A Prisoner of the Lord
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Jail life in our modern day
Jail life in some bad places in the world
Jail life in the ancient world
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—
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 this section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he turns to their walk with Christ. Paul picks up the theme of unity in Christ again in this section.
He’s already discussed it when talking about how God had made Jew and Gentile one new man in Christ in Chapter 2.
No matter who you are, you share a common sinful past that God has rescued you from by His grace and you are now one new man in Christ Jesus.
Paul has also spoken about how God has used Him (a Jew of Jews, Pharisee of Pharisees) to be a missionary to the Gentiles and even suffer hardship for the sake of them.
He has prayed for them all that God would strengthen them and give them an awareness of the riches they have in Christ and that they would be be able to see God’s love for them all.
This is all moving towards a point where Paul is going to argue that we are all to grow up into maturity into Christ as our head and use our giftedness for the building up of the body.
However, before we get to that, we first need to examine how we are personally walking in the faith.
Paul begins by describing himself as a “prisoner for Christ” in verse 1.
Paul has uses this title for himself a couple of times in this letter and he uses it several other times in his letters throughout the New Testament (Romans, Colossians, 2 Timothy, Philemon). Remember that Paul is in prison, so he is playing on his imprisonment to say that he is really not bound to Caesar as his prisoner, but to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we go any farther, would you say that you are a prisoner of the Lord?
Has God’s love captured your heart completely so that your undivided loyalty is to Him alone?
What would that even look like? We will see in a moment how Paul describes it for us.
Paul uses the phrase “I urge you to walk” in verse 1. The Greek verb behind this phrase is a word that is only used in a few places in the New Testament. It is the word for paraclete and it is the same word that Jesus uses when He says that He is going to go to the Father and send a Helper (or paraclete) to help them.
Now what is that Paraclete, or the Holy Spirit, going to do to help us live in a manner worthy of the calling?
Let’s look briefly over at John.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;
11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
So we can see from these verses that the Holy Spirit helps us in this walk by doing a few things:
Enablement for Christian Living
Conviction of Sin
A Spiritual Guide - recall and understanding, showing God’s will
All of these things are necessary in order to live worthy of the calling to which we have been called.
So let’s look at what the characteristics of this walk looks like. How would you know someone is living worthy of the gospel if you spotted it?
Humility
Humility
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Gentleness
Gentleness
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Patience
Patience
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Love
Love
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Unity and Peace
Unity and Peace
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Why should there be unity?
There is one body of Christ
We may have many denominations and churches, but there is still only one body of Christ
Each local church should be an expression of the unity in that body (doesn’t mean that we will necessarily always agree on everything
There is only one Holy Spirit
The same Spirit at work in your brothers and sisters in Christ is working in you and He is not divided
One Hope
We are all saved the same way
We all need the same grace
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
One Faith
We believe the same gospel
Not everyone preaches the same gospel and that is a different matter
One Baptism
One God and Father
This compounding of descriptors shows us why we should be unified together in the body no matter what our background is.
Conclusion
As we end tonight, I want to leave you with a few questions to ask yourself.
What is my attitude towards my fellow church members?
Do I strive to walk in a manner that is worthy of the Lord?
Am I striving for unity in the body of Christ?
What can I do to help strengthen my church and other members in the church?
