 4, verse 22, he says to put off your old self. In verse 23, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Verse 24, to put on the new self. Verse 25, to speak truth with his neighbor. Verse 26, be angry and do not sin. Verse 27, give no opportunity to the devil. Verse 28, no longer steal, but labor, doing honest work so you can share with those in need. Verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. Speak only such as is good for building up. Verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Verse 31, put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander. Verse 32, be kind to one another. Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Chapter 5 verse 1, be imitators of God. 5 verse 2, walk in love. Chapter 5 verse 3, no sexual immorality, impurity, or covetousness. Chapter 5 verse 4, no filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking. Let there be thanksgiving. 6. Let no one deceive you. Do not become partners with the sons of disobedience. 8. Walk as children of light. 10. Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. Expose the unfruitful works of darkness. 15. Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time. Verse 17, do not be foolish. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Verse 18, do not get drunk with wine. Be filled with the Spirit. Address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make melody to the Lord. Give thanks always and for everything. Submit to one another. Verse 22, he now begins to... Identify the household responsibility. Wives, submit to your own husbands. Verse 25, husbands, love your wives. 6 verse 1, children, obey your parents. Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, he says in verse 4. 6 verse 5, bond servants, obey your earthly masters. Render service with a goodwill as to the Lord. 6 verse 9, masters, stop your threatening. 6 verse 10, be strong in the Lord. And verse 13, put on the whole armor of God. That's how you walk. That's what God expects his people to look like. When you hear that, how do you respond? What's going on in your heart right now? When you hear those commandments, what are you thinking? What's your next step? What are you going to do? Do you perhaps dismiss it as impossible? Thinking, there's no way, there's no way that God would really expect me to live like that. It's too much. It's impossible. But if God, as part of your salvation, chose you to be holy and blameless in Christ. And if God, as part of your salvation, prepared good works for you beforehand that you should walk in them, should you dare to say to God, this is impossible? With God, all things are possible. Or perhaps you dismiss it as irrelevant, boring, archaic, There's no fun here. This doesn't sound like a good time. You could be hearing these commands, and it's just like rain falling on pavement. It absorbs none of it. You hear these commands, and there's nothing lovely here to you. There's nothing good here. You dismiss these right out of hand because you simply don't want to live this way. If that's your condition, you may need to consider that the truths of one through three have no hold in your life. You may need to come to the realization that you are still dead in your trespasses and sins. And the reason that these commands of Ephesians four through six have no appeal to you is because sin still has you in its grip. And if that's the case for you, then I would urge you to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with crystal clarity. That those who are in their sins and die in their sins will face the wrath of God for their sins. And the only solution to that dilemma and that eternal problem is what God has done for sinners. That He has given His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on His cross and paying the wages of your sin so that you can be pardoned, forgiven, redeemed, made right with God. And when you receive this, you receive a new heart, you must be born again. If you are not born again, these commandments will have no appeal to you. They will not appear lovely to you. But the Lord Jesus Christ, as we spent time celebrating last week, rose on the third day in order to give people new life so that you're no longer enslaved to your old pattern of life. If these commandments have no appeal to you, then you are very likely dead in your sins, and you must be born again. You should take time to confess your sins to God, ask Him to change your heart and give you new life. Maybe you don't fall into either of those categories. You don't dismiss it as impossible because you know with God all things are possible. You don't dismiss it as irrelevant or boring or archaic. But maybe you hear these commandments and you say, yes, this is right, but I just don't know how to do these things. If that's the case, Perhaps you need to go back, not to chapters four through six, but chapters one through three, and understand better what Christ has done for you. Understand that you have a new life here and now that is yours in Christ Jesus. And as you look at the Lord Jesus Christ and all of his beauty and perfection, your heart would be drawn to want to be like him. And you would begin to lay down through repentance areas of your life where you're stubbornly holding on to your own ways. And as you lay down your old ways and you try to cling to God's new ways and you ask him for wisdom, you will see God answer your prayers and help you. Perhaps you need to spend some time in the end of Ephesians three, where Paul was praying basically that the Ephesians would have strength to live how God wants them to live, to know Christ, to have him dwell in their hearts. Perhaps you need to spend some time on your knees asking God to give you help. Maybe you hear these commandments in Ephesians 4 through 6 and you say, I hear those and I'm doing pretty good. Well, if that's the case, maybe you weren't listening closely enough. These commandments are lofty and beautiful. And any response of, I got this, is not an understanding of how this works. It's not right to say they're impossible, because with God all things are possible. Neither is it right to say, I got this, because you don't. You, if you are walking truly, know that every moment of your life is dependent on the very grace of God. And so you look at these commandments and you say, I don't got this. But God's got me. And He set me apart for this. So really the right response to this is to hear these commandments and rejoice. Rejoice, saying, yes, Lord, these are right and true. This is the way you want me to live. This is what you set me apart for. And by your grace, I intend to strive to live this way. because these are the good works prepared beforehand for me to walk in. And even as you say that, you would likely be convicted of the ways in which you failed, and it would be appropriate for you at that point to say to the Lord, forgive me for my many failures. Forgive me today for not walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which I've been called. But I praise you that those who confess their sins are cleansed of all unrighteousness and you forgive them. I praise you that you have so changed my life that this now is my trajectory. Yes, it would even be right to hear these commandments and say, Lord, I hear them. I'm not perfect. And I have a long way to go. But this is more the pattern of my life than it used to be. And day by day, you change me and you turn the way of my life more and more in line with this. And so I praise you for the newness of life that you have given to me." And so we need to come to these commandments, not with an expectation to be burdened down with all that God wants from you to just suck out of your life. but rather we come with joy, knowing that God has set you apart for this very thing. Before the foundation of the world, he chose you to be holy and blameless in him. And we look at these commandments not as a burden, but as a delight of the new life that God has given us in Christ. Let's pray. Father, we do confess to you for we whose hearts you have transformed that these commandments are delightful. They're lovely. And they're lovely to us because of what you have done in us. You've given us an appetite for righteousness now where we only had an appetite for sin. And we thank you. We thank you for this new appetite, oh God. It's not from us, it is from you. And we praise you for it. But we would confess, Lord, that we still stumble. We walk after the flesh and the things of the world many times. Forgive us for these things. And yet we thank you once again that you have changed the trajectory of our lives to live more in your ways than we used to. And we ask that you would bring to completion the good work you have begun in us. And I pray, O God, for us as a church, that as we walk through these passages and these commandments, that you would give us strength to keep them. You give us a hunger for them. You give us a quickness to repent when we don't keep them. And Lord, that you would help us as your people to reflect your glory in how we live, for you are the one who has given us life. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.