Turn back to Ephesians chapter
4. Ephesians chapter 4. The title of this message is,
Walk worthy of your calling. Walk worthy of your calling. Consider who called you, and
walk worthy of Him. The Scripture says, the just
shall live by faith. And Paul gives us in these last
three chapters, the life of grace. The life of grace. The walk of
grace. In the first three chapters,
Paul established what God has done for us In the Lord Jesus
Christ, even before the foundation of the world, He has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings. He has established the doctrines,
what we call the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of the gospel,
how God saves sinners, how God can be a just God and a Savior.
We see that in these doctrines. And we must have them. We must
have them. It's very important. It's very
important. that we understand that salvation
starts with God. It starts with God. What God has done for us in Christ. It's very important that we understand
that salvation is of the Lord from start to finish. That's
very important. The foundation must be laid before
the house can be built. And that's what Paul did in the
first three chapters. He built the foundation. He laid the foundation.
And he laid that foundation in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the foundation. Now in the last three chapter
of this epistle, Paul deals with the believer's walk. And this
is important, this is so important to me. This is so important. And this is what really, really
impresses me as I get older and this point in my life is, And
often in prayer, often in prayer, I pray, Lord, don't let me bring
reproach on your name by anything I say or do. Protect your name. I couldn't tell you how many
times I've asked the Lord, protect your name, because I know if
you leave me to myself, I'll mess it up. I will, I'll mess
it up. And so Paul deals with the believer's
walk. He deals with our relationship
with one another in the body of Christ. He deals with our
relationship in the community, the place we work, the home we
live in. Paul deals with that. And he deals with it in the next
three chapters. Now Paul, back in chapter 3, Paul wrote about
the inclusion of the Gentiles into the church, the body of
Christ, and he knew the natural enmity that was between Jews
and Gentiles. He knew that natural enmity that
was there. He knew the natural prejudice
that's in the old man that's still in us. It's still there.
We have to deal with it. We still have that old nature
in us, and it wants to dominate, and it's ugly. It's ugly. There's nothing about me by nature
that's pretty. Just read the Word of God carefully,
and it never paints a good picture of the flesh, does it? None good,
no, not one. But wait a minute. It doesn't
wait a minute. There's no wait a minute. It does not paint a
good picture of humanity by nature. Nowhere in the Word of God does
it paint a good picture. But Paul also knew that he was
writing to Gentiles who had lived after the dictates of the flesh.
You have to realize they lived pretty much like they wanted
to live. They pretty much lived just an immoral life. Pretty
much anything went with them. And now, listen, now things are
different. You are sons of God, He's telling
them. You are sons of God. You're not your own. You're not
the same. You're a new creation in Jesus
Christ. You have a new life. And you
have a new way of living. You have a new way of living.
And this is what the next three chapters deal with. and they
are just as important as the first three chapters. Now, He
gives us here in verse 1, He gives us, what He really has
given us is how free people are to live. You know, if you've
been in bondage all your life and all of a sudden you're set
free, it's like, how do we live? Well, He tells us here. He really
gives us the life of grace in the soul. And He says in verse
1, I therefore, because of all of the aforementioned, of the
doctrines of grace and what God's done for us, I therefore..."
And he speaks of himself and identifies himself as the prisoner
of the Lord. And he's not complaining. He's
not complaining that he's in prison. He's not complaining
that he's a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's stating that
he's not his own. and he's not ashamed to be called
a prisoner of Christ. He's gonna say here to deal with
each other in lowliness and meekness, he's the example. He's showing
himself here as an example. He calls himself the prisoner
of Christ. I'm not my own, I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm
not a prisoner of Rome, I'm a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's
a good question. Here's a good question for me
and for you. Whose prisoner are you? Whose
prisoner are you? You're not free. You're not just,
you're not out there on an island by yourself. You belong to someone. You belong to either Christ or
you belong to this world and Satan. I'm a prisoner of Christ, are
you? I'm a willing bond slave of Jesus Christ. I'm glad to
be His. I'm glad to be His servant this
morning. I'm His servant. People don't
like to be called that in this day, do they? They don't want
to be called a servant. Don't call me a servant. One
man I knew years ago, he said, I don't call them. I call them
associates. I don't call them employees. Well, call them what you want.
They are servants. I might be getting paid, but
I'm a servant. I serve the company I work for.
I serve them. I serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm His servant. And so Paul entreats them here
as a prisoner of Christ, as a servant of Christ, as a bond slave of
Christ, to walk. This is your life. This is your
life. This is your daily life. Enoch
walked with God on Sunday. Every day. I walk with God every
day. I walk with Him every day. You
walk, if you're His, you walk with Him every day. It's a walk
with God. Think about that. It's a walk
with God. Walk worthy of the calling, the
vocation. That word vocation there means
calling. walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are called." In
other words, walk the talk. I started to title this message,
Walk the Talk. You say God has saved you by
His grace? Then demonstrate that grace in
your walk, in your talk, your conversation, your associates,
the people you associate with. Walk that talk. Grace in, grace out. Right? If it's in, it's out. It comes out. I heard Henry in a message I
was listening to here a few days ago. He said this in the message. He said, it upsets me when people
talk of the sovereignty of God and then complain when things
don't go their way. He said, that just upsets me. We talk about God's sovereignty.
We talk about all things are of God, that this is of God.
And then we get upset and mad. He said, that's just upsetting. Now, it's either of God or it's
not. Either God is sovereign or He's not. And what I need
to do is grow up. I need to grow up in Christ.
I need to mature in Christ. and accept and receive and acknowledge
and realize this is of God. It's of God. And if we realize that, and we
really believe that, then we need to live that. Our wall says more about our
faith than what we claim to believe. You know that? You and I are an open book. Paul
called the Thessalonians, he said, you're our epistle. Known
and read of all men. People read you. You're our epistle. Known and read. People read you. We are a walking epistle of Christ,
aren't we? We really are. Now this walk
is a walk worthy of the calling wherewith you've been called.
It's worthy of the one who's called you. How has God called you? He called
you effectually. He called you effectually. He
called you to Himself. You came to the Lord, didn't
you? Because He effectually called you. It's like when He called
Samuel. Remember Samuel was a young boy?
And he was standing there with Eli. And the Lord called him
and he went and he said to Eli, he said, here I am. He said,
I didn't call you. He went back to bed and the Lord called him
again and he got up and went to Eli and he said, here I am. He said, I didn't call you. He
said, now the next time that you hear that voice, I'm paraphrasing,
next time you hear that call, you say, here I am, Lord. And
he did. And then the third time the Lord called him, he said,
here am I. And the Lord called that boy. And when the Lord calls
His people, He calls them by His Spirit effectually, and they
answer that call. They come. They can't resist
it. We call it the irresistible call. It draws you. It calls you. You feel it. It pulls you toward Him. It pulls you to Him. It's an effectual call. It's
a holy call because He's called you out of sin. He's called you
out of sin to holiness. It's a present call. And listen,
it's a continual call. Listen to this. Worthy of the
calling wherewith you are called. It's a continual call. God is
continually calling us to Himself. That's why you're here this morning.
That's why you're here. You're here. You want to be here.
You desire to be here. God's given you a desire to be
here. He's given you the ability to
be here. But you know, God's called you here this morning.
God called the sheep this morning. There are sheep here this morning.
God has called the sheep here this morning to hear the shepherd's
voice. And you've heard his voice and
a stranger you'll not follow. You didn't want to go someplace
else this morning. You wanted to come here and you wanted to
hear the shepherd's voice because he's calling you. He's called
you and He's calling you. It's continual, it's present. And then listen, it's a call,
listen, it's a call to a new life. It's calling you out of
darkness into light. It's calling you out of that
old life to the new life. Listen to Romans 6.4, Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life. For over 40 some years,
I have been walking a new life. It's a new life. I've not gone
back to that old life. I'm not saying I haven't sinned,
or I haven't even looked back a time or two. You know you have,
and I have. We have to fight that, because
that old nature likes to go out at night. He does. He still wants
to go out and party. That old nature's still there. But you've been called to a new
life. It's a new life, newness of life. Paul said this in Romans
6, Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ. I'm alive unto God. You are alive
unto God, where in one time we were dead in trespasses and sins. We are alive to God. We think
upon God. There was a time I never, God
never crossed my mind. Jesus Christ never crossed my
mind in any way, shape, or form. There's not a day, there's not
a day that I don't think of the Lord,
that I don't think upon God. There's not a day that doesn't
happen. You can say that. You who believe, there's not
a day that the Lord doesn't cross your mind. That's because you're alive under
God. If you go out of this room and you don't think of God all
week, you're dead. Dead people don't think. Living
people think. And the very fact that I think
upon God encourages me. It gives me hope. The fact that
this wretched man, this wretched human being actually thinks upon
God and have good thoughts of God. That's good news. And this calling
is a high calling, it's of God, it's a holy calling, it's a heavenly
calling. It's a heavenly calling. Now I want you to look in verse
two. Note the character and attitude that Paul tells us to walk in
and tells us to promote this unity. He says here, let me go
back to verse one here. Therefore, I therefore, the prisoner
of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation,
the calling wherewith you are called with all lowliness, all
low, as low as you can get, as low as you can get. When you think of the most, the
worst person you can think of, The worst person you can think
of. Do you come to mind first? Do you? Job said, I abhor myself. God
called him a perfect man. But Job didn't call himself a
perfect man. He said, I abhor myself. It's that cloth and ashes.
With all lowliness and meekness, this is more than lip service.
This is heart service. If God ever really lays us in
the dust, this is the attitude, this is our attitude, and it's
the attitude of our Lord, who was meek and what? Lonely, wasn't
He? You want to be like Christ, every
believer here, every believer here, I know this, you want to
be like your Lord. You want to. Well, it starts
right here, meek and lonely. Meek and lowly. You can't talk
about anybody if you're really meek and lowly. It's hard to
look down on anybody when you're all the way at the bottom. If
you're laying on the bottom, the only thing you can do is
look up. You can't look down on anyone. Meek and lowly, with
long-suffering forbearing one another. It starts here, meek
and lowly. Pride and arrogance is not to
be found in the believer's walk. You see, pride and arrogance
causes division, strife. It causes backbiting. Lowliness
and meekness never, ever cause such things. You know that? They
never cause such things. Meek and lowly is how our Lord
walked. He made Himself of no reputation.
The only person who has ever walked on this earth that had
a right to make themselves of a reputation, it was the Lord
Jesus Christ, and He didn't do it. He didn't do it. And this being so, we are to
walk even as He walked. It says in Philippians 2.3, Let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness
of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Every one of you, and I know
this is so, every one of you are better than me. You are. Paul said he was the least of
the saints, didn't he? God gave him more revelation
than He did any of the other apostles. And he said, I'm the
least of the saints. He remembered what he did there
at Stevens, when they were stoning Stevens. He remembered what he
did to the church. He said, I'm the least. And he
meant it. That wasn't just a statement
he made, and it made him sound real pious. He meant that. This lowliness and meekness is
a humble opinion of oneself and a high opinion of everyone else. It's a high opinion of everyone
else. And then long-suffering, or let's
reverse that, it's suffering long. Suffering long. Lord, they said, Lord, how often
should I forgive my brother? Seven times. Give me a limit
here. You know, if seven times, then
the eighth time I can reach out there and get him. Seven times,
he said, no, seven times, seven times seven, you know, what he
did, he gave us a definite number for an indefinite number. 70
times seven, 70 times seven. As often as you want God to forgive
you, you forgive your brother. However many, how many times
you want God to forgive you every time you ask? Every time you ask. Here's amazing grace. God has
already forgiven us before we ask. He's the one who moves us
to ask. He moves us to ask for forgiveness because he's already
forgiven. And we should already have a
forgiving spirit before a brother ever asked us to forgive him.
The forgiveness already should have happened. It should have
already happened. Lord, make us like this. Give me this. Give
me, this is what I want. If you believe the gospel, you
believe the gospel, you believe the doctrines, you believe the
right doctrines, God's not gonna save you by a lie. You believe
the truth. This is where I need work. This
is where I need work. I need it here. This is what
I need. And Paul's writing to the, he's
writing to some people who were heathens, pagans, living in debauchery,
living in idolatry, living in fornication, living in adultery,
living in every way you can live in. And now they got a new life,
a new life and a new way of life. And you'd think their neighbors
and their friends didn't notice a difference. It's like they
had to be astounded at the difference because they knew how they used
to live and what they used to do. Oh, long suffering, long suffering
with each other. Suffer long with each other and
with all men. Forbearing one another in love,
to forbear is to hold up, sustain and support one another and do
it in love, not what I'm supposed to do. No, it's what you love
to do. Just like you would your children. You would do like you
would your children. Well, do this, first of all,
let me say this. Do it in love, that love that's
spoken of there in 1 Corinthians 13. Love bears all things. This is where I want to grow.
This is where I want us to grow. Right here where Paul's, what
he's talking about right here, what he's writing about. This
is where I want to grow. I can't grow in election. I can't grow
in particular redemption. It is what it is. God chose a
multitude of sinners to save and gave them to Christ. Christ
died for them. But I sure can't grow in love to you. I can grow
in love to God. I can grow in the fruit of the
Spirit, love, kindness, joy, peace, longsuffering. And listen here, the nature of
this unity is spiritual. He's talking about a spiritual
union here, not a fleshly union, it's spiritual. This unity, it's
not with the world, you know, go along to get along. That's
not what he's talking about. He's talking about here. He's
talking here to believers. He's writing to believers. Endeavor. Endeavoring. That word means
striving. Striving. Because we have to
strive at this. There's so much sin in us, we
have to strive at it. It's like we have to labor to rest. That's
what it tells us in Hebrews. Labor to rest. We have to lay...
You say, that sounds like a paradox, isn't it? Well, we have to. We
have to labor to rest. Endeavoring to keep the unity,
to keep it. It's not to get it. We have it
by the Spirit of God. We have this unity by the Spirit
of God, but we have to strive to keep this unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. Strive to keep the harmony. Satan
Boy, I tell you, Satan works on every angle. He'll take every
ounce of weakness that he knows you have, I have, you have, and
you have, and you have, and he tries to work it all against
us. Constantly. Constantly. He knows my pet peeves,
and he knows your pet peeves, and he tries to bring it out
of us to break that unity of the Spirit. It's not breaking
the doctrine. We don't break from the doctrine.
Satan's not coming here. He's not going to come in here
and stand in his pulpit and say, God didn't elect the people.
You wouldn't stand for that, would you? But just a little
aggravation of this or that, next thing you know, you're aggravated
with one another. It's like a fly in the ointment
of worship. And He's telling us here to strive
to keep this unity, be on guard, protect this harmony that we
have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Protect it. And because of sin,
we have to strive. It's not automatic. It's not
automatic. We have to work at this. Or Paul
would not say, endeavor to do it, endeavor to keep it. Now
there are seven things I'm going to give you here briefly in verses
3 and 6. There are seven things we have
in common and are good reasons for us to keep this unity. We
have no reason for division, period. If it's not over the
gospel, we have no reason to divide, to have division, bickering,
and that kind of stuff, and there's no reason for it. And so he says
here in verse 4, In 3 and 4, let me look here, "...endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace." In verse
4, there's one body. There are not two separate bodies,
one being Jews and the other being Gentiles, which at that
time they considered themselves to be totally separate. There's
only one. Paul gave us in chapter 3 the
mystery that had been hid from ages, and that's the inclusion
of the Gentiles into the body of Christ. There's not two bodies,
there's only one. It's the church. It's the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's made up of all believers
from all ages, from all over this earth. There's only one
body. That's all. Made up of the saints above and
the saints below. Abraham is my brother. David
is my brother. Whomever God saves is my brother. Whatever nationality they are
of, that nationality is gone. In Christ it's gone. There's
no nationalities. Either bond or free, Greek to
Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. Christ is all and then
all. We're one. That's all gone. Each member
of the body of Christ is an organ. An eye, an ear, And all the members
serve each other. I read somewhere this morning,
someone said that as the body serves the soul, that's me, I
am the soul, I'm the living soul. And all the members of this body
serve me. And so all the members of Christ,
of His body, serve Him. We don't serve ourselves, we
serve Him. We serve him. And how do we do
that? In serving each other, looking
after each other, taking care of each other. You know, this
morning, my hands, my hands put my clothes on. You know, my leg
moved and I pulled my pants up and put my shirt on and my body,
my hands, all these members were working to clothe this body that
I could come here this morning. And all they did was serve my
head We serve Christ. And serving Him, we serve one
another. There's only one body. One body. There's not many bodies. There's
just one. And there's only one Spirit. There's only one Holy
Spirit. The church is filled, guided, and taught by one Spirit,
the Spirit of God. The same Spirit that's in me
and you. is the same Spirit that's in
the church in Lexington, the church in Virginia, the church
in Kingsport, the church in Mexico, the church in Africa or China
or wherever it is. You know that same Spirit is
at work this morning? Same Spirit. He's here and He's there. How
can He do that? Because He's God. It's the Spirit
of God. And that same Spirit that is
moving us this morning, that's enabling me to preach, is enabling
all preachers this morning who stand to preach. He's enabling
you to worship, you to listen. Well, He's enabling them to this
morning also. Same Spirit. So how can we be
at odds with one another when we are of one Spirit? Because
we're sure not of Him. The Holy Spirit's not arguing
one point from me, then over another one, He's arguing another
point. No, no, no. Somebody's wrong. Somebody's wrong. There's only one Holy Spirit.
It says in 1 Corinthians 12, 4, Now there are diversities
of gifts, but the same. Same Spirit. Even as you are
called in one hope of your calling, all have the same hope, Whatever
hope you have in Christ, I do too. Whoever the believer is on the
other side of this globe has the same hope that you and I
have right now. Has the same hope. Hope to be
with Christ, hope to be accepted, hope to be saved from our sins,
hope to be in glory. An expectation. You're called even as you're
called in one expectation of your calling. And there's only
one Lord, in verse 5, one Lord Jesus Christ. There's not many,
there's only one. Only one. There's one Lord over
all God's kingdom, and it's the same Christ. Same one. One faith. There's only one faith. You ever have anybody ask you,
what faith are you of? Well, there's only one, the faith
that God's elect. There's only one faith. There's
not many, there's a lot of false faith, there's many of them,
but there's only one true faith. It's of God, it's the gift of
God, it's the work of God, and it's in Christ. There's different degrees of
faith, but there's only one faith. And there's only one baptism.
There's only one baptism by the Holy Spirit into the body of
Christ. And there's only one baptism that the Word of God
recognizes, and that's by immersion. It's water baptism. There's only
one baptism. We're not sprinkling. We're not
sprinkling. We are immersed underwater, which
shows that death, burial... When you bury somebody, you don't
sprinkle dirt on their face. Do you? You put them in a grave
and you put the dirt over them. Put the dirt over that body. There's only one baptism. And
in verse 6, there's only one God and Father of all. Now think
about this. And this keeps unity. Here's
what keeps unity. We have one Lord, we have one
Spirit, we have one God and Father. If God has saved you and God
has saved me, He's our Father. We only have one Father. We only
have one Father. One God and Father of all who
is above all. There's none compared to Him.
And He's through all and in you all. You know the Father is in
you? The Father is in you. Paul is telling us to dwell together,
to dwell together in unity, to strive to keep the unity of the
Spirit because we have one faith, one Lord, one hope, one baptism,
one God and Father of all. Turn over to John 17. And I'll wind this up. Look in verse 20. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.
Which means his whole intercessory prayer applies to me too. And
you too who believe, it applies to us. It doesn't just apply
to the apostles. It applies to us. That they all may be one. as thou, Father, art in me, I
in thee, and that they also may be one in us. They're one in
us, they're united in us, that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given
them, that they may be one, even as we are one. The gospel promotes unity among
the brethren, doesn't it, brothers and sisters? It promotes unity
among the brothers and among God's family, among God's family. Listen to this, listen to this
verse, Psalm 133.1. Behold, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Strive, strive, work at it to
keep the unity. And listen, my working at it
begins with me. I'm not working at it beginning
with you. Say, well, I need to talk to so-and-so or work on
it. No, I need to work on me. The
unity starts with me, working on me. Walk. a walk worthy of the calling
wherein you are called.