I would like to direct your attention to the letter to the Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. starting in verse one. Hear the word of the Lord. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for your word. Father, as your word is proclaimed now, we ask your blessing upon us. Lord, that we would not merely see these words as ink on a page, but Lord, that your spirit would come and apply the truths in these words to our hearts. Lord, Let us not only hear and read these truths, but Lord, I pray that by the work of your spirit in us to sanctify us, that we would put them into practice. Lord, that we would show the workmanship that you have made in us. Father, bless the preaching of your word, we pray. In Christ's holy name, amen. In reading these words from Ephesians, without any explanation or exposition, it's pretty evident that unity is important in the body of Christ. It is something to which we are called. It is something that is expected of us. And I believe that this flows primarily from the prayer of Jesus in John 17. If you would turn over to John 17. As we introduced this text in Ephesians. We may ask ourselves, where does this high priority for unity in the body of Christ come from? In John 17, in Christ's high priestly prayer, look at verse 20. Our Lord said, neither pray I for these alone, but for them also. which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou has sent me and has loved them as thou has loved me." Unity in the body of Christ is a priority. Christ prayed for it. We know that there's nothing that Christ could pray for that will not be answered by the Father. This is a sure thing. This is something that will come to pass. But we also know that the Lord works through means and that these things are worked out in space and time in the lives of individual believers and each member of the body of Christ. How does that happen? That's what we're going to look at today or begin to look at in Ephesians chapter 4. Now, I think it's also important as we begin and begin to think about this unity that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4, that we understand that the unity that the Word of God speaks of is not the unity of the world. So often, When we hear people talk about unity in the world, it is at the expense of truth. People put aside their principles and their beliefs in order to join with others in whatever enterprise they're doing so that they can have some type of false unity, some type of false fellowship with one another. This even happens in the church. But we're going to see that this is not what our Lord talked about in the high priestly prayer or what Paul is explaining in Ephesians 4. The unity that is spoken of in both cases is a unity that flows from the very triune nature of God himself. Of his work in us. The work of the father. and of the son and of the Holy Spirit and bringing about the salvation of his people. So let us consider Ephesians chapter four, starting in verse one. You notice that this begins with the word I, first of all, but then right after that, therefore. Whenever we see the word therefore in scripture, we know that it's linking us to something that has been said before that. And in this particular case, it marks a division between what Paul has said up to this point in the letter and what's about to come after. And as you may know, this is common for Paul's letters. The first portion of the letter is usually concerned with doctrine. with teaching, while the latter portion is concerned with application of that teaching, with exhortation to Christian living based on the truth revealed in the teaching section. And Ephesians is no different. And in it, we have nearly an equal split between doctrine and application, three chapters of each. Of course, the chapter divisions are not original to the God-breathed text, but they are helpful for remembering where the doctrine ends and the application begins. But as we shall see, even these divisions are not absolute, for Paul reverts to doctrine in the middle of application, showing the dependence of application upon revealed truth. The imperative must have the indicative as its basis. The two are not mutually exclusive. Martin Lloyd-Jones once observed in his exposition of this text, we cannot and must not separate doctrine and practice. It is always those who think that they can do so who miss the glories of the Christian faith. So what is the context of what Paul says here in Ephesians 4? Well, in the immediate context, we find this call to unity in the church after a prayer for spiritual strength in the last half of chapter 3. Paul prays that God the Father would grant his readers to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." And even in this prayer, you can see the Apostle's transition of focus. He prays that the great and precious truths he expounded in the last three chapters would be fully comprehended by the body of Christ. And that through this knowledge, they, and we by extension, would be filled with the fullness of the triune God. Notice all three persons of the Godhead are referenced in this prayer, something which Paul will do again in our text. And this shows that our unity as a body is caused by and flows from divine unity. Just as Jesus prayed to the Father, that they all may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." And there's also a broader context to what Paul says in Ephesians 4, the context of the letter as a whole. What were the precious doctrines that led up to this prayer and then to the beginning of application in our text? Dear brethren, we are taken to the heavenly heights as the inspired apostle unveils the blessed mystery which, praise be to God, is no longer hidden as it was in ages past. Of the unified work of the triune God in salvation, in the first chapter, Paul begins his praise of the Lord by recounting the Father's sovereign election of his adopted children in love before the foundation of the world. And then the redemption wrought by the Son through his blood, which brings the forgiveness of our sins. Then he praises God for the work of the Holy Spirit, the great earnest or down payment, the Erebon, his work in sealing us until the day of redemption. And Paul ends chapter one with a prayer that the whole church be enlightened to see the hope of Christ's calling and the riches of glory of his inheritance and his sanctified ones. Then in chapter two, Paul descends from the heavenly heights to the depths of spiritual death. reminding us that before Christ quickened us, we were all dead in our trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world and according to the way of Satan, even as all the other children of wrath. And hope would be lost if he stopped there. But God, that blessed adversative, O holy antithesis, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved." From the depths of sin and death, we are then ushered into heavenly places again, seated together with Christ Jesus on his glorious throne. And this is God the Father's gracious gift, Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, his poema, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Paul there is foreshadowing what he will say about our Christian walk in our text in chapter four. Our worthy walk, as he describes it in 4.1, comes from God's work in us, not merely from some will we work up in ourselves. It is his workmanship. Paul then moves in the latter half of chapter two from reconciliation with God to the reconciliation of his people, Jew and Gentile, into one body by the cross. We who were a far off now have been brought near in Christ by his blood. He is our peace. He broke down the middle wall of partition between us, abolishing the enmity of the law in his own flesh. The Lord Jesus took what was hopelessly divided and made them one in himself. No longer are we strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with his saints. In Christ, both Jewish and Gentile believers grow together into one unified holy temple built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That is the doctrine God revealed to them with Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. We are being built into one unified habitation of God through his spirit. Again, our unity comes from the blessing and work of the triune God. Praise be to his holy name. And then Paul begins chapter 3, writing, for this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. We'll talk some more about his identification as a prisoner momentarily. But notice he says that he's one of the apostles through whom God brings his revealed truth, the mystery of Christ. He says that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. For this cause, Paul says, Paul's ministry to the Gentiles is the result of the triune God building his church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone. The doctrine Paul teaches here in Ephesians and throughout his letters is the manifestation of the Holy Trinity's work to unify his church into one body, unified and sanctified in the truth. Paul's work caused by the Lord is to make all men, everyone in the body of Christ, see what is the plan, the administration of this mystery, which is according to the eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. And with this, with the intent that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God would be made known to principalities and powers, the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. The establishment of peace between Jews and Gentiles in the church is a signal to all the powers in the universe and proves even to supernatural powers that Jesus is Lord. of both heaven and earth." That was just a short summary of the context leading into Chapter 4. There's that and much more contained in Paul's short transition that we read in 4.1, where he says, therefore. Before going into his appeal, Paul again refers to himself as a prisoner. But this time, And only here, out of all of his letters, does he call himself the prisoner in the Lord. Now, I know I received text reads of the Lord, but the underlying original text says in. And instead of his more common phraseology, which is prisoner of the Lord, Paul says here that he's a prisoner, I'm sorry, a prisoner of the Lord. He says here that he is a prisoner in the Lord. The difference grammatically is the use of a Greek preposition, ein, which is normally translated in, and the use of the dative case instead of the normal genitive case. Now in English, we use the dative case to indicate something going to something else or being in something else. I'm going to church today. I'm in the building. The genitive case, on the other hand, usually denotes possession, something being of or from something else. I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. A man came from God, and so on. Normally, Paul calls himself the prisoner of the Lord, meaning a prisoner who belongs to the Lord Jesus. But in this case, and in this case only, in the New Testament, Paul wrote prisoner in the Lord. Why would he do that? Back in chapter 3 and verse 1, he wrote prisoner of Jesus Christ, using the regular genitive or possessive case. But in 4.1, he changes it. Why? A couple of things. First, throughout the first three chapters of the letter and on through the concluding chapters, Paul again and again uses this little preposition, aim, to describe the believer's present position in Christ specifically and in the triune God more generally. The letter is addressed in Ephesians 1.1 to the faithful in Christ Jesus. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ. God the Father chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption. We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. And as Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, we are filled with all the fullness of God the Father. Just as Jesus prayed the night he was betrayed, that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. When Paul says that he is a prisoner in the Lord, I believe it is to show his readers that our position in the Lord is not changed by our present circumstances. However dire and seemingly hopeless, All the glorious truths for the child of God in Christ that he described in the last three chapters are not negated by earthly troubles. Though he was riding from a prison cell with chains on his wrists, Paul knew that in God's accounting, he is seated with Christ at the right hand of the power, eagerly awaiting the consummation of his redemption. No one can pluck him out of Christ's mighty hand or out of the Father's hand. Jesus and his Father are one in the salvation and preservation of their people. For who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Paul was persuaded, as should we be, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. To be a prisoner in the eyes of the world was to be despised and loathed and sometimes pitied. But in God's purposes, Paul's imprisonment in the Lord did not diminish the love that kept him one wit. The second reason Paul uses prisoner in the Lord is just an extension of the first. And it's hinted at by Paul back in chapter 3 in verse 13, where he writes, in whom, that's in Christ, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore, I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. So Paul is saying, don't give up and turn from your faith because I'm locked up. Instead, see my sufferings as your glory." Many then, and in our time now, surely scratched their heads at this. So Paul, you're telling us that we should be bold and confidently access God through our faith in Christ when one of his apostles sits shackled in Caesar's prison? Because he was bold and confident in the Lord? Yes. And he asked that they not faint or lose heart because of this. Why? Yes, he is a prisoner, but he is a prisoner in the Lord. Prison bars and chains and harsh treatment do not revoke Paul's unity with God's people in Christ. He is still part of the body. He is still in the Lord, no matter the circumstance. To say otherwise would be to contradict all that Paul wrote up to this point. Our position in Christ as believers is not just a clever theological scheme meant to suppress, impress new converts, or wow older saints, or give them some warm and fuzzy feeling. It is the bedrock upon which our hope is built and where we go to find comfort in times of need. It is a hope that is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast, based on the eternal Son of God, our Redeemer, our forerunner, who entered the veil in heaven on our behalf. Do not lose heart. Do not faint. Christ, your exalted head, sits at God the Father's right hand, ruling and reigning until all his enemies have been put under his feet. Better to be a prisoner in the Lord than to be lost and of the world without a surety and without God in the world. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." Paul believed this, and that's why he could call himself the prisoner in the Lord. And with that in place, Paul goes into his appeal. Still in verse 1, chapter 4, Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Therefore, given all that I just wrote to you about your glorious inheritance in Christ, now I, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you, Paul says. We don't use the word beseech much anymore. But it translates a word from the original language, parakaleo, which means to call to one side. It has the idea here of wanting to help or come alongside. And it indicates a strong feeling or desire. Paul is not just making a mundane request to these believers. He's making it an impassioned plea, an urgent plea to do what comes next. We see a parallel to this in Romans 12, 1, where Paul writes, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice. Again, there in Romans, The Apostle, after presenting for 11 chapters the work of God through Christ and his spirit to save his elect people, Paul pleads, he entreats his readers to live in accordance with those blessed truths. He knows that right practice must always be followed by right principle. As John MacArthur has observed, Right doctrine is essential to right living. And there is no way that even the most sincere believer can live a life pleasing to God without knowing the sort of life God wants him to live. So Paul beseeches us. He pleads with us. But what does he beseech us to do? He pleads with us to walk. Now, you probably know that so often when the New Testament writers exhort us to walk, they're not talking about the physical act of putting one foot in front of another while you're covering space. Walk, as it is used here, means how you conduct yourself in your daily life. And it's really the theme of the last three chapters of this letter. Paul goes into different aspects of our walk. First here in the unity of our walk until verse 17, then he shifts to exploring the uniqueness of the Christian walk. And in the last two chapters of Ephesians, he emphasizes the moral purity, the wisdom, the control of the spirit, and the family aspects, that is, with husbands and wives and parents and children. And he ends with the famous illustration of the full armor of God representing the warfare of the Christian walk. In all of those parts of the Christian walk, Paul beseeches, he pleads, he helpfully exhorts his readers to walk in a certain manner that is in accordance with their salvation in Christ. But he doesn't just plead with us to walk or conduct ourselves in any old way, does he? He doesn't say, now that you are saved, just live however you think is best. He doesn't say, let your heart be your guide, or do what feels good, or any other thing we hear from the world and its little G God all the time. He says to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. What does that mean? First, let's think about the word he uses that is translated worthy. The original word is axios, and it's where we get our word axiom from. Its root has the idea of balancing the scales. What is on one side of the scale should be equal in weight to what is on the other side. In mathematics and physics, A principle is said to be an axiom or axiomatic if it is self-evidently true. In other words, if what is on one side of the equation self-evidently is equivalent to what is on the other side of the equation, it is said to be axiomatic or an axiom. E equals MC squared is understood as an axiom of physical law. So when Paul uses this word, axios, he means that the walk needs to be equal. It needs to be worthy to something else. And he tells us next what it needs to balance. It is to be balanced with the vocation wherewith ye are called. The word translated vocation means calling. This is what must be put on the side of the scale, on one side of the scale. Our walk or daily conduct on one side, and then on the other, our calling. But what is this vocation or calling? It is summed up well in the opening words in chapter one in verse four of Ephesians. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. This is a sovereign call of God to his chosen people. If you would turn in your Bible over to first Corinthians chapter one. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Let's look at verses 26 and 27. 1 Corinthians 1. 26 and 27 for you see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh Not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty So we see that this calling that Paul talks about also here in 1 Corinthians. It's not according to earthly wisdom. It's not according to earthly status. It's not given to the rich and to the powerful. It's given to those to whom God reveals himself by his spirit. He has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Turn over also to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. Look at verse 11. Wherefore also we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." So Paul's prayer here is that God would count believers, count his children worthy of this calling to fulfill all his good pleasure, and that this would be cause for the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over also to 2 Timothy 1. Just a few pages over. 2nd Timothy chapter 1. Paul talks again about this calling. 2nd Timothy chapter 1 in verse 9. Who hath saved us? Talking about the Lord. and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So again, it's a holy calling. It's not that we were holy and deserve the calling, but it is a holy calling. It's a calling that leads to holiness. It's according to the purpose of God. And it's not something that we worked for or earned in this life. It was given to us before the foundation of the world. It's according to God's eternal purpose in Christ. Brothers and sisters, we have this calling that the word of God tells us to be worthy of, to be equal to. How can we be equal to this calling? One that was given to us not based on anything that we had done or will do, but based alone on the merits of Christ. He is equal. He is worthy. And we can only be worthy as we are found in him. As I close, let us consider what Paul has said here. Let us consider this grand calling to which we are called, the glorious and precious promises that were revealed in the mystery of Christ, that God the Father has chosen us for adoption as sons before the foundation of the world, that he sent his only son into the world to redeem us by his precious blood, doing this in love. And then when Christ had ascended on high, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, the promised Holy Spirit was sent. And he's been given to us as a guarantee, as a down payment, ensuring that on the day of redemption, we will be saved. This should urge us, this should move us to holy living. Paul in the next section in Ephesians 4 is going to list characteristics of this walk. And Lord willing, I pray that I have a chance to expound those May the Lord God work in us that which is pleasing to himself to bring about good fruit and to cause us to live holy and godly lives. May this be our calling. May this be the prayer that we have to God that God will accomplish this in us for his glory and honor in Jesus Christ.