Learning how to walk
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Go ahead and turn to Ephesians 4:1-6
So I’ve learned a lot about bread this past year…
and all of this is thanks to Kelsey of course…
leave it up for her to find what seems to be one of the most ordinary and uninteresting things in the world…
…and find a way to make it incredibly interesting…
but did you know that the bread you get in the stores isn’t really bread?
.. I mean it is…
but its only a part of what bread is supposed to be…
what I mean is that the stuff you pull off the shelf,
that was made with “White flour”…
or if you just buy a bag of white flour for that matter…
…after the flour went through its processing, and bleaching..
..and then it sat for a while before getting put in as an ingredient…
and then the loaf is made and sent to the store and put on a shelf…
..you have lost around 80% of the nutrients that were in the original kernal..
and then they “enrich” it back up by only adding 5 nutrients..
..and those nutrients are synthetic
were-as…
…if you were to mill your wheat fresh, you get all the nutrients that were in the original kernal
and there is a long story for the reason WHY this whole white flour thing happened..
..and it teeters close to the crazy doomsday bunker conspiracy theory type stuff..
but one, of the multiple reasons ….
…was because people found that the white flour turned out a much more fluffy, , better looking.. and even tastier product, than the fresh milled stuff..
..it was actually the food of “kings” in the old days
and just keep following me here….
So many of us…
myself included up until this last year..
just went with the flow of society..
eating the bread that the store sells like that is just how its supposed to be…
not knowing what you are missing in the process…
and here is the connection I’m trying to make…
today..
Christianity seems to look like a bunch of store bought bread…
we treat it like such an easy thing to get a hold of..
when it sounds tasty to us, we go get us a loaf…
when we see someone struggling and even feel compassion for them..
..we offer up whats on the shelf..
we want the quick fix for others..
and we want the quick fix for ourselves too..
when life is hitting us hard…
we go grab some of that hawaian loaf to try to sweeten up our day…
when it comes to the most basic things of the Christian life
“going to church”
“saying the words “I’m a Christian”
“reading the bible”
we are fine with just letting that be the depth of our Christian walk..
and for so many..
we don’t know that God has so much more in store for us in this walk than what we are getting…
We don’t want to go through the process of grinding the wheat ourselves
we don’t want to have to put together all the ingredients to make the dough
we don’t want to wait on the yeast to make it rise…
only to have to punch it down and wait all over again
(some of you know what I’m talking about)
…we don’t want to have to deal with the hot oven and more waiting..
..not only on the cooking time but on the cool down time…
we want the quick fix..
we want what appeals to our tastebuds the fastest and don’t really care if its actually good for us or not…
We have taken the bread for taste and not for nutrition …
We made Christianity something to be consumed and not something to be transformed by
..
…and this is widely…. not because we are trying to “spite God”…
..its because we just don’t know better..
and we don’t know better because our diet has been consisting of 20% of the nutrients that God intended for the Christian walk…
Now what is my point?
My point is that in the text that we are going to read today…
Paul tells us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called…
This is something that apparently has to be encouraged among believers…
as if there is more to the Christian life than what many are getting…
as if God has a very unique purpose for us as individual Christians…
…and as a collective Body of Christ
not only that you have OBTAINED faith in Christ…
but that you should walk IN IT… in a worthy manner…
and that is not going to happen by being a “christian consumer”
that isn’t going to happen by trying to go the “easy and more pleasing to you” way , about it
so if you are there in your Bible…
lets stand together and read
Ephesians 4:1-6
pray
So we have been walking through this passage for a few weeks..
We looked a the command or the charge…
Which is to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called..
we looked at what the calling is…
its simply your salvation in Christ..
the Work of God in to bring you from death to life
…from His enemy to His child..
from a person all alone and with no identity .. to a people group called “God’s people”
to a life of looking less and less like the world every day and more and more conformed to the image of Christ in a process called sanctification..
its a calling that has a hope that one day , after our time on this earth we will be glorified..
that we will no longer have this struggle in sin against the flesh…
that we will not only know what is right and what is wrong..
but we will be made perfect to the point that we will be unable to sin any longer because we have been glorified with Christ..
and we will be able to stand in the presence of the Almighty Holy God for the rest of eternity….
we looked at WHY the calling is necessary…
that God has a purpose for the church..
or the “Body” as scripture calls it many times..
and part of that process is that the church would be a credible witness to the fact that Jesus IS LORD…
and that the church having its credibility in that witness depends on the state of unity that exists within the church…
and now we are going to look at how we get to that point…
or HOW TO WALK in this manner that Paul is calling for here…
and I hope, that by the end of this…
we will understand as a church.. as ONE body…
of how we can attain a few more nutrients that God intends for this Christian life that we walk…
and so really…what we are going to see in this verse …
…is what “virtues” will enable us to maintain unity in the body of Christ…
so in looking at v 2, we will just start by looking at these few things one by one…
the first one we see is humility
and I just want to go right off the bat and state that humility is the heartbeat of unity
now, humility isn’t a foreign concept to the Christian life..
it shouldn’t shock anyone that humility would be ground zero in the overall idea of christian unity with one another…
we know that if we are to understand the beatitudes on a soteriology level…
then the first beatitude shares what the heart condition of a person who is truly saved looks like …
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
this is the person who realizes that they are spiritually bankrupt…
this is the person who knows that they have nothing to offer…
those who enter into the gates of heaven don’t come blazing in riding a ferarri…
they craw through the gates naked and humbled…
they are very much aware that they are not high and lifted up…
they are very much aware that they have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God…
and that they are by nature, children of wrath…
we know that God doesn’t like a heart full of pride…
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
we are actually warned that one who falls into pride is one who fell into the snare of the devil himself… ( 1 Timothy 3)
Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
We know that if we want the perfect example of what TRUE humility looks like..
..then we look no further than Jesus Himself
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
It’s so clear that unity… TRUE unity… has to be grounded in humility
And we know this to be true right?
we’ve witnessed this in personal relationships
you get in a fight with your spouse over something… what is the root of the argument most of the time…
.. PRIDE…
You show me someone who is causing disunity among the believers…
..someone that is spreading gossip…
someone that thinks they know everything and nobody else knows nothing..
and I’ll show you a prideful person…
and unity CAN’T exist where there is pride
By insolence comes nothing but strife,
I’ve met many “proud christians” in my time in ministry…
and if I could ever say that something were an oxymoron… it would be that…
the words “pride” and “christian” are incompatible with eachother..
..and yet… we find ourselves struggling with that every day…
For like, the first 7 years of my marriage.. and still even sometimes now, Kelsey lovingly pointed out pride that existed within me…
And I don’t really know if it is so much the case anymore…
but pride used to be an easy thing to find if you were a pastor…
people used to hold pastors in a different light than they do now adays…
it used to be like:
“you would see someone in the grocery store, and they would be with a family member from out of town and they would call you over and be like:
“OH! There is my Pastor! Brother so and so.. come meet my cousin!” … This is my Pastor, you should check out his sermons on video cassette or betamax…
..
now adays… they see you in a store, and they are with a family member and its like…
“Hey, you… yeah.. dweeb..… come over here and meet my cousin…”..
..or sometimes its…
“Oh no.. hurry cousin, dodge down this isle real quick so he doesn’t see us and try to talk to us!” …
I’m just kidding… I hope…
..but my point is that Pride can come easy for us..
even though it shouldn’t…
I’ve met many “seasoned Christians”…
..that think because they are seasoned.. they’ve got it all figured out…
…or maybe because they honestly HAVE studied scripture…
..and they have grown alot in their knowledge of the Word…
…it’s caused something in them to be puffed up about…
and listen..
..we should study God’s word…
and I mean STUDY it…
dig deep…
but your deep dive should result in sin dying, not sin accumulating in the form of pride
..
I would bet that if I did a poll right now.. and said … Raise your hand if you desire to see unity in the church…
I would bet that every hand would go up…
…
actually … lets put that to the test…
Raise your hand if you would desire to see the church united
…
Now if that is the case…
then this is the call…
to walk humbly with your God…
to kill pride when it starts to arise..
and to pursue a life of humility… in all things…
and don’t just practice it in the church..
have humility in every aspect of your life…
the call isn’t to put on your mask of humble demeanor in the church and then float in a prideful disposition everywhere else…
the Christian life is to be consistent no matter where you are at…
and so to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…
walk in ALL humility…
that is the starting point..
that is the foundation…
once again.. HUMILITY is the HEARTBEAT of unity…
If you struggle with pride, … recognize it… and kill it… .. you worm…
…seriously…
if you have to dive into a little “worm theology” for a bit to remind yourself of who you are.. go for it…
and be humbled…
walk with all humility…
… ..
and get this… did you know that there is a natural “bi-product” of humility…
…you’ll never guess what it is…
it’s the second thing we see here
GENTLENESS
or the greek word is “pra-ow-tace” “praowwtace”
which means “meekness”
Now we’ve talked about this word before.. is anyone recalling it..
back to the beaitudes…
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
and so many get the wrong picture of what meek is..
we look at meek as this little whimpy kid standing on the playground waiting after school gets out to get beat to pieces by the school bully…
but in reality , it’s a term used to describe the process of taming a wild horse…
it’s when the trainer gets a hold of it and the horse no longer follows after the course of its natural .. and wild will…
..but instead submits to the trainers commands as its master..
now, in the context of “salvation” for instance…
..the meeking process for us is that we were once a wild and loose mustang, running from this corner of sin to the next without any direction , rhyme, or reason… other than our naturally wicked desire of opposition to God..
but as God does a work in our hearts through humbling us by the power of the Spirit through His Word…
as it reigns true in our hearts to give us an understanding of our depravity…
..and our need of a Savior because of our inability to please God…
and as we find ourselves mourning over our sin…
and comforted by the outstretched arm of grace and mercy from the Lord…
this brings us to a place of submissiveness to Him…
…and here is the thing..
In the case of a “meeked” or “tamed” horse…
have you ever seen it when the “rider” for instance just really lets the horse open up and go…
like at the dixie stampeed, when they do the barrel race thing…
that horse goes from 0 to 1 billion in seconds..
and you can just see the POWER behind it..
you can feel the floor beneath you rumble…
you can see the chaos that is erupting as dirt flies in the air and the rider is holding on for dear life…
a meeked horse doesn’t mean that it is useless…
…it means that it is “power under control” …
and in the case of the Christian now….
..to apply that to us…
doesn’t mean that we just sit down and take all the hits because we can’t defend ourselves like some kinda little whimp…
I mean, we’ve got the power of GOD on our side…
but what it means is that we stay tame until GOD directs us to go from 0-60….
what does that look like?
If someone wants to argue with you over eschatology…
…then you keep your cool….
…if you think you are right… then .. ok whatever.. you can hold your ground without trampling the other believer beneath you…
but if it is an issue that God calls us to stand up for….
…then it may be time to giddy up…
if you see a man harming a lady or a child…
giddy up…
if you see a generation standing by saying that murdering babies in the womb is “women’s healthcare”, when God says that every life is precious and made by Him…
. ..GIDDY UP
if you see a group of people telling children that they need to change their gender because it will make them “happier” or whatever it is…
then trample all over that with ferocity
but when it comes to your interaction with other believers…
what you, walking in humility will naturally do…
… is going to be to give you a sense of gentleness with your brothers and sisters…
now listen…
..there might be a time that is needed to be firm…
but firm and gentle can go hand in hand…
but you walk with a sense of self control…
..knowing that God is the guide on how we respond..
which means that you need to know what God says about how to respond …
..which you can find by studying His Word…
now sometimes…
being humble…
..and being gentle…
can test our patience … can’t it?
and so naturally… and by design… that is the next one we see here…
you know… side note here…
Years back.. some well known Christian speaker or pastor made the comment
“ I don’t pray and ask God to give me patience anymore… because every time I do, He puts me in situations that test my patience”…
and it caught traction.. and before you knew it..
..everyone was saying it..
and i still hear it being said today ..
now…
…while thats kind of funny…
the fact that someone would say that says a lot about how they feel about the process of sanctification…
Now… being sanctified isn’t necessarily “fun” at times…
but there is a reason God’s Word tells us to consider it joy..
and the reason for that is because God loves you enough to not leave you looking like the poor excuse of an image bearer that you were in your depraved state of sinful rebellion…
but He wants to mold you to look like Christ..
for His Glory..
For your own good..
and for the sake of the GOSPEL to a lost world!
so, can we just stop repeating that horrible, horrible phrase….?
..
patience is most definitely a virtue that we all desperately NEED…
ESPECIALLY when it is applied to the context of the church body God has placed us in…
.. the word here is the same word used in Galatians where we get the fruit of the spirit..
Patience..
or “Mah-rah-THOO-Mee-ah”
is Long-suffering.. which would be my preferred translation…
because sometimes, … that is EXACTLY what it is…
there is a weight of suffering… that will happen at some point in your walk… if you care anything about the body in which you have been placed…
and the more responsibility that God gives you within that body..
..the heavier the weight,..
…and the longer the suffering…
and most of the time.. its suffering.. piled on suffering…
…piled on suffering…
all for the sake of another person’s ignorance or rebellion usually…
but why would THIS be a trait needed for unity?
if someone is being ignorant..
or sinfully rebellious..
how can that be something that we would need to suffer through in order for the church to be unified…
and that’s a good question…
I used to be really quick to jump down someones case when they were being dumb…
I’ve got a lot of stories.. of “church people” ..being dumb… that I could bore you with… ..
…or in some cases, really entertain you with…
but instead I’ll just leave it at this…
sometimes, we may be too quick to assume what is going on in the other persons mind and heart…
sometimes, we may only have a piece of a larger puzzle and turn what needs to be a counseling session.. into a condemning one….
and above all of that…
when it comes toward our patience toward another Christian…
toward someone else who has been forgiven by God just as I have been…
I have to remember first and foremost God’s patience on me…
How many years… did I walk in rebellion while God was patiently directing me home to Him?
Now.. I was saved in middle school.. so pretty early by some standard of measure…
but even one little tiny sin that I committed was a GROSS offense to such a Holy God…
and now consider how patient God was with me…
consider How long God unrightly dishonored by my rebellion in sin…
But God is ultimately a God of reconciliation..
and when we consider our patience toward an ignorant, or sinful, or even hateful brother or sister in Christ … consider this…
If your “long suffering” is just counting down the days until they meet their punishment.. .
…then you are doing it wrong…
If your patience is grounded around the idea of reconciliation…
..then you will be able to suffer long… knowing that God will be honored..
…that sin will be killed…
..and that God will bring things together as He planned….
now sometimes..
..the long suffering ends in the person going to a different church…
I’ve been in those situations on sides where it left a gap and it hurt..
and I’ve been in those situations where it was like a dark cloud was lifted off the top of the church body…
God knows what He is doing…
..and we must patiently trust that
and so if you find yourself struggling with patience…
understand that ultimately your issue rests with the Sovereign Lord who is in control of every situation…
Trust Him to do His work..
know that His plan is best…
and exercise patience
and here is the really unique thing about this…
the next thing we see are the words “bearing with one another in love”
we talked a lot about love in a previous sermon…
I even sang you a little song during it if you remember…
but one thing about love… is …
it’s always a choice…
we don’t see any passage of scripture that tells us that we are forced to love one another..
but we are constantly commanded to choose to love one another
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Our love for one another should mirror Christ’s unconditional love for us,
…and that will give us motivation towards reconciliation and peace
humility, gentleness, and patience flows out of a place of love…
if you have no love.. you can be as humble as you want… but it wont matter
you can be as meek as meek gets… but theres no worth in it…
you can be more patient than those people that stand in line for a ride at disney world…
but its not gonna get you anywhere…
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
so if humility is the heartbeat of church unity…
Love is the heart itself…
without the heart,....there is no beat..
without the beat, there is not gentle flow of blood…
..and without the gentle flow, there is no waiting for it to make its way to the different parts of the body to enable them to function as intended….
Unity… makes the body function properly…
without unity.. you don’t have a properly functioning body of Christ…
God has placed a group of people together for a reason…
and I truly believe that if we were all on mission.. then we would see God do things beyond our imagination…
but its gotta start with love…
and its got to be worked out in the essential functions…
and its gotta be maintained in the unity of the Spirit… in the bond of peace…
everyone has a role to play…
maybe you are sitting here today and you have found your Christian life to be something that resembles store bought bread
(yeah, I’m bringing that back up)
..but you know that God has so much more in store for you…
maybe today is the day that you jump in and get involved in the body..
before you do that, I have to ask..
… do you have love for this body?
… if you do, then you will find yourself serving well….
and you will find yourself filling nourished….
I’ve talked to people who wanted to leave another church because they “weren’t being fed”…
..and you know what one of the first things is that I usually ask them?
“where all are you serving”…
if there answer is “nowhere” ….
first I’ll ask why….
…and then, if they have an answer like “because i didnt want to” ….
….then I am not usually very interested in seeing them become a church member here…
I’m just being honest…
and the reason why… is because they usually say something like “well the pastor just isnt a good preacher…” .. he doesn’t feed me the word like I like..…
and so whats happening.. is this person.. who isn’t involved in the work of the body…
…is sitting in a Sunday service one day a week getting fat and sick on the white bread…
(see I did the bread thing again)
and they are essentially not part of the church to be part of the body…
they are part of the church to be a parasite of the body…
they have consumed all they can…
…and now they are ready to latch onto their next victim…
so it’s my goal to protect the church body from that…
but at the same time…
I’ve had the same conversation with people that were serving and it just happened to be that God was leading them our way .. and it usually becomes evident why once they join…
here’s my point…
God didn’t organize a group of people that we call a church..
and He refers to as a “gathering” or a “body” .. for people to made a commodity out of… and get a quick fix that has no real substance …
God brought you to a group of people to be a part of something…
….and to give you the things you need in life…
…not material things.. but the spiritual things…
but part of that which you need is to be USED by Him
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
However you are involved in the body…
..whatever body part you happen to be…
..even that random freckle that doesn’t seem to make sense but I’m sure there’s a reason for it….
God has a purpose for you…
… you matter .. when it comes to the body of Christ…
you are needed in the local church…
and we are called to be ONE… unified…
…even if we come from different walks of life, having everything in common in Christ…
and God uses that UNITY that we have, to be a witness to the world…
a world that is looking for any reason to have an excuse against the gospel…
lets be a church that stops the world in its tracks…
lets be a church that functions as a body so properly, as we are grounded in love and maintaining unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace …
..that those we witness to will have no witness against what the Power of God can do in a group of people…
There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
pray
