Introduction
I got my
hair cut on Monday and after I had started getting my hair cut a fellow came
and sat in the chair next to me. When the hair dresser asked how he wanted his
hair cut he said that he wanted a good hair cut, fairly short. Then he
explained that he was starting a new job the next day. As far as I could
understand he must have been a university student and the job was with a
financial firm, probably as part of his education. As I heard this
conversation, I thought it was interesting that he understood that there can't
be a disconnect between his appearance and the professionalism required of the
job he was taking.
Over the
last few months, we have been talking about all that Christ has done for us,
about the message we have which is worth proclaiming and about the call from
God we have to proclaim that message. Ephesians 4:1 ,2
teaches us that there cannot be a disconnect between what we have received and
what we have been called to and the way we live our lives. These verses are
addressed to all of us as the church. The words in these verses are plural
which means that they are not written so much to any one individual, but rather
to each individual as they make up the body of Christ, the church.
I. The Urgency of the Appeal
As Paul
addresses the Ephesian church in this regard there is a definite urgency to
what he is saying.
The urgency
comes out in his comment that he is a "prisoner in the Lord." This comment
seems somewhat out of place and we wonder why he mentions that he is a prisoner
at this point in his teaching.
From other
things which Paul has written we know that he saw himself as a prisoner in
several senses of the word. There were times when he had been arrested because he
was proclaiming the gospel. At other times he writes about how he was compelled
to proclaim the gospel and perhaps at times he felt like a prisoner of the
gospel message itself. Either way, it is clear that his choice to follow Christ
was something that consumed his life. As a person who was so committed to
Christ that he was willing to be in prison or to be bound by the necessity to
proclaim the gospel, his comment lends urgency to the appeal made here because it
tells us that he spoke as one who did not follow Christ theoretically but with
a full commitment. He knew what it meant to follow Christ and he knew the cost involved
in following Christ. When he speaks in this way, he speaks with the authority
of someone who did not give advice from an ivory tower, but as someone who
lived what he was speaking about. In other words, there is credibility because
of who was making the appeal. Barth points out that "The apostle is
not pleading for compassion, but wants to point out the price he is paying –
that is, perhaps, his specific right to be heard and heeded."
The urgency is also
present in this appeal in the words which he uses to encourage them to follow
what he is teaching here. We hear the urgency in the NRSV translation which
says, "I…beg you." Other translations use different words. NIV says,
"I urge you" and NASB says, "I implore you." Whichever
translation is used, we get the idea that this is important stuff and we must
listen to it.
II. The Basis of the Appeal
The appeal
itself is, "…lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been
called." It is an appeal to remove the disconnect between who we are and
how we live.
A. Lead a Life
The appeal is an appeal to "lead a life" or
as it says in other translations, "live a life" or "walk in a
manner."
One of the key implications of leading a life is that
it must be done regularly. There is a difference between sowing a lawn and
mowing a lawn. Sowing a lawn is a project. You begin by tilling the soil, leveling
the soil, putting down the grass seed, packing the soil and harrowing in the
seeds and then watering the seeds. You keep watering the seeds until they have
grown to a certain height and become well established. At that point the
project is over. Leading a life cannot be that way. The project is never over.
Leading a life is more like mowing the lawn. Once the grass is established, it
is necessary to mow it every week or so forever. It must be done regularly. It
must be done consistently. That is what it means to "lead a life."
Some people choose to give something up for lent, like
coffee or chocolate. It is a good practice to instruct us on what it means to
do without, to make a sacrifice. Many people who do this, however, can hardly
wait until the 40 days are over so that they can have their coffee or chocolate
again. Giving up chocolate or coffee for lent is a project, not a lifestyle. A
person who gives up sugar because they are diabetic is in a completely
different situation. Their giving up something is not a project, but a
lifestyle.
What Paul is calling us to is not a project, but a
lifestyle.
B. Worthy
You know
that in mathematics, an equal sign indicates that whatever is on one side of
the sign must be equivalent to whatever is on the other side of the sign.
The word
"worthy" in this text functions like an equal sign. It tells us that
there must be equivalence between our lifestyle and the calling we have
received.
We have a
balance beam scale at home and it works something like an equal sign. When the
scale is level, which is the goal, then whatever is on one side of the scale
must be exactly the same as what is on the other side of the scale. In a
similar way, there must be a balance between our lifestyle and the calling we
have received. Wood says, "Paul is insisting that there shall be a balance
between profession and practice."
C. Of Your Calling
So the word
"worthy" functions as an equal sign or a balance scale. On one side
of the equal sign is our lifestyle – how we live every day. On the other side
of the equal sign is, as Paul says, "the calling to which you have been
called." What Paul is saying is that there is a calling upon our life and
there cannot be a disconnect between our calling and our life.
What is the calling to which we have been called? We
have already looked at that calling in considerable detail in the previous
chapters of Ephesians. There we learned, in 1:4, that God has chosen us
"to be holy and blameless before him in love." In 1:5 we learned that
we have been called to be "God's children through Jesus Christ." In
the rest of chapter 1 we learned that we have been forgiven and called to know
the mystery of His will. We have been destined to an inheritance. Chapter 2
indicates that we have been called to do good works. In chapter 3 we read that
we have been called to make known the news of the boundless riches of Christ
and to make everyone see.
From all these verses we understand that we have a
very high calling. It is a calling that puts us in the position of being
children of God. It is a calling that tells us of the blessing of having our
sins forgiven. It is a calling to become like God. It is a calling to make the message
of the gospel known to everyone.
This is a high calling, but there is a sense in which it
puzzles us. The puzzle is, "why is it necessary to be reminded to live
according to what we are? If we are forgiven children of God who have been
blessed with the greatest news in the world why do we need to be reminded to
live according to it? If we have been seated with Christ in the heavenly
realms, why do we so often fail to live like kings and instead live like
Christ's enemies? In this verse, Paul calls us to be what we are, but if this
is what we are, why does he have to call us to it?
A week ago Friday, I attended a seminar about how to
help people who live with sexual addictions. The speaker, Sy Rogers,
talked about why it is necessary to be told to live worthy of our calling. He
pointed out that God has already taken care of our guilt. He has declared that
we belong to Him and He has taken care of our future. These are all the things
which talk about what we are, our calling. He further pointed out that what God
has not yet done is to change our humanity. Temptation, weakness and desire are
still a part of our humanity and God has left it up to us to manage our
humanity. That is what makes it necessary for Paul to remind us that we must
live in a manner worthy of our calling. God has changed many important things,
but He has left us with the responsibility within the grace of having been
changed, to continue to make changes in our life. The encouraging thing is that
he has not left us alone even in the task of managing our humanity. He has
given us the grace of forgiveness when we repent after failure and He has given
us the power of the Spirit to help us manage our humanity.
Therefore,
as Paul says here, we are responsible to remove the disconnect between what we
are and how we live.
III. The Details of the Appeal
Paul does
not tell us how to manage our humanity at this point in the text, but we will
get to that later. At this point, he tells us some of the areas in which we
must manage our humanity.
The details
of the appropriate lifestyle which Paul speaks about are not legalistic nor are
they lists of rules. He does not focus on external items. Sometimes in the
church we have focused on such things as dress, hair or certain activities
which are considered worldly. Paul does not begin with such things and that
should tell us something. Not that it is wrong to make ethical decisions about
how we dress and whether or not we drink or go to movies. The problem is that
sometimes we focus on external things and ignore or even permit some of the
more important matters like how we treat each other. I have seen churches in
which there are strict guidelines about externals and I have heard about people
excommunicated for violating these externals. Yet in those same churches I have
observed church leaders gossiping, hating and manifesting power and pride. I am
glad that Paul begins with some very fundamental matters of what it means to
remove the disconnect between who we are and how we live.
A. Humility
One of the first ways in which our calling must match
our lifestyle is in the matter of humility.
Humility is often thought of as a weakness. The word
used for humility in this passage was a word that was negative in the Greek
language of the day. It suggested a weak spirit or, as Wood says, a
"groveling servility." Even today, humility is not always honored. We
are told to be strong, to stand up for our own rights and to make sure we get
what is coming to us. Yet the call to be worthy is a call to be like Jesus. One
of the most powerful passages in the New Testament describing what Jesus did is
Philippians 2:6-11 .
This passage describes one of the fundamental attitudes of Jesus by which He
accomplished what He did. It describes how he did not grasp on to being equal
with God, but chose to empty himself. He who was God chose being a servant! He
who created all things chose being human. He who was the source of life chose
to become obedient to death on a cross. So if our lifestyle is to be equivalent
to our calling, we must choose to be humble.
How is it possible to choose humility?
Choosing humility begins with our understanding of who
we are in relationship to God. If we know that God is the sovereign creator of
the universe who has made us and who has redeemed us and is over us in all
things, then we will know that we have no basis for pride.
Choosing humility is possible when we know that God
has already taken care of our belonging. If we try to grasp for position and
for recognition, we will always struggle with pride. If we know that we are
loved by God and that we belong because of Him, then we can let go of pride and
know that we have dignity and that we matter.
Our calling involves making the gospel known. Humility
is an important part of that calling. It is only as we choose to be servants to
those who are lost and need Jesus that we will be effective witnesses to the
goodness of God's grace. Humility is important in our calling because it allows
us to live by trust rather than by power and manipulation.
B. Gentleness
When we were moving, some of the boxes we moved had
signs on them that said, "Fragile, Handle with Care!" When I saw that
sign on a box, my attitude about that box changed. When I was packing it into
the truck I put it in a place where larger heavier boxes were not on top of it
and I was careful that it was not in a place where it might fall. The attitude
I had towards fragility was the attitude of gentleness.
If our lifestyle is equivalent with our calling then
gentleness must be a part of our lifestyle. The gentleness of Jesus is
described in Matthew 12:20 ,
when it says, "He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering
wick until he brings justice to victory." The gentleness of Jesus is seen
in his statement to the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I condemn
you, go and sin no more." It is seen in his acceptance of Zacchaeus and
his welcome of tax collectors and sinners.
If gentleness is a part of our lifestyle, we will
treat those who are interested in Jesus with gentleness, allowing them time to
understand. We will treat our brothers and sisters in the church with
gentleness, seeking to understand their struggles, rather than condemning them.
We will treat our work in the church with patient direction instead of power
and manipulation.
C. Patience
The importance of patience in being worthy of our
calling is pretty obvious because we know that God is patient. Exodus
34 :6Israel
We need to have patience with God and we can when we
understand that He is in Lord and loves us. We must have patience with
ourselves and we can when we understand that God is at work changing us. We need
to have patience with others and we can when we understand that God is at work
in them.
Patience is an important Christian virtue I think I am
learning quite a bit about it. Waiting for the sale of our house has been a
good opportunity to learn patience. But I still have much to learn, especially
when I get behind the wheel of a car. Chrysostom described patience as "…to
have a wide and big soul."
D. Bearing With One Another In Love
One of the most practical statements in the Bible
about living our calling is the last one that we will look at today.
"Bearing with one another in love" is so practical because it
addresses reality directly. We are called to bear with one another because God
knows that there will be something to bear. Barth writes, "The
fellow man to be loved is potentially or actually a burden – or else Paul would
not speak of 'bearing with' him 'in love.'" This
phrase recognizes that perfection will not be achieved this side of eternity –
in us or in others.
Bearing with one another is necessary because that is
what God does with us. Only twice in the Bible did people die immediately
because they sinned and that was when Ananias and Sapphira lied. All of us have
lied, been impatient, hated, gossiped and failed to live for God, but Jesus
continues to be patient with us and to give us time to change.
Bearing with one another is necessary because we are
utterly hypocritical if we do not do so. Jesus calls us not to judge one
another in Matthew 7:1ff ,
pointing out that to do so is equivalent to seeking to take a piece of sawdust
out of someone's eye when there is a log in our own.
Bearing
with one another is intensely practical because it shows that love can never be
an emotion or a theory. You have probably heard the saying, "To love the
saints above, oh that will be glory. To love the saints below, well that's
another story." Yet that is exactly where we are called to love. If we
don't learn to love the saints below, we will never know how to love the saints
above. Love for God, in Scripture is always put in the most practical and real
terms of loving the people around us. Love is never chosen in a vacuum, but
always in the practical situations of life and often in the most difficult
relationships. It is exactly in relationship to the person who is most
difficult to love that we must learn to love and must follow this teaching.
Barth says, Love is "…always specific, always costly, always a miraculous
event."
Conclusion
The message
of this text is very simple. It invites us to imagine our life as a balance
beam. On one side of the beam is the amazing and powerful blessing of all that
God has done for us in Christ. On the other side of the beam is humility,
gentleness, patience and bearing with one another in love. If the beam is not
level, we have work to do.
The
importance of doing that work is not to be taken lightly. Jesus has left us on
earth because the world sees Jesus in us, our behavior and our attitudes. As
people look at us the question is, "what are they learning about Jesus?"
This is a
great challenge and sometimes overwhelms us. We fell yesterday and we suspect
that we may fall again tomorrow. We should not let that discourage us. Sy
Rogers, the speaker I mentioned earlier, provided a great illustration about
how to think about failure. He said, when you are in a bicycle race and
somewhere during the race you crash, you don't have to move your bike to the
beginning of the race and start all over again. You pick up your bike, admit
that you have fallen and keep going. Although crashes are hard, the progress
made is not erased. As Christians trying to maintain an equivalency between our
calling and our lifestyle, we know that we will fall. But if we fall, we don't
have to start all over again. We just need to pick ourselves up, examine why we
failed and continue on from where we fell, recognizing that we have already
made much progress.
So let us
be encouraged even if we are not perfect yet. Let us keep on managing our
humanity because the call of God in our life has made us saints. May God by His
grace and in the power of His Spirit guide us to live in a way that is worthy
of the calling to which we have been called.
No comments:
Post a Comment