©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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11/23/03 |
In A Manner Worthy |
Ephesians 4:1 |
11/23/03 In A Manner Worthy
It’s been three weeks since I was last with you.
Sandee and I had a nephew getting married in Oregon.
He wanted me involved in the service,
so we took the opportunity to first stop by Petaluma, California
and see our very pregnant daughter, Joni, and her wonderful husband, Matt.
A person’s understanding of geography changes as they get older.
I didn’t realize until very recently
that Petaluma, California is on the way to and from everywhere else in the world.
Every correct routing
of any trip in or out of Alaska
will go through Petaluma.
I honestly don’t know how I had failed to realize this for so many years.
We had warm rains for a few days,
then sunny weather in the 60's,
and most of all a few great days with Matt and Joni.
When we got to Oregon
we found the full intensity of all the beauty of the fall colors once again.
I have to admit I’m not altogether pleased
with what you have done with our weather here since we left.
When Sandee and I left the temperatures were still in the 40's during the day,
and when we got home
I had to get the snow blower going for the first time in a very long time.
I’ve heard great reports of the two Sundays I missed with you.
I knew Gary and our music people would care for you well.
In fact I’ve already had several people ask me when I’m going away again
so that we can do more of what we did while I was gone.
Now, this morning we are going to once again return to our study of the book of Ephesians.
We left our study at a major turning point in the letter,
at the very end of chapter 3.
In those first three chapters
we heard Paul describing for us
some things that took place in our lives when we came to Christ,
things that it would have been impossible for us to ever anticipate on our own.
You remember the prodigal son, don’t you?
Do you remember his highest hopes
as he tried to fill his stomach
with the food he was using to feed the swine?
LUK 15:18 'I will get up and go to my father, and will
say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;
LUK 15:19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
make me as one of your hired men. "'
His highest hope was that his father
would just let him back onto the family land,
and allow him to live in the servants’ quarters,
and work in the fields with them.
When the Spirit of God is finally able
to break through all of our defenses and fears and protective barriers,
and bring us to the place where we realize
we are in desperate need of our God,
and His love,
and His forgiveness,
we are not unlike that prodigal son.
If we can just find forgiveness and peace with our God,
it would be all we hoped for and more.
But a place in the servants’ quarters
is not what the prodigal son found when he came home.
What he found was his father watching,
waiting for his return.
And when the son knelt before his father and said,'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.',
the father
responded by saying to his slaves,
'Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.'
What he expected,
what he hoped for
was in no way what he received.
And the same is true of us
when we return to our Heavenly Father.
What we hope for
is forgiveness, and some level of inner peace in our relationship with our Creator.
What we are given
is a relationship with Him
in which we become His sons and daughters forever,
a relationship in which He doesn’t just forgive us,
but a
relationship in which He raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in
the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He
might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus.
And it doesn’t stop there.
He then brings us into a relationship with both God and with one another,
a
relationship in which we are no longer strangers and aliens, but (we) are
fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being
the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing
into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom (we) also are being built together into
a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
In other words,
God has created a relationship between us and Himself
in which His Spirit now lives within each of His children
and then lives His life out through each of us on a daily basis.
We become the physical body of Jesus Christ on this earth.
And then Paul stretches our understanding one step farther
when he tells us that God has done all of this in our lives,
EPH 3:10 in order that the manifold wisdom of God might
now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the
heavenly places.
He has done what He has done
so that His redemptive and recreative work in our lives
will provide Him with the means by which
He can now display to all those who inhabit the unseen world around us
His manifold wisdom in doing all that He has done through Christ.
God’s work within us
displays to all of creation
the true nature of the Creator
as nothing else has ever done or could ever do.
Then, after presenting to us this incredible union between us and our God,
created by Him in and for us,
Paul then added the final missing piece
necessary for us to experience the living daily reality of what he has described.
And he revealed it to us in the form of a prayer.
EPH 3:14, 17-19
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father...that you... may be
able to comprehend... what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and
to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up
to all the fulness of God.
When we were in Petaluma this past week
we drove the few miles between the town and the California coast.
We were there on a beautiful day
and at one point we were standing at a lookout point
that gave us a magnificent view of a rugged section of the coastline
with the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing up and over the jagged rocks far below.
As we were leaving our lookout Sandee shared something with me
that will forever change the way I view ocean.
She said that one of her favorite authors once commented
that the ocean is an excellent illustration of God’s love for us.
For most of us,
the best we can do is to walk up to the water’s edge
and place our toes into a little bit of wetness,
a tiny touch of the love of our God for us.
But if we could just lift our eyes up and see what’s really there,
we would see His love for us stretching out beyond anything our minds could ever imagine.
...that you... may be able to comprehend... what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
And it is in response to his revelation of these incredible truths
that Paul then ends this section of his letter by proclaiming in Ephesians 3:20-21,
Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond
all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him
be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and
ever. Amen.
OK, that’s the background we need
as we move into the 4th chapter of Ephesians,
because without that background
there is no way the next words spoken by Paul
will make any sense to us whatsoever.
You see, the next words Paul writes are these,
EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...
And in that statement
he makes it clear that everything else he’s going to say to us in the rest of this letter
is based upon the assumption
that we have heard and understood who we are and how our God relates to us and lives through us on this earth.
And it is statements like this, of course,
that forever form the great divide between man-made religious systems
and the true life with Christ.
Religion is forever reading the Word of God backwards.
It starts with the second half of Paul’s Epistles,
earnestly pointing out to us all the things we should and should not do,
telling us that if we succeed in that calling
then we will become the people we should be.
God, on the other hand,
always...always...always begins His conversations with us
by telling us who we are,
by telling us who we have already become
as a result of our faith in Christ.
We are now and will forever more be His sons and daughters,
His holy ones,
His dwelling places on this earth,
His body through which He accomplishes His work and His will here and now.
Nothing we do
or do not do can ever change that.
It is a completed fact in all of creation for all of eternity.
And when He begins His conversations with us about our behavior,
the first thing He says is not, “Change your behavior!”,
the first thing He says is, “Do you know who you are? Do you remember what I have already done within you?”
Every one of Paul’s letters to us follows this same pattern when it comes to dealing with our behavior.
He always starts by reminding us who we are,
and then, from that knowledge,
he moves on to showing us how that knowledge should impact the way we live.
And it isn’t just Paul who follows this pattern.
The truth is
it is universal throughout the New Testament.
When Peter began his second letter to the people of God
in the opening verses he shared with us
those eight progressive steps of growth that God seeks to lead each of us through.
2PE 1:5-7 Now for this very reason also, applying all
diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence,
knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control,
perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness,
brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
And then, after assuring us that it is these qualities
that will result in usefulness and productivity within the family of God,
the next thing he does is to remind us of where the problem is
if we find that this growth process is not going as God intended in our lives.
He doesn’t say, “If you lack these qualities, you’re simply not trying hard enough,
and you’d really better increase your effort
so that you can deliver what’s required of you.”
He doesn’t appeal to the flesh,
he doesn’t try to stir up greater emotion-based resolve or determination within us.
Do you know what he says?
He says, 2PE
1:9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having
forgotten his purification from his former sins.
He says, “If you lack these qualities,
I know one thing for certain about you -
I know you have either forgotten or not yet seen the truth
about what God accomplished in you
as a result of your faith in Christ.
You have forgotten your purification from your former sins.
You have forgotten that you are now a holy one of God.
You have forgotten your true identity.
I do understand, of course,
why all human religious systems
aim not at the identity,
but at the flesh,
using emotion-based techniques
to attempt to stir up the flesh
through glowing testimonials from others,
or bold emotion-based challenges to God’s people to “live by faith”,
or through creating guilt feelings,
or fear of rejection by God,
or ego motivations designed to improve our appearance or standing in the religious community.
These are the only tools religion has to work with,
and when skillfully used
they do alter our performance in the short term.
But once the meetings are over,
and the music has all died away,
and those words of that speaker who seemed to make it sound so easy, so right
have all grown fuzzy in our memories,
once the pressure of the group is gone
and the emotions of the moment have passed,
we realize that nothing within us has really changed.
The Apostle Paul says it so much better than I do,
with so many fewer words.
When talking with the Colossians about the techniques of religion,
he said, “COL 2:23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
They look good,
they sound good,
but they simply do not alter the root causes from which corruption within us flows.
You see,
we will always ultimately revert back to those behavior patterns
that are consistent with our own self-perception.
It is our default setting in life,
and the only hope of true change
is rooted in the Spirit’s ability to transform our self-perception,
bringing our perception of ourselves in line
with the true recreative work God accomplished within us when we came to Him in faith.
I bet that may all sound rather confusing.
Let me simplify it.
Until we understand at the heart level who we have become in Christ
we have no hope of altering how we act.
All of which is to say
that we are not ready for the second half of Ephesians
until we have read and understood the first half.
We cannot walk in a manner worthy of our calling
unless we have first understood the calling we’ve been given,
the calling of living life seated with Christ,
a life immersed in His love,
the calling of being the physical body of Christ here on this earth.
You see, there is something potentially tremendously powerful
that God wants to accomplish within each of us,
something that, when it operates as He intends
will have a huge impact on the choices we make each day
and the way we conduct our lives in this world.
I tried to come up with an illustration
that I thought might help you better understand what I want us to see here,
and the one I’ve come up with
is not great,
but it may help.
The Lord knows that I am by nature rather slow to learn some of the most basic concepts of life with Him,
and, in His love for me,
He has at times provided me with special assistance
to help speed up the learning process.
One of the learning aids He has given me
is that of being publicly identified as a “Pastor” in a relatively small community.
Being the pastor of a local church in a small town is a fascinating experience in some ways.
I’ve been teaching the Bible here in Soldotna now
for more than 25 years.
I’ve been teaching nearly every Sunday here at PBF for over 20 years.
In that time,
for better or for worse,
I have discovered that many more people in our little community
have come to recognize me as a pastor than I am aware of,
and as such
they have come to view me as a public representative of the true nature of Christianity.
In other words,
there are far more people than I ever realized in our community
who know that I publicly claim to be a Christian.
A short while ago
I was going through the check-out line at Fred Meyers
and, when I gave my check to a clerk that I have no memory of having ever seen before,
she looked at the check,
then looked at me and said, “Oh my! You write Christian books.”
Several weeks ago
Sandee and I stopped into the Tesoro Sunday afternoon for a cup of coffee
and when the clerk behind the counter saw us come in
she said, “How was church this morning?”
To my knowledge
she has never been here on Sunday morning.
But she knows...
she knows I claim to be a Christian.
That type of thing has happened often enough in our little community
so that I have come to realize
that I simply have to behave myself everywhere I go in this town,
not because I’m trying to be somebody I’m not,
but because I want my actions to be consistent with who I really am.
I have long since forfeited the right to be anonymous.
If I have any hope of having any credibility on Sunday mornings,
all week long
I had better walk in a manner worthy of my calling.
It’s even impacted the way I drive.
Perhaps not as much as it should,
but some at least.
I know that one of the things that comes with being a preacher in a small town
is that many of those in this town
will reach their conclusions about my God
based at least in part upon their contact with me,
and who I am
must of necessity have a profound impact
on how I live and what I do,
and if it does not,
then what I say Sunday mornings
will have little or no real value to or impact on those who hear.
And there is a very similar process
that God wants to bring about
in the minds and hearts of every one of His children.
He certainly doesn’t want us all to be preachers, of course.
In fact I sometimes feel He may have more preachers than He wants already.
But He does want each of His children
to grow into a clear understanding of who we are - the literal body of Jesus Christ on this earth,
and to realize that the world around us
has every right to draw conclusions about the head of the body - Jesus Christ,
on the basis of what they see the body itself doing.
If I were to walk up to you, kick you in the shin,
and then say to you,
“Oh, so sorry about that,
but you see it wasn’t me that did that to you,
it was just my foot.
I’ve been having a terrible time with it recently,
no control over it at all,
but I assure you it’s not really me that’s doing it.
I’m really very fond of you.
I simply have not control whatsoever over this foot of mine.”,
you would certainly consider me to be a total flake.
In the same way,
those of us who are a part of the body of Christ
should never be surprised
when those around us reach conclusions about our Head, Jesus Christ,
on the basis of what they see us, as the members of His body, doing.
There simply is no other way for them to gain insights into the nature of the Head
except through the actions of the body.
It isn’t that our Lord wants us to play a part
or to pretend to be what we are not.
In truth,
He wants us to do exactly the opposite.
He wants us to understand who we are,
and to understand it in a way that then provides the motivation for the thousands of choices we make each day.
Now, I know, of course,
that this is only part of the picture.
I know that there are forces
both within us
and around us
that war against the life of Christ within us.
I know that every unresolved issue from our past
has the ability to trigger within us responses
that are completely inconsistent with our true identity in Christ.
I know that when correctly lived
our walk with Christ brings with it
a battle we must choose to recommit ourselves to every single day.
But the beginning of all successful warfare
is knowing where the battle is
and what we’re fighting for.
And when Paul says to us,
EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called...,
he is revealing to us
the heart of the battle we are called to fight.
It helps me sometimes
if I take what I hear Paul saying to me
and turn it into a prayer that I can offer back to my Lord.
When I do that with this truth
this is what I pray.
“Lord, I pray that this day
you will show me how to make those choices
that will tell the truth about who I really am. Amen.”
We are out of time
and we’ve only just started with all of this,
but we’ll pick it up here again next week.