Ephesians Pt. 5 (4: 1-16)
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1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Have you ever been sick before? How does your body react to being sick? Your body truthfully can’t function. Lets look at something simple like a small headache. If you have a headache it can hurt pretty badly. But you can still function to an extent. If you have a headache, you might not be able to focus on work, maybe you feel like going to lay down instead of doing the things you need to do. But if you really had to do some stuff you could probably power through a mild headache but people will be able to tell that your productivity is lower.
But if you need to go on a run and you have a cold or a stomach ache, will you be able to run if you have a cold? if you are playing on a sports team, and you with a cold tell your coach you want to play, your coach is going to tell you to go home and sleep.
When your body is sick, your body does not function at 100 percent capacity. Well, in today’s scripture, Paul is going to spend some time encouraging us by explain to us what a healthy church body looks like so that it can function at 100 percent capacity.
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
In these first bible verses we see that Paul is urging you and me to be united when it comes to our church life. What unites us as Christians? the things that unites us as Christians is having the same beliefs. It is always easier to get connected and be friends with people that believe the same things you believe. As a matter of fact, if someone disagrees with you or says something that is opposite from what your parents may have taught it is probably going to offend you. Verse 5 really tells us what it is that unites us:
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
But what does it look like for a Christians to live a life that is united with the church and united with Christ:
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
God urges you and me to be:
Humble, gentle, patient and to love one another. Friends, let me start of by saying this is super hard to do. At least it is for me because my nature is not a patient one. Especially behind the wheel. If I am driving, It is hard for me to be patient. But I want you to look at these words and ask yourself this question, which one of these words does NOT describe you?
I think it merits some prayer time everyday, or it requires you to pray every day and ask the Lord: “Jesus, help me with being humble or being gentle or being patient.”
It is important for us to be humble, gentle, patient and loving because these 4 characteristics are essential for church spiritual growth. why? Because these 4 church characteristics bring unity and peace and if you don’t believe look at what Paul says here:
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
I love how Paul gives us a call to action in these verses because peace and unity in the church require this word right here:
Effort
It requires work on your part and my part to be humble, gentle, patient and loving. I don’t want our church to be marked as the lazy church in the community, I want people from outside of these doors to look at our church and call us:
Humble, Gentle, Patient and Loving. Why? Because that is the painting our God shows us, we should be a church that looks like and behaves like our God.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
8 This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?
10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
These verses spend some time teaching us what Jesus has practically done for the church. Can you guys say:
Practical
God has given us some tools we can put into practice everyday and every time we come to church. Some of us preach, some of us teach, some of us sing, others read and others help with technology at church.
There is a vast list of gifts that God has given His people so they can serve everyday. God calls his people to be spiritually diverse. I suppose sometimes people believe that means that the church should be people of different heights, colors and speak different languages. And sure, to an extend the church should strive to be people from different places. But more than that, God wants His people to be people who all work in different areas of the church. inside or outside of these four walls.
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
You may be thinking, what can I do? There is plenty. If God is asking you to do something, let’s talk about it. Maybe, you feel God asking you to help and serve in church and you have no idea what that looks like. Let’s sit down and talk about what are some areas we can all serve in.
I was talking to Mr. Tony last week and I told Him that my vision for this place is that I have an opportunity to get off this stage and watch as others worship, teach, and follow Jesus. I want to strike a deal with all of you today. God has called me to preach and I will preach, but I want all of you, to do something else. So as long as you guys work with me, I promise I’ll keep preaching. How does that sound?
Finally, if there is something you are interested in doing here at church, and you don’t know how. remember, God can equip you and prepare you to do those things. If you need help, reach out to me or a house parent. And maybe we can’t teach you, but we can find someone who can.
The last thing I want to share with all of you today is this:
A church that works, is a mature church.
God is calling each and every single one of us who is a christian to spiritual maturity. God wants you and I to be mature Christians that practice what He says. Let’s look at three things that set us apart from immature Christians.
13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
A mature Christians is someone who is like Christ. I was watching a video the other day and someone was claiming to be a Christian but they were living in sin. Someone called them out on their sin and said: If you believe the bible calls what you are doing is a sin, then why are you doing it? Don’t you want to be life Jesus?
I want to ask all of you here that question today:
Don’t you want to be like Jesus? I remember when I was a kid we used to wear these bracelets that said: WWJD
What does that stand for? What Would Jesus Do? Maybe one day we’ll make those bracelets here. Those bracelets worked as a reminder for us. To behave like Jesus whenever we are in a difficult situation. a Mature Christian, behaves like Jesus.
13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
A mature Christian is someone who follows God’s Word. It’s honestly pretty easy to say you’re a Christian. You could in fact, call yourself anything. But following Jesus requires more than just SAYING you’re a Christian. It requires you and I to actually get up on our feet, and do what Jesus did.
The hard part is, people can trick us. They can, the best way to trick someone is to make sure they don’t know a lot. It is easier to trick someone who is ignorant. To avoid being ignorant, it your job and my job to always stick close to God’s word. Read the Bible, and only learn from people who point you to it.
15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
God calls us to love others, He does. But a mature Christian, loves other Christians. I want to give you the list that we just went through so you can spend some time writing it down or take a picture.
A Mature Christian:
Behaves like Jesus
Seeks God’s Word
Loves other Christians.
I think we all know the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated. And I think we should stand by that, after all that is in the Bible. But God calls us to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ better than we want to be treated.
How in the world will people know that you are a child of God?
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
When we learn to care and love each other, people will easily recognize the difference in your life. They’ll notice that you treat others differently. When someone treats me with respect and they’re nice to me, I want to be around them as much as I can.
I think today’s passage encourages us all to work for Jesus in some of capacity. And why should I work for Jesus? Because Jesus put in a lot of work so that you could be saved. Sure, today’s passage applies primarily to people that are already saved. But if you aren’t saved, I hope that this lifestyle that we are talking about is appealing to you. I pray that if anyone here today is interested in serving at church that you would reach out to me so we can make that happen. I can give you a list of different things you can do. And I also pray, that if anyone here today is not saved and they would like to know what it means to follow Jesus, that they would reach out to me as well. I would love to have that conversation.