Sealed Together

Sealed Week 4

Sealed Together

Ephesians 4:1-7

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this amazing day that the Lord has made. I have had an amazing week in Waco. One of the pastor’s families called it “PreacherCon.” You know, the superhero and science-fiction world has ComiCon… well, we have PreacherCon. It was great to spend a week with 100 preachers from all over the Conferernce and beyond who came to hone their skills, sharpen their tools, and up their preaching to the next level. I hope that my time there will yield fruit 100-fold as I stand before you with the irksome task and weighty responsibility of rightly dividing the word of God. Now, the challenge for his week was the fact that I had to show up with a sermon on a specific passage – not last Sunday’s sermon, then write another sermon on a different passage… not this week's sermon, and preach them both in front of a cohort of other preachers. AND I had to prepare this message for you!

So, as we dive into the beginning of Ephesians 4, I covet your prayers, that God would speak through me, that the Holy Spirit would anoint me, and that you would receive the Word that God has for you today… because if none of that happens, I have failed. If all I do is entertain you for the next 15 minutes before we partake of Communion, then I have wasted your time.

So, as we get started, let me remind you where we are and what we are talking about right now. We are talking about being marked with a seal. We are talking about the fact that our identity will be in something. I picked on our Aggies last week, so you get a pass… but if we place our identity in our Alma Mater, we are missing the boat. I don’t care if you’re a Husky, a Pony, or a Longhorn. We can’t have our identity in our sexuality, our gender, our political party, our hobby, or anything else. Even in our nationality. I’m proud of the progress of the Olympians… I tear up when I see them on the podium, hand over their heart, singing the national anthem. But if that is your identity, you gotta get your life straight. Our identity must be in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the author and perfecter of our faith.

We are in a journey through the Book of Ephesians looking at just how we are identified with Christ. So today, we have made it to Ephesians 4. This is where the rubber meets the road for Paul, the first three chapters were about ethics, the last three are about application. So, as we prepare to interact with this text so beautifully read for us, I invite you into prayer:

<Prayer>

Sermon slide

As Alexander the Great and his Greek army marched across the Western world and into the Middle East, creating an Empire and influencing societies, many stories grew from the ranks. One story was about a particular soldier who talked the talk. He had the language of a soldier. He had the training of a soldier. He had the strength of a soldier… He was called a soldier.

But… every time they went into battle, this soldier would run the other way.

Eventually, the officers around him knew they had to take him to Alexander. Standing before the great general, Alexander asked, “Soldier, what is your Name?” “Alexander!” he claimed, thinking he would garner support.

Instead of gaining support, Alexander told the soldier, “Either change your name or change the way you act.”

You, my friends, are called by God. You have received a calling from the one true God. Maybe your calling involves shuffling papers in an office. Maybe your calling involves selling cars. Maybe your calling involves standing before others and proclaiming the Word of God. We all have a calling… and that calling includes sharing the love of God with a world lost in hate. That calling includes being the light of Christ in a world of darkness.

And here’s the thing. We can call ourselves anything we want. We can place our identity in anything we want… but if we are going to place our identity in anything other than Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior… then we need to change our name.

We need to change our name, or we need to change the way we act.

Ephesians 4:1

In Verse 1, Paul urges us… Paul pleads with us… Paul exhorts us… Paul implores us… Paul begs us to live a life worthy of the calling we have received.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have been called into the upside-down kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. You and I are called to a life that is vastly different than the life of the world. I think we have been lulled into this mindset over the past 75 years that we live in a Christian Culture. Well, I think the opening ceremony of the Olympics shattered that dream. We don’t live in a Christian Culture, we live in a pagan culture, and we shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Jesus wasn’t. You remember the story in Matthew 16. Jesus and the Disciples have left Jerusalem and Galilee for a season and they are in Caesarea Philippi. It is a beautiful location where water is literally gushing from the base of Mount Hermon at a rate of 67 million cubic meters annually. It is also the location of pagan rituals. The Temple of the Dancing Goats was there. The Temple to Pan was there. And the deep hole where the water gushed out was considered the Gates of Hell and was a place of human sacrifice to the Pagan gods. Jesus is standing there in this beautiful place surrounded by these pagan practices, and what does he do?

Jesus takes the focus off of the pagan orgies and sacrifices and debauchery and looks at his followers and asks, “Who do you say that I am?” they say, “some say, Elijah, some say John the Baptist” but Jesus looks at them and asks, “but who do you say that I am?” and it is Peter that says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

We are not to worry about the pagan practices going on, we are to focus our eyes, we are to find our identity, in Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. You, I, we are called to live in the upside-down kingdom of our Messiah.

Verse 2-3 goes on to remind us of that by telling us to be humble, gentle, patient, and kind. Why is that upside-down? Because in the Greek and Roman culture where they lived, humility was not a virtue. To be gentle and patient was to be a push-over – to be weak. And yet Jesus taught us in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5-7 to be just that type of person. Paul is telling us, that we work together, we care for one another, we bear with one another in love.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. He didn’t say do whatever it takes, he said make every effort… Sometimes when every effort has been made… sometimes the best thing we can do is part ways… it can be healthy. Like the story we read of Abraham and Lot in Genesis, they came to a point where they had to part ways. It wasn’t out of anger. It wasn’t out of hate. It was how they would be able to keep the peace.

Why do we want to keep the peace? Why, in the midst of differences and difficulties do we make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit?

Because we are one.

Ephesians 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

It is like the old song we would sing…

We are one in the Spirit,

we are one in the Lord,

we are one in the Spirit,

we are one in the Lord,

and we pray that all unity

will one day be restored

Refrain:

and they'll know we are Christians

by our love, by our love,

and they'll know we are Christians

by our love.

Friends, we are in it together… I don’t mean we, the Global Methodist Church… I mean we – the brothers and sisters of Christ across the globe. We the Baptist, and we the Episcopal, and we the Lutheran, and we the Catholic, and we the Presbyterian, and we the Pentecostal, and the Assembly of God, and the Church of Christ, and we the United Methodist…. We are the Body of Christ and we are in this together. We are united together to spread the love and grace of God to a world in need.

Being United in Christ through the Bond of Peace means that we love each other. That includes our Brothers and Sisters who want to argue about this practice, or that practice: whether we have drums in worship or the Organ. Whether we have choral music or praise music. Whether we use the KJV or the NIV. Whether women have to wear dresses or can wear slacks. Whether men can shave or not. The list goes on and on.

We are together in love!

We need to remember that as followers of Jesus Christ, we aren’t in competition, we are working together to further this upside-down Kingdome of God.

We don’t need to worry about who’s going to what church… we need to celebrate that they are in church.

I’ve heard several times, “So and so left after such and such… and they are going to such and such church now…” You know what my answer is? Great, I’m glad they are in church, unfortunately, it’s a net-0 for the Kingdom.

We’ve got to quit looking at sheep sharing as church growth. You know what sharing sheep is, right? That’s when Mary and Bob don’t like church A because the preacher talks about politics, so they go to Church B. But Amy and John leave church B because church A has a better children’s program. Both churches celebrate that their church is growing, but it’s done nothing for the Kingdom of God.

We aren’t in competition with Northside. We aren’t in competition with First Baptist. We aren’t in competition with Grace Community Church. We are in it together. We are one body with one Spirit, we are called to one hope, one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, and one God and Father of us all.

We don’t need to go after people who are happy in another church, we need to go out into the community and reach those who don’t have a church home!

Navarro County statistical data shows that 47% of the population does not claim a religious affiliation. That’s 22,519 souls that we all drove past this morning.

That’s nearly 22,519 people that don’t know the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

That’s nearly 22,519 people that are in danger of an eternity apart from the mercy of God.

We don’t need to steal from other churches and we don’t even have to “get our folks back.” We can multiply the Kingdom of God by simply recognizing our neighbors, getting to know them, and inviting them into the amazing work God is doing in this place!

As we wrap up, I want to remind you that you are a beloved child of God.

Ephesians 4:7

Christ has given us gifts and graces… not for our good alone, but for the Good of the Kingdom. We each have different gifts and graces that will reach different people for Christ.

And the churches across this community have different gifts and graces that will reach different people in the community for Christ. That is as it should be.

We have to begin looking at our bothers and sisters across the community and realize that we are sealed together. We are identified together. We are one body of Christ together, working together to change this community and just maybe the world.

That is the beauty of what we are about to do. We are gathering around this table and in some mystical miraculous way, we join our brothers and sisters around the world, past, present, and future… we gather with the saints of old and the saints of the future and partake of this Holy Mystery, the Eucharist, this Communion, the Lord’s Supper… many names, but one meal, one Spirit, one Lord.

May we be sealed together, identified together, in this meal.

Would you pray with me?