Life worth Living
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
If you have your Bibles please turn to
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
Paul begins this chapter with a call and further instructions on Christian living. There is a reason he starts the call to live a life worthy of the calling. This is a two fold call. The first is in our own personal lives. How do we live each and every day? We spoke about the ability that people have to sleepwalk through life. What Paul is talking about is a life of intentionality. If we look at the life of Jesus for example, Every step He took and every word He said was all intentional. Everything He did was for a reason, that reason was to point us toward the Father. Even when He took a time to rest that was intentional. Our lives need to be a living testament to the power of Jesus.
There is a concept that we need to understand. There is working for God and then there is working with God. Now there is nothing wrong, particularly if you are new in the faith to work for God. However, as your faith deepens you will transition to working with God. That is when you start living a life worthy of the calling.
When we are working with God then those grand callings that God puts on our lives then those callings become attainable.
Now the second part of this life worth living is our lives in a bigger sense of community in the church that we have. How do we interact with each other. How do we as a church show the love of Jesus? How is our witness as a church to the world around us? Now in order to do these Paul continues on
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
There is a reason that Paul starts the list off with being humble. Pride is the one of the sins that can completely ruin your life but also a community. There are good arguments that pride is the nexus point for all other sins.
A man needs above all to be saved from what is the root of all sin—his self-will and his pride.
Andrew Murray
While we are on this side of eternity we are always going to have conflict. It is how we approach those conflicts that distinguishes Christians from the world. The antidote to that conflict is humility. The ability to speak to each other in love and unity in Jesus. When Jesus is the center of any relationship then humility in our lives should follow.
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.
This is unfortunately one area where the modern church has failed greatly. As a population of Christian believers we are very far away from what Paul is calling us to. Granted this maybe naive of me to think this but I don’t think it is that difficult to achieve this. Pastors, leaders, small groups leaders, whatever a person’s position inside of a church just needs to preach and teach the Bible. The world has always been at odds with the Bible and it will continue to be. We know this from the Book of Revelation. That doesn’t mean that we as followers of Jesus stray from the Scriptures. These are the Holy Scriptures of the one God and Father of all.
Now here is the danger zone that we are moving into. when we move away from the Scriptures and move away from Jesus as the only way to the Father.
Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
The groundwork that is needed to set up the “one world religion” that is found in Revelation is being laid right now. This is the reason why Paul stressed unity in churches. When you hear things like Jesus isn’t the only way to the Father or that there are many paths to God. This is the ground work that leads to these verses in Revelation
But to counteract that false teaching we move to the next verses
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.
These verses need to be the mission statement for every church on Earth. It really is that simple. People that have been called by God need to equip God’s people. If we aren’t doing that then we have failed and the stakes are to high for us to fail. There will come a day when Jesus returns. There will be a day when judgement comes and we all have to stand in front of God.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
This is why I am so intense about treating the Holy Scriptures as we should. This is why I am so passionate about discipleship. This is why we have grief , marriage courses, Bible 101 or discipleship courses. This is why we have small groups. It is our job to equip you. But in all of our lives, we must grow and mature in Jesus. The stakes are much to high and Jesus came to save , He came preaching the Gospel. Thus we need to do that. We fill our lives with the things that Jesus did.
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.
Now think back over the past 5 or 6 years at what our culture has been through. People that are not anchored by God and Faith in Jesus Christ, they are tossed back and forth. They are taken in by ideologies that have extremely high costs to personal well-being. There is an identity crisis going on right now and the truth is because people have a lack of relationship in God . We have a crisis in the lack of Fathers participating in their children's lives because they aren’t living out the calling of being the spiritual leader in their household.
The world and it’s philosophies and ideologies will always be constantly changing. That has even infected the church at large. There is one thing that doesn’t change and that is the Word of God. When you grow in faith and knowledge you become that steady ship, able to sail through the changing tides of the world lead by Biblical discernment
Paul was echoing the words of Jesus when He said
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
We talked two weeks ago about always positioning ourselves on that chief cornerstone. Again, we as humans love to overthink things. Our knowledge and wisdom is not the same as God’s. When we put the words of Jesus into practice, you become wise. You will start living out that calling because you are following the path that Jesus has already laid out for you.
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.
This is another job of the church. We must speak the truth to each other and at society at large. But we do that in love. By that I mean we are not here to condemn people but to bring them to Jesus. That requires tough conversations sometimes. This is why we need to be humble and patient with each other. Again the goal is to grow in Jesus and mature as believers.
Just as Jesus is the chief cornerstone, He is the head of the body. He is the leader today and forever.
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.
Every follower of Jesus is important and performs a function in the body of Christ. This is why we are called to a life worth living for Jesus. You are important and you are needed. We need you in this ministry and we need you in this community. God has put you here at this time in history for a reason. Please do not ignore that calling God has put on your heart. Instead take those steps of faith to answer that call. As we move into our time of prayer and anointing. If you would like to give your life to Jesus or rededicate your life. That time is now. If you need prayer or need to be anointed. We are here as a growing body of Christ to be here for you.
let us pray
