Unity: Walking in Awe of God

Unity: Walking in Awe of God

By Pastor Matt Black

08 July 2007
Lord's Day morning
Ephesians 4:1

Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians 3. The title of this morning’s message is “Walking in Awe of God”. Once you’ve found Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, won’t you stand with me this morning?

Let’s read Ephesians 4:1-6, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

Introduction: We come now to a new section of the book of Ephesians. We’ve gone through chapters 1, 2, and 3, and now we are entering into chapter 4. If you're visiting with us, we go straight through books of the Bible most of the time, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. In this letter that Paul writes, the first three chapters he deals with doctrine about who God is and who we are in Christ. He tells us what has happened to us in the spiritual realm—how we’ve been sealed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, raised from the spiritual dead. He exalts God and Christ, and teaches us about spiritual realities that we cannot see with our natural eyes. But he doesn’t leave it there. From chapter 4, verse 1 through the end of the book, we learn how all of these truths are to impact and change our lives! A Christian is not just someone who comes to church here and there and knows the right things about God. A Christian is one who is changed by the risen Christ, and whose life is affected by a true and real relationship with God. A lot of people say they have faith in the Lord, but it does not affect their daily decisions. There is a key word in this verse—I love it—it is “walk”! Paul says “walk worthy of your calling”. He says walk in a way that shows the weight of what God has done in your life!

So Paul teaches us about all this rich doctrine in chapters 1-3. Then he starts telling us how it’s going to impact our lives in chapters 4 through 6. What’s his point? It is that what we know about God must affect every decision we make. Doctrinal input must be acted upon in obedience to God. Let me put it this way—there are many people who play church, but Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Lots of people say they love Jesus. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). James said, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26).

We don’t want to be playing church here. We are not here to pat one another on the back and say what a good job we are doing. No! We have placed our faith not in our selves, but in Jesus Christ, and that dependence and trust produces fruit in the life of every believer. Our love for Christ touches every thought that we think, every attitude that we have, and every action that we do.

Having said that, the point of our message this morning is that when we see God for who He is and all that He has done for us, we are going to have our eyes fixed on Him and walk in step with Him! That brings us together with Christ and we have a unity with one another. We overlook all our human hurts, and the petty things that most of humanity gets bitter about. We have a spirit of love and forgiveness and that bring unity. We are all striving toward the same goal: to be like Christ!

We’ve not living the old way. The Lord Himself has taken residence in our souls. Something new and awesome has taken place. We have a new Leader in our life who has changed us from the inside out. There's real fruit. There's real change. There's a new disposition. There's a new humility, a new contrition, a new lowliness of spirit before an awesome and holy and just God, and a new deep gratitude and joy that Christ has forgiven you.

Before we get into chapter 4, lets review chapters 1 through 3, because, if you don’t see the awesomeness of what God has done for us in chapters 1 – 3, then you will totally miss the point of living all of this out.

Briefly, chapter 1—tells us God’s plan for our life is way bigger than we can ever imagine. Before the foundation He chose us. He predestinated us to adoption and placed us into His family. Before there was time, God planned this moment that we are living in—He chose to open your eyes and be connected with you. Paul tells us we’ve been elected. Why? He wants you to be amazed at the magnitude and the wonder and the awe of your salvation. Because you're not going to live out a holy life with heart and soul dedicated to God until you get in awe of the God who saved you.

He further says in chapter 1 that he redeemed us. By faith we came to know Christ and we were embossed by the Holy Spirit of God. God melted our hearts and He put the stamped impression of His ownership into our soul. What does that stamp look like? That is the witness, conviction, correction, encouragement, the comfort, and the illumination, wisdom, and revelation of this Spirit that is now in us. It's the seal that we are God's child.

Paul closes chapter 1 by saying that Jesus Christ sits on His throne in heaven, having been raised from the dead, and He rules over all the universe, and is specifically ruling the lives of those who are truly saved people. And that brings us to chapter 2.

In chapter 2 he says just as Christ was raised from the dead, we’ve also experienced a spiritual resurrection. We were spiritually dead. We were enslaved to the passions of our flesh and the deceitful lusts of this world. We were totally fascinated with this world—controlled by the thinking of this world. But the Lord removed us from this realm and resurrected our spirits. We learned that we who were “children deserving of God’s wrath” were instead of being punished for our sins, we were loved with an everlasting love. We were dead in trespasses and sins, “but God who is rich in mercy” and because of His great love for us, “even when we were dead in trespasses and sins” has quickened us—raised us to spiritual life with Christ.

Then in the last part of chapter 2, we learn about how we who were once God’s enemies are brought near to God. The wall that separates us from God is broken down. We were under the wrath of God, but Jesus has removed all of that! He has taken our place! And the big truth of chapter 2 is that our new relationship with Christ unites us with all who know Christ as Saviour. All previous barriers are torn away! Racism and partiality and caste systems cannot exist in the body of Christ. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no rich or poor, no black or white, no Mexican or American—we are all one in Christ!! Hallelujah! We are one in Christ. Humanity was dead in sin, but God is making a new humanity! We are built together on the foundation of the Word of God and we are all the habitation of the Spirit of God. We are the place where God lives!

Chapter 3 tells us all about the promises of the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New Testament Body of believers. God had a people in the Old Testament, not just Jews, but there were people from every nation under heaven who became believers with the Jews in the true and living God. God has since the beginning of time been calling out a group of people for Himself into one body—to be heirs of all the promises of God, and of eternal life. That group began in the Old Testament, but we read in verse 6 how “the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel”. We learn after that that the “eternal purpose of God”—the reason God made this earth and all creation was to call out a people from this wicked earth, to sanctify them and change them so that they might worship the Name of the Lord forever and ever. That’s what we are all about here at this church!

Then Paul ends chapter 3 with a passionate, heartfelt prayers. He prays essentially that we would all experience the glory and wonder of being connected and united to the Lord. That we would understand the glories of all that He did for us in taking away our sins, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge.

He then prays that we would be strengthened with might in the inner man, that we would be filled with all the fullness of God. And then about the time we say, no way! That’s way to big and high and out of this universe for me—about that time He reminds us of God’s awesome power. That God can do “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us”! He says for all this, Jesus Christ gets all the glory in His called out people, the church!

Wow! Having laid that foundation, what does Paul say? Paul says, ““I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,” In essence he says, be united in your amazement at what God has done for you!!

If as you see the truths of chapters 1 through 3, the Holy Spirit has not done something in your heart to humble you, and to bring you down and to bring Him bigger and to make Him more wonderful and more glorious, and to make you as a child of God more ready to humble yourself and yield to Him because of the magnitude and the awesomeness of what He's done for you—if that has not happened in your heart, then you will not be able to get the practical living out of these truths in chapters 4 through 6.

If you try to live out the practicals of the Christian life in the flesh, you'll get bitter and burnt out, and resistant. Before long you'll be looking for a new church, because you'll want somewhere else to pet your flesh and make you feel good and make you feel happy. But if you'll fall more deeply in love with the glorious God who's revealed in chapters 1 through 3, then the application of chapters 4 through 6 will be something that you deeply desire from the heart even though you struggle in ithe living out of it, because the truth about God has done something in your heart.

Listen, I want this church to be a place where people are just amazed to be here. That’s what brings unity in a church. We still have not gotten over our salvation. Let’s get into this verse and come to our first point. First of all, if you want to have unity among each other as saints of God, we should look to the example of Paul’s suffering.

I. Unity is encouraged by the example of Paul's suffering. Paul says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,” Paul at this time was in prison. All his comforts were gone. Remember at one time Paul was a very religious Jew. He was lost and without Christ. He was sincerely religious, but sadly, many sincere people are also people who do not understand the magnitude of their sin and will never seek refuge in Christ. Christ can wash away our sins. Religion will not wash away our sins. There was a time in Paul’s life when he knew the Bible, but he was depending on religion to save him and not a relationship with Christ.

Application: No matter how much religion you have, it will not save you. You must see how horrible your sin is in the presence of a holy, righteous God, and cry out for mercy. Jesus said, “You must be born again”. There must be a line of demarcation in your life. That point came for Paul. He was on His way to persecute Christians in Damascus, on the Damascus Road, and a bright light shone from heaven, and at that moment Paul was a believer in the risen Christ! He recognizes Him as Lord! Has there been a time in your life where you have seen your sin and rebellion against the Lord? Where you have said, I’m not going to live my life the way I want to live it anymore. I yield control to God. I come to God broken hearted and humble, hating the life I have wasted, and coming with nothing to offer God. Coming to God as a beggar, and asking Him to save your soul based on the bloody sacrificial death of Christ on the cross for your sins? That’s what happened to Paul. He had attained so much! But he left it all. He says in Philippians 3:5-10 (turn over there) that he had everything going for him as far as religion and society and position. He had it all. The best education, the best family, the best church! But there was on thing he lacked—even though he had his own righteousness, which the Bible says human righteousness is as filthy rags in God’s sight—so the one thing he lacked was true and pure and perfect righteousness. Look at verse 5, “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. 7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death”.

A. Paul entered into the Fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.

Now Paul actually entered into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings” and was
“made conformable unto his death”. He actually went to prison for taking the gospel to the Gentiles, the Ephesians. Paul says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,” Now his point is this: "If I'm willing to suffer, deny myself and suffer in prison, why can't you suffer a little bit and overlook and forgive your brothers and sisters in your church so you can get along together?" He's saying, "Use my example of suffering to motivate your self-denial when you've really been hurt or really been disappointed or really been done wrong." Paul says, "If I can go to prison for the sake of the church, can you not overlook and get over a few things for the sake of the unity of the body?" That's Paul's point.

B. Example of John Bunyan. Are we willing to suffer for Christ? Think of John Bunyan. John Bunyan is one of the heros of the faith that we would do well to look to and read. He preached powerfully the gospel of Jesus Christ. But sadly, in the middle 17^th Century in which John Bunyan lived and preached as an independent, that is outside the official state church, the Church of England, it became illegal to preach any of the gospel or any other doctrine or out of any other church other than the Church of England. So from 1660 to 1672, this great powerful man of God, spent most of that time in a prison cell, and he was in a prison cell simply for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Bunyan’s daughter was blind. Can you imagine being locked up for Christ? I know that when suffering and persecution come to true believers, they unite together! Suffering will bring a church together. We have it quite easy in our country. We bless God for our freedoms, but we must not take our freedom for granted.

The story is told, I've have not verified whether it's true, but the story is told that on one day John Bunyan’s little daughter came to him, just a little girl, to visit him in Bedford Prison there England. And she was so excited and she jumped up and down and she talked to her daddy through the bars and said, "Daddy, Daddy, I've got great news, Daddy!" "Well, honey, what is it?" "Daddy, I've got great news! They promised to release you from jail!" "That's wonderful, darling." "Daddy, all you have to do is agree that you will not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and they'll let you out of jail." John Bunyan looked that that little girl that he loved more than life but not more than Christ, said, "Honey, I cannot do that. I cannot make that promise." Bunyan didn’t have to deny the Gospel, he just couldn’t be a preacher and a pastor. He refused to give up his calling. John Bunyan was a prisoner of Christ and imprisoned himself to the calling that God had on his life.

I thank God for our church. We are not a perfect church, but in this church there is a spirit of real love and real unity and real oneness. But as the years go by, no church will be without controversy.

But think about John Bunyan’s sacrifice for the sake of the church and think about Paul's imprisonment for the sake of the church, don't all of our little disagreements seem petty and very insignificant?

BEGGING: Now he says, "I, the prisoner of the Lord," and then he uses a word in our Bible, "I beseech you." There's a force in that when he says, He’s saying “I implore you to be unified." But the force there isn't just a command. It's deeper than that. It's more heartfelt than that. It's more emotionally wrapped than that. It could be translated, "I beg you. I beg you. I beg you. Why can't you deny yourself, forget yourself, forgive, forget, and overcome things and keep the unity in the body of Christ." Paul says, "I beg you to do that." Well, Paul, I can't do that. Well, if the glorious doctrinal truth of 1 through 3 have come into your mind and impacted your heart, you can do it. And we'll get to that point in just a moment.

OTHERS FIRST: Maintaining unity in the church family requires each to possess an attitude of putting others first, which may mean if you put others first you have to suffer a little bit. If you put others first you may have to sacrifice a little bit. But that's normal Christianity. What little we suffer and sacrifice when we overlook and forgive the offenses our brothers and sisters have offended us by, if Paul could rejoice in prison for Christ, then surely I can forget myself to maintain the oneness and unity of the local church family. And I'd like to say that none of us have arrived, but we have a lot of people in this church that walk in this truth. In fact, it matter whether it's a football team or a baseball team or a company or whatever it is. There has to be an attitude of selflessness and forgiveness if there's ever going to be oneness and going forward for any common cause.

II. Unity is assured as we walk worthy of our calling. Paul says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,” What is Paul saying “to walk worthy”? The word worthy means to give weight to! It means to understand the seriousness of what God has done and walk in way that gives weight to the Name of God in your life that called you out of darkness.

The word “vocation” means a calling. It is not something you choose. It is something God chooses for you.

When he says to walk worthy he means to live worthy of your position in Christ. Did you grasp what chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3 said about who you are in Christ? All the way from foreknown and predestined to raised while you were spiritually dead to become holy and blameless before Him in love, all that He's done for you. That's your position in Christ. That's who you are in God's eyes. Now he says, "Walk practically with your brothers and sisters, that fits or is in harmony with that glorious exalted position." You're not like the petty, self-centered, me-consumed, man-centered world. We're not like that. We're, we're other worldly. We're going to another kingdom with higher principles. "Walk worthy," Paul says of that.

Feel the weight of your position. The word “worthy” has the root of “weight”.

There are such extremes in Christianity today from some of our older mainline denominations who seem to teach and speak of the glorious true doctrines, but there's no real application. There’s no growing and changing. There’s just dead orthodoxy. Now we want orthodoxy in our church. That means right doctrine. We must have right doctrine, or we are in idolatry. We must know God not as we want him to be, but as He has presented Himself to us in the Word. We must believe rightly, but we must also practice rightly. Doctrine without practice and application leads to dry, cold, bitter orthodoxy. Boy, I don't want that, do you? Now don't misunderstand me. I want orthodoxy. I want true doctrine, but not dry, bitter, empty orthodoxy.

Listen, here’s the balance. We need to be in awe of the doctrines—all that God has done for us. And then we need to live those doctrines out!!!

All the sudden those wonderful songs that express those glorious doctrinal things, it's not dry singing, it's heartfelt singing because they're starting to get it in their minds and their hearts are being stirred. And then when you get it in your mind and your heart's being stirred and Paul says, "Now walk worthy!" You know what you say? "I want to do it!" It's not a dead, arm-twisting coercion to make me live like a Christian.

John Owen, the great puritan theologian, Owen was such a great man of God. Owen said it this way. "You must pour your emotions into the mold created by sound doctrine."

Conclusion: Let me close with this application: Number one, cultivate memories of sacrificial servants of God. Cultivate memories. That's what Hebrews 11 is all about. Hebrews 11 talks about the way these great men and women of God of the past trusted what God said, put their hope in God, believed, relied on what God said over everyone else, and marched in that faith, lived out that faith. And you just go through Hebrews: By faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, by faith Sarah, by faith Isaac, by faith Jacob and Joseph and Moses and then Rahab, then Gideon. But I want you to go down if you've got Hebrews open. Go down to Hebrews 11:36. Here where we get into what Paul was alluding to specifically, his suffering for the benefit of the body of Christ. Hebrews 11:36, “And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Did God abandon them as they were stoned and cut in two? Did God abandon them? No! God said, "This earth doesn't deserve men of this quality.

It could come a day in America where true Bible believing, Bible practicing Christians are so persecuted we'll run around in caves and holes in the ground. I hope it doesn't. But it could.

Jonathan Edwards Great awakening…got fired from his church. Are you willing to suffer and walk in amazement at what God has done for you? Are you taking your walk seriously?

Closing Hymn: 21 Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow