Walk Worthy of the Calling

recently where someone asked me to to the whole group to reflect on things we can be thankful for blessings from 2017 and things are looking forward to in 2018 and I confess the the only thing I could think of is I hope 2018 is nothing like 2017 As I thought, I kept meditating on this, and I said, surely I can think of something different, but that's what came to my mind, and I became convicted. Because what I'm actually saying there is, God, you could have done better last year. In my own heart, I'm murmuring. I'm grumbling. I'm telling God he could have done better, and I'm not acknowledging, God, God was good. He's always good. Whatever God does is good. And as we begin this new year, as we begin this really challenging passage, we're not gonna be doing all of what Sarah read. I wanted her to read the whole context. We're just gonna look at the first six verses. There's a great challenge, there's a great high calling as a church. And we need to remember that in the midst of trials, in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of things where we have to bear with one another, God is good. He is always good and can be trusted. This morning's sermon text says, as you heard it, I want to be careful because it could leave you feeling overcorrected by the very nature of it. Paul is leaving here, giving here a high bar. And so I want to begin by commending you, church. That as we, as I've studied and as I've prayed through and as I've meditated upon these passages that declare walk worthy, with humility, gentleness, bearing with one another, maintaining the unity, I wanna commend you. We have been bearing with one another. I praise God that we've gone through brave storms because we've been walking worthy. So thank you for that commitment to Christ and to one another. This morning, this passage is very simple, but it comes in a very important part of Ephesians. We were in Luke for a while, so let me remind us of one through three of Ephesians. As Sam mentioned earlier, that's God declaring all the things he's said about us and all the things he's done for us. One through three is a great theological declaration that's essential for the church that says all the things God has done for us, all the things God has done to us. Chapter four to six is somewhat more comfortable but also uncomfortable in the sense that it's telling us now how we live because of what God's done for us. Notice that great transition there. Verse one, chapter four, therefore. If you don't have a Bible, take the one in front of you. It's on page 977. Therefore, this is the transition because of all God has done for us. Therefore, we live differently. Therefore, because God the Father has blessed you with every spiritual blessing. Therefore, because in Christ you're adopted, redeemed, forgiven, beloved. Therefore since you were dead, but God made you alive therefore since you were once far off But you've been now been drawn near therefore since God can do more than we could possibly ask I Urge you Paul says Walk worthy He's going to to call us to have a changed life because of what God has done now the operative word in in in this Command I believe is worthy Worthy. Walking worthy is pointing to a life that is committed to a certain kind of quality. Worthy. You can hear the word worship here. We're called to walk worthy of the calling. Christian, it's pretty amazing. We have a real worth. There's a worth that God has given to us. There's a new calling of worship that God has given to us. It's not ours that's earned. It's not inherent to us. It's a gift. We were purchased not to live in fear. We're redeemed not to live with guilt. We're called to endure trials with joy and thankfulness. This is the worthy life. God has called us to. Walk worthy. What we're talking about here is God called us out of worshiping ourselves and every other idol to worshiping Him. And so I think what Paul's doing here is saying, recalibrate your life, recalibrate your worship. Well, how does that happen? Well, the first thing I want you to think about, if you're gonna call to calibrate, recalibrate your worship, I think the most important thing you can do is consider the calling. If you're going to walk worthy of the calling, you have to truly understand that calling. And I would just point you back to Ephesians chapter one. Commit to memory, verses three to 14. That will help you truly commit to and understand what God has done. And as you memorize that, if you didn't do it before, just go through and underline every phrase in Christ, in him, through him, from him. That new relationship we now have because of what Christ has done, let that wash over you and penetrate how you actually think about yourself. To walk worthy means we have to first understand that calling. And chapter one, verses three to 14 captures that calling. Secondly, and as we look at four through six, means we have to obey. There's an effort involved, and not just memorizing and meditating, but real obedience. We're gonna get into some very specific commands that's talking about putting off sin and putting on righteousness. Just because we don't feel like it doesn't mean we don't do it. No, there's an obedience that helps change our calling. Something else we could consider as we think about walking worthy. What are your commitments? How have you settled for a life less worthy than one God has called you to? We do this constantly. Now, if you're not a Christian, I want to back up here, and I want us to see that we're called to walk worthy of the calling. If you're not a Christian, this is an internal Christian conversation right now. And I want you to hear something that's assumed to what Paul's saying that is oftentimes misunderstood by non-Christians. Paul doesn't say, walk worthy so that you can be called. Paul, nor anywhere in the Bible, doesn't say, clean yourself up enough so that God would call you. It's never communicated. You have to be good enough to be brought into God's family and to be loved by God. No, it's the exact opposite. God loves us at our worst. God loves us while we're sinners. You don't clean yourself up to come to Christ. No, you recognize, I need to be clean, and I can't do it myself. I have this, what the Bible calls sin. I can't control it. It continually enslaves me. It continually overpowers me. You recognize it's destructive and you call out, Christ save me. You believe that Christ came to live the life you could not. He died on the cross to forgive you of those sins and to free you from his power, to free you from the destruction and the eternal destruction that it's going to bring. You believe and you're called. Then you obey. I want to apologize on behalf of all Christians that we too often misrepresent this. This is what God's Word makes clear. Christian, I want you to see how universal this truth is. You can look at two other epistles of letters of Paul. If you turn to Romans 12, that's on page 948, We're here in this transition where Paul's moving us from doctrine to duty or to belief, to practice. And Romans 12 is a similar transition. And I want you to hear as we think about Ephesians and Romans and Colossians, they all have a similar theme or similar themes. There's a call to deny yourself and commit to other believers. Really, it's committing to other believers by denying yourself for the glory of God. Listen to Romans 12. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith. If service in our serving. The one who teaches in his teaching. The one who exhorts in his exhortation. The one who contributes in his generosity. The one who leads with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine. Abore what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Contribute to the needs of the saints. And seek to show hospitality. We see there after this 11 chapters of doctrine, Paul transitions to sacrifice. Pouring yourself out for the sake of others. You can go to Colossians. On page 984, the book right after Ephesians. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ who is your life appears, then you also appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all in all. put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Read back over Ephesians 4 and look at Colossians 3 in just the section we've read. Paul is giving the same message because as Christians we need to hear the same truth over and over again. So we're called to walk worthy of the great calling. And notice what comes next. I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. So we're called to walk worthy. And then notice what's next. Verse two. With all humility. We're called to walk worthy of the calling, we're called to walk worthy with all humility. Now the key word here is all. It's a pretty daunting word here. All complete. It's an interesting qualifier because it immediately challenges that we're humble enough. It doesn't say occasional, or convenient, or some, It's daunting because it says, with complete and absolute humility and gentleness. This is a high calling that truly feels impossible. But it's a high calling because the God we're called to worship is worthy. How dare we say we're going to give some or determine where we're going to give partial humility and gentleness. All complete We all fall short of this, and we all are called to strive more. Not for partial worship, but for the full worship. Now what does it mean to strive, to walk in all humility? Humility needs to be defined because it's too often understood that someone's humble if they just speak negatively of themselves. That's not necessarily what humility is. I wanna say it has more to do with just actually viewing yourself properly, having a right understanding. Because there's actually two ways we can have pride. There's a pride of self-pity, and there's a pride of self-pomp. These are two ways that pride demonstrates themselves. We usually think of the person who's always boasting, but self-pity is also a form of pride. No, we need to realize that God has made us in his image. There's a true value about a human being. Christ has purchased us with his own precious blood. There's a great value for the Christian. We have gifts, we have blessings. Yes, sin and failures are real. We see them and we face them and we confess them with confidence. Humility is seeing yourself in light of God, rightly. Secondly, I want you to see that humility is, by definition, a relational thing. Humility has to do with how we view ourselves in light of God and others. Do we boast of our glory or of God's? Do we consider others more important than ourselves? Now, when Paul begins this with all humility, in our culture, we say, that's good. We have an esteem for humility in our culture. But that's because our culture has a lot of borrowed capital from Christianity. The Roman culture saw humility as a derogatory idea. To be humble is a negative thing in the Roman culture because they wanted men who were confident, strong, and self-reliant. That was the ideal man. Now let's be honest. The Romans are just more honest about what we really want. We want to have this kind of mentality. We want to be confident, strong, and self-reliant. We should just know we're not. Humility is really found when we have a confidence in God, not ourselves. It's not a lack of confidence. It's putting your confidence in the right place in the right person. Humility is recognizing that we can rely upon God, not ourselves. Humility is using our lives to point others to Christ, not our own glory. Humility is giving God the glory for anything good and taking responsibility for everything bad. One of the great church fathers, Augustine, he says humility is the soil for all other Christian virtues. Because it makes you moldable, teachable. It's a soil that all the other virtues grow in. Or he calls it the foundation for which the Christian structure builds up with the other virtues. If one does not have the humility, they don't have the teachability. So Paul here calls us to walk worthy. And the first thing he wants to see is it's all humility. It's not partial humility. It's not our chosen ways of being humble. No, it's all. And I believe the word all qualifies the next word. Walk worthy with all gentleness. Walk worthy with all gentleness. It makes sense. Humility leads to kindness. Someone who cares, someone who desires the well-being of others. Now gentleness doesn't mean there's not hard words. It just means that when we speak, we're doing so, as Paul's going to say later, in love. It means we're seeking to build up. Another word for the word gentleness is meekness. And too often we think of meekness, we think of somebody who's easily run over. who's a doormat, that's not meekness at all. Meekness is someone who is strong. It's someone who has a strong commitment and a strong confidence in God who's willing to self-sacrifice, who's willing to exercise self-control, who's willing to be taken advantage of because they know that their father is good. Meekness is not weakness. It's strength in God. It's a confidence that God is always good. I want us to see something. Paul is making a universal call to the entire church. Walk in a worthy manner with all humility and all gentleness. This is something we're all called to strive for. So how do we do it? Now, it may be you want to change your New Year's resolution. What if somebody came up to you and said, my New Year's resolution is to be the humblest. I'm going to be the most humble this year. You hear the irony there, right? There's a little bit of boasting, isn't it? There's a little bit of overconfidence. That's what's kind of odd about these particular virtues. You don't actually accomplish them by pursuing them in themselves. The way we accomplish these, and we're talking about character. We're not talking about merely behavior change. We're not talking about just changing our diet or our exercise or our routine. We're talking about heart character change. We're talking about changing posture and disposition and thoughts and desires. The only way this kind of change takes place is being changed by God. The only way we grow in humility and gentleness is by pursuing Christ. And really the only outcome for a Christian is to grow in humility and gentleness as we approach the cross where we see that our sin was so bad Christ had to suffer for us. The only way we could possibly grow is in gentleness as we see Christ dying and taking punishment for us and how he's cared for us. has been patient with us. Paul is not assuming that this is anyone's natural state. He's actually assuming we need this exhortation, but he's also assuming that growth will happen. As we continue, we're called to walk worthy of the calling, with all humility and all gentleness, and if this wasn't already somewhat daunting, with patience. Again, it seems as if he already understands we don't like waiting. Now, I dare say, and I realize I can't assert this with 100% confidence, but something tells me we're a lot more impatient than the audience Paul's writing to. I mean, think about it. We get upset when we can't download a website from across the world that gives information from all over the world in an instance. Right? You see that little circle? It frustrates you or the hourglass? Think about how impatient we are. We don't like waiting. And this patience, it's tied to bearing with one another. There's a patience that's related to other people. Another word for patience here is long-suffering. There's a perseverance. There's a commitment to not quitting. There should be a desire that we see change, but we also need to see that change comes slowly. Comes slowly in us, comes slowly in others. That's where humility and gentleness and patience all really come together. Patience is oftentimes long-suffering. Because we may not see what God's doing, but we just simply have to trust God is at work. We're willing to wait. One of the challenges as we think about humility, gentleness, and patience, we should pray, God, give us the wisdom to diagnose ourselves. Give us the humility to actually go and ask others, how am I working out and how am I growing in humility, gentleness, and patience? I want us to see that we're all should be growing, that none of us have accomplished all. At the same time, I want us to see that these three character traits, say a lot about us, but they say a lot about how we view God. Our humility grows as we understand that it's all about God and his glory, not about us. Our gentleness says a lot about how we view God. Are we harsh in a way that shows that we really haven't taken in the weight of how good and merciful God has been? Are we impatient, thinking that we need to be in control and God needs to hurry his plan up? These three characteristics, I think, say a lot about our relationship to God, how we view God. We continue, walk worthy of the calling, walk worthy of all humility, walk worthy of gentleness, walk worthy of patience, walk worthy bearing with one another in love. If you wanna study the church, one of the best ways you can do that is go and just look up all the one another passages. We heard a number of them in Colossians and Romans and even here now. There's a one anotherness, there's a striving for mutual growth and loving one another, serving one another, caring for one another, bearing with one another. I want us to see something in this particular command that is somewhat challenging and somewhat comforting. Paul says to bear with one another. What does that imply? People are kind of difficult. People are difficult. But believers can be difficult. It's amazing if you think about all our technological advances in recent times. They're designed to keep you from having to deal with people. How do you buy gas? You don't go in and talk to anybody anymore, do you? You can travel, eat, and work without ever having to see somebody if you do it right, or do it the way our culture tells you to do it. All our technological advances are keeping you from having to put up with people, which is actually another way of translating this. I was reading an article, the most enjoyable jobs, they all had to do with computers, people who work on computers. Put up with one another. This is funny because it's real. People are difficult. And the good news here is we're difficult. People actually have to put up with us. Notice it doesn't say put up with the difficult people. It says put up with one another. It includes us. It's encouraging in that way. We have to realize the church is not a gathering of shiny, happy people. It's people with rough edges. It's people who can be selfish. It's people who can be self-righteous. It's people who can be insecure and insensitive. We're called to bear with one another, and this is the key qualifier, in love. Now we all feel the reality that bearing with one another is real and difficult. But in love is the way that you do it specifically as Christians because there's a way we could bear with one another by murmuring and grumbling under our breath as we just bore with someone. In love means that we don't murmur, we love, we pursue. Bearing with one another doesn't mean we stand off when things are difficult. No, it means we posture ourselves to move toward. Let's just read what Paul says about love in 1 Corinthians 13 regarding the church. 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. Love isn't a feeling here, as what Paul describes. It's a promise-keeping commitment. Love desires the good of those who are difficult. So let me walk through three ways in which I want to encourage us not to bear with one another. Do not bear with one another over social media. Completely unhelpful. If I see somebody who appears to be airing their grievances on social media or Facebook, I unfollow them. I'm down to like 15 people I follow right now, and half of them are non-Christians from high school. To take your grievance and want to air it publicly, it's just gross. Secondly, maybe a little more pointed and maybe a little more precise here, don't use email. You can't control tone. Trying to communicate without that face-to-face in a way that that's bearing or correcting is unhelpful. Thirdly and important, don't gather a holy huddle. When there's a difficulty, Jesus says to immediately go to that person. Not to gather people to help you see if it's real or not. That's just giving more room for the devil to work. No, he says go and speak to that brother. Two things to do. Proactively posture yourself toward them. Love makes you vulnerable, that's what it does. Whenever somebody is edgy or difficult, we wanna kinda keep a distance, that's exactly what Paul's saying not to do here. Don't grow a distance, posture yourselves towards them. Yes, it's going to feel vulnerable, but that's what love is. Secondly, the most important thing you can do is pray. If there's a bearing with one another that's difficult, prayer is the power of God that changes you and them. One of the ways that we're going to only obey this commandment, to only really see the fruit of it, again, is if we go back and we consider that calling. We're considering that the person that we may have difficulty with, they're in Christ with us. They're blessed by the same Father with the same spiritual blessings, and that unity, that connection is more important than whatever's rubbing us the wrong way. Finally, verses three to six, the last qualifier, the last way here that Paul declares that we're to walk worthy, verse three, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now this is an action related to all the others. Unity is the goal here as we're humbly and gently and patiently bearing one another. This isn't completely different, but I also want us to see Paul doesn't say create unity It's maintained There's already been a unity because the father that we see there in verse 4 or verse 6 one God who's overall He's called us and blessed us. There's one Lord verse 5. There's one commitment a declaration of faith and there's one spirit and There's already a unity. There's already a bond of peace that God has created. We're merely called to maintain it. We're called to be peacemakers. So we will be sons of God. Now, let me try to exemplify this. I want to let you know, I am a committed soup slurper. I believe the way soup is supposed to be consumed is by slurping. That's not a confession, it's an assertion. Soup is hot. Slurping allows the full liquid to roll over the palate so it doesn't hit you all at once with all the heat. More so if it's good soup. It's full of flavor, and it rolls over the whole tongue, hitting every taste bud. I'm committed, with more conviction than necessary, I admit that, to slurping soup. Mrs. Goat is a very committed anti-slurper. She's so committed, she's raised two anti-slurpers and is working on the third. And there's a now declared rule at the house where I sit at the head of the table, that if you slurp, you sit outside. Now, soup is a hot meal. It's normally served when it's cold outside. All right. I am committed to slurping soup. I do believe it's the best way to consume it. But my wife can't sit at the same table as someone who slurps. I can choose. my own personal preference in how I want to consume, or I can choose to enjoy the person at the other side of the table. Now that may feel like a silly example, but it's real. Think about it. Here we are, we're at a table, we're supposed to be enjoying this table together, rejoicing in all the blessings, but think about all the things that distract us when we're not prioritizing Christ We're not prioritizing our brother or sister so that we can enjoy it with them. It's typically something more serious, but sometimes it's something as silly as saying, I want to slurp my soup. We're called to maintain the unity by denying ourselves. Now Paul's gonna go through a long list of things you put off, like malice and anger and lying and stealing and adultery. He's gonna put off all those things. You're putting on righteousness, but there's also some matter of considering others more important than yourself. That's how we maintain unity. As we look at this passage, we see there's a triune structure in verses four to six. The unity we have, as we read earlier in John 17, that's a prayer of Jesus, his last prayer recorded before he goes to the cross, and he's praying that we as a church would be one, as he and the Father is one. Our unity is not one that we create with our rules, our unity is one that's given to us by the one God who blesses us with every spiritual blessing. That the one Savior who poured out his life, who died for us to forgive us of our sins, the one Spirit that indwelled us to seal this together. There's not different spirits indwelling each of us. There's one. There's one church with many members that are working together. Again, I want to commend you, church. It has been overwhelming to see how the body, the members, have sought to assume charity, to initiate and want to give charity upon charity in the midst of difficulties. It's been encouraging to see how so many members have cared for one another in great trials in their own families this year. Not just saying I wanna pray for you, but truly sacrificing and walking with one another. That's maintaining the unity, that's bearing with one another, that's using all humility and gentleness to walk worthy. We as a church, should be striving so that every member, as chapter four ends, the next sermon we'll focus on, every member is equipped, working properly, so that the whole body grows up into Christ, her head. Will you pray with me?