Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Reality TV has evolved over the years, or perhaps it would be better to say devolved.
[00:00:06] But back in its heyday in the early 2000s, there was one reality TV show that had a very large national audience called Extreme Home Makeover.
[00:00:18] Maybe some of you remember that show, but for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it had a pretty simple storyline. Every episode, a needy family would be selected to have their humble abode razed to the and then completely rebuilt into a large, state of the art home.
[00:00:37] Volunteers from the local community donated time and energy and often worked around the clock to finish the project in just one week.
[00:00:47] And of course, TV crews were there to capture every single moment, including the big reveal to the happy family at the end.
[00:00:56] When I was in high school, Extreme Home Makeover came to my hometown of Cynthiana.
[00:01:02] You can imagine how excited everyone was that our little town was going to be featured on national television.
[00:01:10] I vividly remember how the whole community united together to serve this one family and build them a new house.
[00:01:19] Hundreds of people volunteered. Local contractors donated thousands of dollars of materials and labor. Some students were even given excused absences to miss school and work on the project.
[00:01:32] It really was heartwarming to see how everyone in our community joined together to serve this family.
[00:01:41] But unfortunately, only a few years after the episode aired, the family sold the house, pocketed the profits and moved away.
[00:01:51] And so the event that brought us together as one sadly ended up splitting our community in two.
[00:02:00] Everyone took a side. Letters to the editor, filled the local paper with those who condemned the family's decision and those who supported it. It seemed like everywhere you went, everyone was arguing about it.
[00:02:15] What at one time had been such a great source of unity ended up becoming a great source of disunity.
[00:02:24] Now, I know we don't all come from a small town that's been divided by a reality TV show, but to degree or another, we've probably all had an experience of short lived unity. You often see this after something like a natural disaster, like a tornado. In the immediate aftermath, the community rallies together to rebuild. But then, not long afterwards, they're pointing the finger and bickering with one another about what took so long and why the recovery went on.
[00:02:58] Families do this too.
[00:02:59] Tragedy strikes and a loved one dies and the family comes together as one to mourn.
[00:03:05] But only shortly thereafter, they're fighting over the inheritance. You even see this in the sports world. The university that comes together as one to celebrate winning their eighth national championship in basketball starts losing. And then they start arguing about whether they're a basketball school or a football school.
[00:03:24] It happens all the time.
[00:03:25] People come together as one, but it never lasts.
[00:03:30] Why?
[00:03:31] Why is this so often the case?
[00:03:34] It's certainly not because we don't like it.
[00:03:36] If you've ever tasted the joy of different people coming together as one for a common cause, you know how enjoyable it is.
[00:03:46] Everyone enjoys that sense of fellowship, that sense of oneness, that sense of camaraderie.
[00:03:53] But if everyone likes it so much, then why doesn't it ever last?
[00:03:58] Given how often people seem to fall apart, we might even begin to wonder if lasting unity is even possible.
[00:04:05] Particularly in this day and age when it seems like everyone is so divided.
[00:04:12] But in our text this morning, the Apostle Paul not only believes that kind of long term unity and fellowship is possible, he believes it should be expected.
[00:04:24] When done in the right way and with the right foundation, we have every reason to expect that sense of oneness to last.
[00:04:34] But that's the key.
[00:04:36] We've got to go about pursuing unity in the right way and for the right reason.
[00:04:43] And that's what we'll see in Ephesians 4:1, 6.
[00:04:47] In verses 1 through 3, we'll see the way to pursue unity that lasts. And in verses four through six, we'll see the reason to pursue unity that lasts. Look with me. Starting in verse one, Paul writes, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
[00:05:10] If you have a Bible that you like to mark, then underline or circle that word therefore. Because it is very important, whenever you're reading your Bible and come across that word, you need to pay careful attention because it's pointing you back to everything that's just been said.
[00:05:25] In this case, that word therefore is the hinge on which the entire book of Ephesians swings.
[00:05:34] In the first three chapters, Paul focuses on the truths of the Gospel. In the last three chapters, he focuses on the implications of the Gospel. In the first part of the book, there is one command. In the second part of the book, there are 39 of them.
[00:05:51] Clearly, the therefore in this verse marks the transition from an emphasis on gospel doctrine to gospel practice.
[00:06:01] But everything Paul is about to say and all these commands he's about to give are are all based on the gospel truths he's just explained in the first half of the book. So we can't separate the book in two and forget about the first half. When the church in Ephesus first gathered together to hear this letter, they wouldn't have heard it broken up into a 15 part sermon series. They would have listened to it all read in one single worship gathering.
[00:06:32] The advantage for them is that they would have heard the seamless connection between the gospel doctrine and gospel practice. Because we're picking up in chapter four, we've got to keep that connection in mind as we go through these verses.
[00:06:47] Notice Paul urges them as a prisoner for the Lord. Paul could have commanded them as an apostle, right? He could have commanded the Ephesians with the apostolic authority granted to him by the Lord Jesus.
[00:07:01] But he doesn't do that.
[00:07:02] Instead, he urges them, he encourages them, he appeals to them as a prisoner for the Lord. It's as if he's saying, as someone who is so committed to living out the Gospel that it landed me in prison, I encourage you to do the same.
[00:07:22] Even if you end up in jail with me, it is worth it.
[00:07:28] What this shows us is that Paul's not a hypocrite. He's not urging them to do anything that he's not already done at great cost to himself.
[00:07:37] Paul was imprisoned multiple times throughout his ministry, and now he writes this letter from a prison cell urging the Ephesian church to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called in the Bible. Walking is a metaphor for living. It's a reference to one's way of life, to one's conduct. In a sense, Paul is going to spend the next three chapters explaining in detail what he means by living a life worthy of this calling. Paul uses this same calling language several times in these verses and in several other places in his letters. In Colossians 1:10, he writes, Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
[00:08:22] Likewise, in Romans 8:28, 29, Paul says that God has called out the church to be conformed to the image of his Son. That's the same calling he's talking about here. The church has been called to follow Christ, to live for Christ.
[00:08:44] And that's why he addresses them in the plural as a church.
[00:08:48] This verse could be translated, I urge you all to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you all have been called.
[00:08:58] He's not addressing them as individuals, but as a church. And that's an important detail as we begin to think about the right way to pursue unity that lasts. First of all, the way to pursue unity that lasts is in the context of the local church, not the world.
[00:09:18] Paul's not addressing everyone everywhere. He is specifically addressing those who have been called to Christ.
[00:09:27] That's what the Greek word for church means. It means the called out ones. The church is called out from the rest of the world to live for Christ.
[00:09:39] And one way we do that is by pursuing unity and fellowship with one another.
[00:09:46] Now in the next two verses, Paul gets really specific about how to do that. In verse two, he says it starts with all humility.
[00:09:55] That word could also be translated lowliness. It means not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, not always needing to be in control or get your way, not being entitled or demanding.
[00:10:10] From humility, Paul continues to urge us to pursue lasting unity with gentleness.
[00:10:15] This word was often used in literature of that time to refer to a person in high authority who dealt kindly with those at their mercy. In other words, they didn't give them what they deserved.
[00:10:29] Jesus describes himself with a form of both of these words in Matthew 11:29, saying, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. Same words that are being used here next. In verse two, Paul says we pursue unity with patience.
[00:10:50] The original word for patience is a combination of two words, one meaning long and the other meaning passion.
[00:10:58] That's why the old King James Version translates this word as long suffering. The opposite would be something like quick tempered. This word describes a person that's not easily upset, who doesn't blow up on people or give up on people. They don't cut others off, they stick with them no matter what.
[00:11:21] Which naturally leads Paul to say another way we pursue lasting unity in verse two is by bearing with one another in love.
[00:11:29] I love this phrase because it could also be translated as enduring one another in love or my personal favorite translation putting up with one another in love. And if you want to know what it means to put up with one another in love, just ask somebody on the last New Orleans mission team. Because it's one thing to put up with one another in love on a Sunday morning for a few hours at a worship gathering or at bfg, but it's a whole other to do it down In New Orleans, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, all day, every day, with 90 degree weather and 90% humility and tons of rain and little sleep. But they did it, and they did a great job.
[00:12:10] In verse three, Paul encourages us to pursue unity that lasts by being eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
[00:12:20] When Paul says eager, he means it.
[00:12:22] He means doing your best, making every effort. Unity isn't something that we can passively pursue. We don't naturally drift towards unity. We naturally drift towards disunity and if you don't believe me, just look at the world around you.
[00:12:39] So we must be eager to maintain it. But the good news is, that's all we have to do.
[00:12:47] Notice, he says, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Or it could say the unity from the Spirit. That means it's not our job to create lasting unity. We don't have to muster it up by our own willpower. No, the Holy Spirit has already created it. We just have to maintain it to keep it.
[00:13:10] God created this unity through the Gospel that Paul has taken pains to explain in such detail in chapters one through three. And what God has joined together, let no man separate.
[00:13:23] The verse ends with this interesting phrase, in the bond of peace. Paul urges us to be eager to maintain the unity that comes from the Spirit in the bond of peace. What does that mean, in the bond of peace?
[00:13:38] What it means is that because of the Spirit's work we have been brought into a state of peace, into a condition of peace. And who created this peace? The same person who created the unity.
[00:13:54] In some of Paul's first words in this letter to the Ephesians, he says, peace comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in chapter two, verses 11 through 22, Paul explains how we have this peace with God and with one another.
[00:14:12] Look back a page or two with me, see what he says there. Look specifically at Ephesians 2, 14, 16, where he says, for he that is Jesus, he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace and might reconcile us both, both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
[00:14:55] Our peace is found in Christ through his death on the cross. God created this peaceful state of lasting unity. And now it's our job to do our best to maintain it through humility, gentleness, patience and bearing with one another in love.
[00:15:16] But how are we ever going to do that?
[00:15:19] What is going to keep us humble when somebody takes our favorite parking spot or somebody takes our favorite seat?
[00:15:26] What is going to keep us gentle with one another, impatient with those church members who get on our nerves? How are we going to put up with one another in love at vbs after a long, hard day of work?
[00:15:38] How are we going to eagerly keep unity that lasts?
[00:15:43] The answer is with the Gospel.
[00:15:48] Think about humility.
[00:15:50] The Gospel reminds us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. As many have noted before, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
[00:16:02] None of us has a higher or lower standing with God. And that humbles us. It reminds us that we aren't any more deserving of God's grace than anyone else in this church.
[00:16:15] And here at Ashland, we are blessed to have a lot of humble older people who understand that. Well, we have a lot of older people in this church who have put in a lot of time and money and. And energy into this place. And you know what?
[00:16:35] They aren't always pushing their weight around trying to get what they want.
[00:16:39] They're not entitled. They're not demanding. They don't think more highly of themselves than they ought because they know that before God, they are just as much sinners saved by grace as the newest member of our church.
[00:16:56] Now think about gentleness.
[00:16:58] The gospel reminds us that God has not dealt with us as our sins deserve. God crushed his son so he can deal gently with us, and that's what motivates us to be gentle with others.
[00:17:13] So when you need to challenge someone in your BFG who hasn't been coming to church in a while, or when you need to correct a ministry team member who's neglecting their responsibilities, or when you need to rebuke a brother or sister in Christ, or who's living in sin, you don't deal with them as their sins deserve. You don't crush them. You don't chew them out. You deal with them gently by remembering the gospel.
[00:17:41] By remembering the gospel, you remember how God has dealt gently with you, and you correct that brother or sister in a spirit of gentleness. As Galatians 6:1 says, Gospel is also a way you remain patient with one another. The Gospel reminds us that God was patient with us when we were dead in our sins, and now he still remains patient with us as we fight our sin and slowly make progress in holiness by the power of the Spirit. So when that younger Christian you're meeting with for discipleship shows up late again or cancels on you last minute, you can be patient with them because God is patient with you.
[00:18:22] Or when that couple you're counseling with it seems like you've told them 100 times what they need to do to put off sin and put on Christ, yet they're still struggling.
[00:18:34] You can be patient with them because you know that God is patient with you. You don't give up on them because you know that you fail God all the time and he hasn't given up on you.
[00:18:46] And lastly, the Gospel reminds us that God puts up with us in love.
[00:18:51] He doesn't just put up with us one day a week or even for a week long mission trip. He's present with us all day, every day. He always bears with our sins and doubts and failures because his son bore the punishment for them on the cross.
[00:19:09] If you want to know how the Gospel motivates us to put up with one another in love, you could ask someone from the last New Orleans mission team.
[00:19:17] Or you could also ask a wife of a BFG leader because they are truly the unsung heroes of our church's small group ministry. Week after week, they open up their homes and put up with others in love. They're often behind the scenes cooking and cleaning and providing childcare so that others in our church can fellowship around the word of God.
[00:19:41] And how do they do it?
[00:19:43] I often look at my wife and wonder, how does she do it?
[00:19:47] At the end of the day, it's only by remembering the gospel.
[00:19:52] The only way that you're going to be able to bear with others in love in this church is by remembering that God bears with you in love.
[00:20:01] Do you see how this works? The Gospel is the way we pursue unity that lasts. When we focus on the gospel, we will be humble, gentle, patient people who put up with one another in love. And by doing so, we will maintain the unity created by God.
[00:20:21] That's the right way to pursue unity that lasts. Now, in verses four through six, Paul gives us the right reason to pursue unity that lasts.
[00:20:31] In these last three verses we will look at. Today, Paul repeats the word one seven times. And I don't think that's by accident.
[00:20:39] Since we just finished the Book of Revelation. We all know by now that that number represents completion, wholeness. So what Paul is describing here is complete oneness, perfect unity. Let's take them one at a time.
[00:20:54] First, in verse four, he says there is one body, referring to the church.
[00:21:00] Now there is a broader sense in which we can understand the entire church from all places and times as one body. That's what we call the universal church. But given that in verses 7 through 16, Paul's going to address spiritual gifts and leaders for individual churches, it appears he also has the local body in mind, the local church, which is really the only context for lasting unity.
[00:21:30] Paul isn't exhorting the Ephesian church to be gentle with the universal church or to be patient with with the universal church. Not that we shouldn't be patient and gentle with all of our Brothers in Christ from all over the world. But on a practical level, the people we need to be gentle and patient with on a daily basis are the Christians in our own local church.
[00:21:53] So, yes, there is one universal body. But as Christians, we are all called to belong to one local body as accountable members of where we pursue unity with one another.
[00:22:06] Second, Paul says there's one Spirit. This is God, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the same Creator of unity Paul referred to in the previous verse. He's not a force or a power.
[00:22:19] Later in this book, Paul says that by our sin we grieve the Holy Spirit. You can't grieve a force or a power, but you can grieve a person.
[00:22:30] And that's who the Holy Spirit is. He is a divine person. He is fully God. He possesses all the same attributes as the rest of the Godhead. He is all powerful, all knowing and ever present.
[00:22:44] Paul talks about the Spirit several times in this letter. He says that when we heard the Gospel and believed in Christ, we were all sealed with the Holy Spirit. That we are strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit, that we are to be filled with the Spirit and pray at all times in the Spirit. He says that we are being built together as one into a new spiritual temple through the same Spirit.
[00:23:10] Third, there's one hope. Specifically, he says in verse four, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, there's that same calling language that we saw earlier.
[00:23:22] With our calling to Christ, we are given hope.
[00:23:26] In the Bible, hope is not merely wishful thinking. It's not wishing upon a star and hoping you get your heart's desire. No biblically defined hope is a confident expectation based on the character of God.
[00:23:44] The only reason we can have hope is because God is faithful.
[00:23:50] So we can confidently expect him to keep all his promises, including the promise of everlasting life.
[00:23:57] Because Jesus rose from the grave, we all share the hope, the confident expectation of eternal life with him and with one another.
[00:24:09] Fourth, there's one Lord.
[00:24:11] Paul uses this word 23 times in the letter to the Ephesians, and every single time it refers to the Lord Jesus.
[00:24:19] For some of the Ephesians, this would have been a pretty controversial statement because in that day and age, Caesar took the title as Lord. But Paul is making it clear that there are not two Lords. There is not a Lord of the Romans and a Lord of the Church. We can't have a political Lord and a spiritual Lord. We can only have one Lord, because there is only one Lord and His name is Jesus, he's in charge. He calls the shots together as a church, we submit to him as Lord.
[00:24:55] Fifth, there is one faith.
[00:24:58] Like hope. Faith is based on the character of God, not on our subjective feelings, so you can biblically define them in a similar way.
[00:25:08] Hope is a confident expectation based on the character of God, and faith is a confident trust based on the character of God.
[00:25:18] Your feelings of hope and faith may rise and fall, but in the heart of every Christian there exists a bedrock of trust in Christ that nothing and no one can ever take away. Because as Paul says in Ephesians 2. Eight, faith is a gift of God.
[00:25:39] There's only one saving faith, and we all share that same faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
[00:25:47] Sixth, there is one baptism. The only other times Paul uses this word to refer to baptism, he's clearly referring to water baptism, not baptism in the Holy Spirit. That happens at conversion. In Romans 6. 4 and Colossians 2:12, he uses the same word to say, as Christians, we have been buried with Christ.
[00:26:08] We have been immersed with Christ in baptism.
[00:26:12] This is why there's no such thing as getting re baptized.
[00:26:16] If you weren't a Christian when it happened, or you weren't immersed when it happened, or if you were taught that it saves you, then it wasn't baptism.
[00:26:28] You got wet, but you didn't get baptized.
[00:26:32] That's not what baptism is. There's only one baptism that we all share in common, just as we saw John do earlier today, baptism is when a believer is fully immersed in water, symbolizing that their sinful life has been buried with Christ, and by faith in him, they've been raised to a new spiritual life.
[00:26:55] Seventh, and climactically, Paul ends on a high note, saying, there is one God and Father of all.
[00:27:03] All here refers to all creation.
[00:27:06] Whether they recognize him as God and Father or not doesn't change the reality of the situation. The fact is he is the one God and Father of all creation, and we all owe him our lives in worship. And in verse six, Paul says this one God and Father of all is over all and through all and in all. He is the one true God who is simultaneously both above it all and and with it all.
[00:27:37] There is an infinite gap between the Creator and His creation. No one and no thing can compare to Him. But at the same time, he is personally and intimately involved in the lives of every single one of the billions of people on this planet.
[00:27:58] He is the one God and Father. We worship together as a church.
[00:28:04] With this list of seven ones, Paul provides us With a solid rock upon which to maintain oneness in the Church, we can pursue lasting unity because we share the most important things in common.
[00:28:21] We belong to the same body, we are filled with the same Spirit, we have the same hope, we follow the same Lord, we hold to the same faith, we share the same baptism, and we worship the same God and Father.
[00:28:36] Our oneness is based on this common foundation.
[00:28:42] But the basis of our unity goes even deeper than that.
[00:28:48] It goes down to the very depths of who God is.
[00:28:55] You see, by naming all three members of the Trinity in this list and ending with one God, Paul is establishing the foundation of lasting unity in God. The most fundamental reason we pursue lasting unity is because lasting unity is rooted in the character, in the very essence of who God is.
[00:29:22] And God does not change.
[00:29:24] There is one God who has eternally existed in the three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's the biblical definition of the Trinity. So what Paul is saying here is that God is both the creator of our unity and the foundation of our unity.
[00:29:45] And that's the key difference between the unity of the Church and the unity of the world.
[00:29:51] The world's unity is short lived because it's created by circumstances.
[00:29:56] It's based upon things that change. It's based on a funeral or a national championship or a natural disaster. And those things can and will change. After the loved one's been buried, or after the next national champion is crowned, or after the town is rebuilt, everything goes back to normal and that sense of oneness is lost.
[00:30:19] Circumstances can never be a sufficient foundation for lasting unity because they are by nature temporary. Circumstances change, but God does not.
[00:30:32] And therein lies our hope for unity that lasts.
[00:30:37] If you want permanent unity and fellowship, it must be based on a foundation of permanent unity, unity and fellowship. And there's no greater permanent unity and fellowship than that which has eternally existed in the unchanging triune God.
[00:30:54] That means if God creates the unity, if God is the basis of the unity, if God is the reason for the unity, then it will last forever.
[00:31:06] That's Paul's main point here. In Ephesians 4:1:6, Paul urges the church to be united because God is united.
[00:31:18] That's the big idea. Be one, because God is one.
[00:31:24] And that's what makes us eager to maintain this unity God creates. Our unity with one another is a reflection of the eternal unity of the Triune God and of our eternal unity with the Triune God.
[00:31:39] When we understand that God is one and that through faith in Christ we are united to him in such a way that we are one, then we will be eager to see that oneness fleshed out together in the context of the local church.
[00:31:56] And don't forget what made all this possible.
[00:32:00] Don't forget about the first three chapters of the Book of Ephesians.
[00:32:04] What made unity with God and with others possible is the gospel. In our sin, we were separated from God. We were divided from God and divided from one another. But God sent Jesus to overcome that separation and make peace by the blood of his cross.
[00:32:24] Now, by faith in Jesus, we have been taken out of a state of hostility and put into a condition of peace. A state of peace. Peace with God and with one another in the church. By faith, we are united to one another forever.
[00:32:44] So if you want to experience a lasting unity that will never end, if you long for that sense of oneness with one another that is not fleeting, that is not based on temporary circumstances, then turn from your sin and trust in Jesus Christ alone as your Lord and Savior.
[00:33:07] What this all means is the Gospel is both the right way to pursue unity and the right reason to pursue unity.
[00:33:17] So don't let your unity with others in this church be based on fleeting circumstances.
[00:33:23] When the worship gathering is over, or when the mission trip is over, or when 4th on the farm is over, or when VBS is over, our unity with one another is not over.
[00:33:37] Those are moments to enjoy the experience of unity. Those are moments to maintain the unity with humility, gentleness, patience and love. But our unity with one another goes deeper than those moments.
[00:33:52] You have unity and fellowship with every member of this church. Whether or not you serve on the same ministry team, or whether or not you go to the same bfg, or whether or not you've ever even met them.
[00:34:05] We all have the most important thing in common.
[00:34:09] By faith, you are one with Christ and they are one with Christ.
[00:34:14] So that means, as Paul says elsewhere, since Christ is not divided, then we are all one with Christ together.
[00:34:23] So as a church, as we keep adding all these new members that you don't know, or when you're serving on a team at VBS with someone you don't know, or when someone shows up to BFG that you don't know, it doesn't have to be awkward.
[00:34:41] You have a deep and permanent connection with them in Christ.
[00:34:46] So just ask them, how did you come to know the Lord? And then sit back, relax, and enjoy the fellowship you have in the Gospel as one body in Christ.
[00:35:00] You see, if you go to Cynthiana today, you probably won't hear anybody arguing about Extreme home makeover? I know I didn't while I was there this past week having dinner with my mom.
[00:35:11] That might not be what they're arguing about any longer, but I'm sure there are new things that unite and divide them, because points of unity and disunity come and go in every earthly community.
[00:35:24] But here at Ashland, there's something that makes us different from the world around us.
[00:35:30] There is a lasting unity and fellowship here that's not based on fleeting circumstances, but that's based on Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
[00:35:42] The gospel provides us with all the resources we need to eagerly maintain unity as we humbly, gently, and patiently bear with one another in love.
[00:35:56] Through our union with Christ, we have unity with God and with one another, and nothing will ever take that away.
