How to Walk

Ephesians 4:1-6

Family Unity

Parker Family Unity

At Christmas surrounded by Anna’s whole side of the family. One family, celebrating Christmas together.

There have been things that threaten that unity. There are things that threaten that unity.

Next Step Family Unity

We are a family, called together by God. We are one… but we know there are things that threaten that unity.

In fact, we all know churches that have fallen apart. Many have been part of churches that have fractured and split up. The larger story of church history is maybe not so much unity as division and splitting.

Different ideas about who and how God is… and churches divide.

Different ideas about how and when baptism should work… and churches divide. Ideas about the Spirit, ideas about the nature and content of faith.

So let me read a crazy description about the Church.

Ephesians 4:4-6

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.

One body, the Body of Christ. The Church. And it refers to the Church universal, the body, but it certainly refers to the visible local church that the recipients of this letter were actually experiencing. One body, characterized by unity.

But everything in this list, we can see as an area of disunity.

Spirit, Lord (Jesus), faith, baptism, God and Father.

This is a beautiful statement of unity. Perhaps we see very little unity in the Christian Church.

A People Divided

We see very little unity in the church… and probably we are not surprised, because we know what people are like.

People are proud, generally putting themselves before others.

People are abusers of power. You get a little power, you go a little crazy. You get a lot of power, you go a lot of crazy.

People are impatient. When you have a solution to a problem, you want to fix it now. Especially if it involves your pain. Give me drugs, give me painkillers, fix me now! Please. But now!

And people are quick to blame. It is someone’s fault, obviously. He dropped the ball, she is doing it wrong. He is an idiot.

Pride, abusive power, impatience and blame. That sounds more like church history. That also sounds like a lot of family history. Because that sounds like people.

That’s all general, let me put it all in one phrase and apply it to the church. I heard something much along these lines the other day, though not about our church.

I could fix the church if they just put me in charge and did it my way.

This covers all the bases. There is the pride, arrogance even. I have the solution! My way. There is an abuse of power forcing everyone in line. There is impatience in the tone and blame at the people in charge who are obviously doing it wrong.

I could fix my family if they just put me in charge and everyone did it my way.

If everyone in your family did it your way there would be no conflict. Wouldn’t that be simple?

So we could do it that way. Everyone gets their own way. Everyone gets their own family which grows to the point of conflict and then splinters into fragments. Everyone gets their own church which grows to the point of conflict and then splinters into fragments.

But we would miss out on one of the most beautiful experiences, beautiful realities of Creation.

God has called us out of darkness, out of divisiveness and into the Unity of Christ.

He has called many and made us One. He made us One. Then He calls us to walk into that One-ness.

How to Walk

Ephesians 4:1-6

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.

Walk in a manner worthy of the calling

The first three chapters of Ephesians have been songs of praise to God and prayers of Thanksgiving, as well as prayers for the Church, and all along Paul has been sketching out this call to which we are called.

This is salvation. This is discipleship. This is your relationship with God, somehow predestined since Creation, somehow apprehended by you through faith. Most recently, Paul called it being rooted and established in love and, in the school of suffering, learning the depth and breadth, the width and length of the love of Christ.

There is this high calling – and that is to be One. In the words of Jesus – to love God and love one another. In the word used here in Ephesians, to be United, to be One with God and One with eachother. United in faith. United in the church. That is your calling.

And that calling is hard. It requires effort.

Paul urges you to walk. To make every effort to do so. And we see that salvation by grace alone is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.

You don’t earn your salvation, but having been called into it, it is appropriate to make every effort to walk accordingly.

And so we have to learn how to walk.

Verse 2 gives us the moves.

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

Four graces. Four absolutely necessary patterns of behavior. And these fly in the face of the description of people in groups we saw earlier.

People are proud, abusive, impatience blamers.

But you are to walk with all humility, gentleness, patience and mutual forbearance.

Humility

Rooted in a true and honest view of yourself and then thinking of others more highly than yourself.

Gentleness

Meekness. This is not powerlessness, this is power under control. A gentled horse is one that is trained to the bridle. This is the opposite of abusing power.

Humility and Gentleness – Breaking the Mop

I have a new model for this. Breaking the mop. Wrestling over the mop to see who gets to mop the floor at the Firehouse. Literally fighting for it until the mop breaks and they have to explain to the Captain why they keep needing new mops.

Patience

We all know what patience is and when we need it. And we all know we need it when we have run out of it.

Mutual Forbearance

Bearing with one another in love. This is a truth of community, it is made up of people. And they are going to mess up. All the times. Just like you are going to mess up.

Patience and Forbearance

I think of little hands on the windowed doors to our church. There are lots of little hands in our church, most of them belong to children. And there is a universal law of attraction that says those hands must and will always press all over glass doors.

The strength of the attraction is inversely proportionate to how recently it was cleaned. I have seen Camille clean those doors and 5 seconds later, little hands all over it.

This is patience and forbearance. You do the work, you clean the thing. Someone immediately comes and messes it up. Again and again. Then again. Then also again.

And it gets annoying and irritating and at times, you don’t feel the love, you just have to bear it.

That takes effort, it takes work.

Learn to Run

Verse 3 sums this up saying we must be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”

The NIV says to “make every effort to…” The language is strong. It is do it and do it now.

Effort-filled eager walking, that sounds more like running to me.

We have to learn how to run into the unity of Christ.

As a sometime runner, there are drills we do to improve our running mechanics. So that we can run farther, faster, better, with less self-injury. Heel strikes. Foot placement. Food cadence. Body position, arm position.

You can’t think of all of those at once. Your brain will explode. You will do all of them poorly. So you choose one and you run for a while just thinking about it.

Work on your humility. When something bothers you in community, you have to ask, what part of this is just my ego? Just myself? (I have to do this all the time).

Work on your gentleness. What power have you been given and is it under control? You have influence, you have power, you have rights. Meekness is the voluntary surrender of your rights and privileges.

Work on your patience. Work on your mutual loving forbearance.

This is the appropriate focus of our efforts in the church.

We will never earn our salvation. We don’t grit our teeth and achieve it. We don’t, and trying is only harmful to us.

The focus of our effort is here: walking into unity. Learn to run into the One.

This is the effort part, and it is hard. This looks like sacrifice. This looks like being annoyed at times. Giving up self all times. It looks like and feels like hard work. This is the work of discipleship, to create in the church the context of discipleship.

Humility, gentleness, patience and mutual forbearance. This is our move. So much of the Christian life and growth is God creating within us, moving and teaching us through circumstances.

And here He has created unity among us, the Holy Spirit’s unity in the bond of peace. He made it.

But he charges us with keeping it. Entering into it.

And here is your move. Be humble. Be gentle. Be patient. Bear with me. Run into the One. Walk together in unity.

The Reality of Unity

We see disunity and division in the church. The fundamental reality is that the church is One, even as God is one.

This is the difference between our grasping after truth and the truth itself. Our understanding of how reality is and what actually is.

We may argue about the church, what it is, who is in and out… but the Church is one, the bride of Christ, and He has no problem seeing her and leading her, caring for her.

We may argue about the Spirit, but the Spirit is not confused. His unity persists, it is a question of whether you enter into it or not.

One Lord, Jesus is not confused about who he is. One faith. One baptism, one God and Father of all.

He is over all and through all and in all. We have trouble seeing it. Trouble perceiving it. Trouble understanding it. But that does not change the fundamental reality of what is.

We don’t get to choose the way it is.

We get to choose whether we enter into it.

We get to choose the way we walk. Walk into peace. Walk into unity. Walk into One-ness.

In Humility, gentleness, patience and loving forbearance we walk, we run. For this is the truth:

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.