SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Would you take your Bible, please, and turn to Ephesians chapter 4?
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: For some odd reason, they told me my preaching time was severely limited today.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to be spending a few weeks with you in Ephesians chapter 4 in September.
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning I just want to do a survey of a few verses in chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: And you've been sitting for a while, so why don't we stand together as we honor the word of the Lord as we read it together?
SPEAKER_01: I'll read if you would like to follow along.
SPEAKER_01: Please stand with me.
SPEAKER_01: Stretch your legs for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: The Word of God says to us from the lips of the Apostle Paul, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
SPEAKER_01: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
SPEAKER_01: There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to, the one hope that belongs to your call.
SPEAKER_01: One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: May the Lord bless his word.
SPEAKER_01: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't baptisms wonderful?
SPEAKER_01: Probably should have put tissues in the pews for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I love it when people are so full of the Lord Jesus Christ that they want to demonstrate that faith, that love, and that trust in Him to all of us.
SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful thing to celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: And then praying together as a family of spiritual brothers and sisters and singing praise to Christ because of the cross, how can you get better than that?
SPEAKER_01: What a great morning.
SPEAKER_01: It's been encouraging and uplifting, and I trust it has been to you as well.
SPEAKER_01: Celebrating baptisms is a sign of the Lord Jesus Christ building his church.
SPEAKER_01: And any part that we get to play in that is both encouraging and humbling.
SPEAKER_01: It's exciting to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: But there is also a challenge inherent in what we have participated in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is building his church.
SPEAKER_01: We've just witnessed it.
SPEAKER_01: He is building his church.
SPEAKER_01: Now the challenge inherent in that is this.
SPEAKER_01: Are you personally involved in what Christ is doing?
SPEAKER_01: Are you involved?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we could ask it a little more directly.
SPEAKER_01: Is there anyone here this morning that is present because of you?
SPEAKER_01: Is there anyone here this morning, anywhere in this room, anywhere in this building that is here because you have invited them?
SPEAKER_01: Because you have led them down the road to trusting in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Is there someone here this morning whom you have helped, whom you have encouraged, whom you have discipled, or even simply prayed for?
SPEAKER_01: I love that you are here.
SPEAKER_01: I love that we have a full room this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It's great, it's exciting, and I'm excited about what the Lord is doing in each and every one of you because he is doing something.
SPEAKER_01: But why are you here?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you here?
SPEAKER_01: We've seen three brothers and a sister desire to demonstrate their trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We know why they were here.
SPEAKER_01: But what about you?
SPEAKER_01: Someone has rightly said that Christ did not die to create an audience, but a family of disciples and worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to truly call yourself a disciple if you are not involved in community, in obeying Christ, and in serving him.
SPEAKER_01: It's tough to say that, but it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to create disciples who would identify with him through baptism and then continue growing in their knowledge, understanding, faith, and practice along with others who trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he died.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we can sing hallelujah for the cross, and then we all are given a commission to go and make other disciples.
SPEAKER_01: God is not about an audience.
SPEAKER_01: He's not looking to fill every single seat in sanctuaries across the world.
SPEAKER_01: He's about building his family.
SPEAKER_01: He causes people to be reborn in a spiritual sense to be his sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_01: And then he expects and causes those children to grow and mature in order to be used by him to continue that process.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's important to me personally.
SPEAKER_01: I'm an old er, dad of a young boy.
SPEAKER_01: Now I listen to all of you who tell me to cherish this time because it goes away so rapidly.
SPEAKER_01: And that's true.
SPEAKER_01: It does go away so rapidly, and I do cherish it.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, there are days that I am really glad he's not going to stay too forever.
SPEAKER_01: Hope he can't hear that.
SPEAKER_01: I love being a part of his two-year-old life.
SPEAKER_01: I love coming home and seeing him so excited that I've come home.
SPEAKER_01: But I also don't want a 20-year-old son who still acts like he's two.
SPEAKER_01: I want him to grow up.
SPEAKER_01: I want him to mature.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the same is true in God's family.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there are Christians who have walked with Jesus for two or three years in their faith, who are really mature.
SPEAKER_01: But we're not surprised if somebody's been following Christ for six months or a year or two or three years.
SPEAKER_01: We're not surprised if they still have some growing up to do.
SPEAKER_01: There's still room to mature.
SPEAKER_01: But if there are people who have been children of God for ten years, for twenty years, for thirty years, then we should be surprised and even concerned if they still act like two-year-old Christians, shouldn't we?
SPEAKER_01: My brothers and sisters, God expects us to grow up.
SPEAKER_01: We don't trust in Jesus, get baptized, join a church, and then suddenly just stop growing.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what Jesus intended.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in a statement to the ancient church in Ephesus, God repeatedly reminded them that he expected them to grow up.
SPEAKER_01: We see this at the end of this section that we began to read this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bible still open, you can look at verses 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 at the end of that first major section.
SPEAKER_01: And in those last verses, there are five statements about growing up as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: He says that we're to grow to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He tells us to no longer be children, to grow up in every way.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about making the body, that's all of us together, grow.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be about growing up.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for a few minutes, I just want to take a short time here to survey the beginning of this chapter, the first six verses.
SPEAKER_01: In a few weeks we'll pick it up again in a little more detail.
SPEAKER_01: But first we have to understand where we are.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps more than any other part of the Bible, the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians lay out what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: There's some rich, deep stuff there that you can dwell on for a lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: Beginning in the fourth chapter, we find not what it means to be a Christian, but what it looks like to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And these first 16 verses of this chapter are all about growing.
SPEAKER_01: We could simplify it maybe in this way.
SPEAKER_01: The first six verses are about growing together.
SPEAKER_01: They're about growing together.
SPEAKER_01: You can see that, I think, pretty clearly in verses 3, 4, 5, and 6.
SPEAKER_01: This talk about unity and oneness again and again.
SPEAKER_01: The middle section is about growing in faith.
SPEAKER_01: The last part of these first 16 verses is about growing in service.
SPEAKER_01: And we could say then that the last part of the chapter, verses 17 to the end, are about growing in character.
SPEAKER_01: It's all about growing.
SPEAKER_01: But that first section is growing together.
SPEAKER_01: Very clear about the themes of unity and togetherness and oneness.
SPEAKER_01: But we miss quite a bit if we jump right to that point.
SPEAKER_01: We miss some really good truths.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Look how the chapter begins.
SPEAKER_01: I, therefore, a prisoner of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now we have to pause there because whenever we see the word therefore in Scripture, we need to stop a minute and see what it's pointing to.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a kid, most of our vacations were taken with our camper.
SPEAKER_01: Pulled our camper all over the country.
SPEAKER_01: Still remember the day that my dad parked in downtown Chicago, right across the street from the Sears Tower.
SPEAKER_01: Pulling our camper.
SPEAKER_01: We stayed in campgrounds all over the country.
SPEAKER_01: Literally.
SPEAKER_01: I remember many times seeing these gigantic red arrows painted on billboards, usually in a right angle, pointing down so you could locate where the campground was that we were looking for.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the word therefore does in your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Now here it serves as a transition to the next part of the book.
SPEAKER_01: So the first part tells us what it means to be a Christian, the second part what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: So he wants us to begin thinking about what it looks like to be a Christian, but to do that, he's got this gigantic arrow pointing back to the first three chapters.
SPEAKER_01: Because of what it means to be a Christian, this is what it looks like to live it out.
SPEAKER_01: That big arrow points back to the first three chapters, telling us what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: If you look back at chapter 3, verse 18, he tells us that we should have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to know that.
SPEAKER_01: He's done three chapters of work to get us to comprehend all of that fullness.
SPEAKER_01: Because of that, therefore, there's the big red arrow pointing back to what he's just finished writing.
SPEAKER_01: Because you understand the gospel, because you understand the salvation, I now urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is so glorious, he says, that it empowers, it enables, it motivates the believer in Jesus to live in such a way that his life demonstrates the beauty of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: To put it another way, if you have no desire to be baptized, if you have no desire to have humility in your life, if there's no desire to be gentle, to have patience, to put up with other people, if loving unity is not a part of who you are, then you either don't have the salvation the gospel speaks of, or you severely misunderstand the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Now we don't want either of those, do we?
SPEAKER_01: But why would he say a prisoner for the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Well, on the one hand, he is.
SPEAKER_01: The apostle is writing from prison.
SPEAKER_01: He is a captive.
SPEAKER_01: He was held as a prisoner because of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He was turning the world upside down with the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So he was in prison.
SPEAKER_01: But I can't help but think in this context that maybe there's a little bit more to that statement than just being a literal bound prisoner.
SPEAKER_01: I think what he's communicating here is that he was a prisoner because of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He was a prisoner because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he was a prisoner because it was worth it.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel was worth it, and Jesus was worth it.
SPEAKER_01: We've witnessed three brothers and a sister in Christ demonstrate their faith.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it was worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: According to the news, the largest home church in China was shut down this week by the government.
SPEAKER_01: Why do believers keep meeting in homes and under threat of governments across the world when they're not entirely free to do so?
SPEAKER_01: Why do they do that?
SPEAKER_01: They do it because of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And because it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't understand that, then you don't understand the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't understand the Jesus of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Who came to take on human form so that he might die, the death of a slave on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: So that we might be reborn, be freed from our sin.
SPEAKER_01: When you understand the truth of the gospel, it becomes so compelling that you leave behind what the world has to offer you to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You die to yourself and you walk worthy of the gospel because it is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is that glorious.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is that amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Walking worthy of the gospel is then a sign that we are beginning to grow up.
SPEAKER_01: I want to leave you today with an astonished excitement at the wonder of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to leave today feeling beat down or driven away.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to leave thinking, when can I get it baptized?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to leave today thinking, Jesus, is that worth it?
SPEAKER_01: I want to walk with him.
SPEAKER_01: The glory of the gospel has led some to stand up here in front of you, which is not necessarily an easy thing for some people, and share their faith with you.
SPEAKER_01: And be baptized because of faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So, what is Christ doing in you?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to leave today filled with the wonder of amazement at what Christ has done for you, so that you will go from here walking in amazement for what He will do through you.
SPEAKER_01: And it's much more than you ever dreamed.
SPEAKER_01: Who would have dreamed that God would have brought people all across the ocean from Asia to hear Christ and trust in him on this continent?
SPEAKER_01: What God might do in you and through you is more than you can ever imagine.
SPEAKER_01: If you have trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have been called by God to a special position through the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We are now children of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: That's who we are.
SPEAKER_01: We're children of God, and as children of God, we grow up.
SPEAKER_01: We grow up to maturity.
SPEAKER_01: That idea of walking worthy is that of balance or of equilibrium.
SPEAKER_01: Picture one of those old-time scales, or if that's a little bit beyond your time frame, picture a teeter-totter.
SPEAKER_01: On one side we have our calling, our position of being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, our position of being redeemed and adopted in Christ, and on the other side of the teeter-tater or the other side of the scale is our lifestyle, our way of living, our attitudes, our actions that are growing in maturity.
SPEAKER_01: Do they balance out?
SPEAKER_01: Are we living our lives in balance with who we are in Christ, with our position as children of God?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I am so sick of the news these days.
SPEAKER_01: We are overrun by the gory details of people in high political positions acting in ways contrary to their position.
SPEAKER_01: Some are appalled at it, some aren't.
SPEAKER_01: But the basic reason behind being appalled is that there's a standard of behavior that is expected, maybe even required, for someone in a position of authority.
SPEAKER_01: We've often heard throughout the years how Congress has turned down presidential nominees when certain behaviors or attitudes or actions have been brought to light.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's an expectation of a standard being met.
SPEAKER_01: Because a person's calling sets the standard for their conduct.
SPEAKER_01: The higher one's calling in life, the purer one's conduct must be.
SPEAKER_01: And brothers and sisters, there's no higher calling than being a child of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Those who have come to faith have been adopted into the family of the Most High God.
SPEAKER_01: We are sons and daughters of the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: We must make sure, then, that as we're walking the path of life, we're growing up.
SPEAKER_01: No, it doesn't happen instantly.
SPEAKER_01: My son's two and a half, he will turn three, and we might not notice any change.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, by the time he's four, there might be a little evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe by the time he's 20, we'll see more.
SPEAKER_01: Please, God.
SPEAKER_01: Please, God, may we seek more growth and maturity in us as his children.
SPEAKER_01: As we walk with him.
SPEAKER_01: How do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The author of the book of Hebrews says we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Joy in following a cross?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: So take up your cross daily and follow him.
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: Well, here we see it humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, maintaining unity.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to walk worthy.
SPEAKER_01: We're looking Those in detail in the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: But notice first for today the headliner.
SPEAKER_01: Humility.
SPEAKER_01: You know, gentleness doesn't really happen much without humility.
SPEAKER_01: Patience is pretty difficult without humility.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't put up with one another if we're arrogant, do we?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's significant that this one word is mentioned first: humility.
SPEAKER_01: Neither the Greeks nor the Romans initially had a word for humility in their vocabulary.
SPEAKER_01: When it eventually came to be in their language, those cultures looked down on humility.
SPEAKER_01: It was not something to be fostered or developed, it was something to be gotten rid of.
SPEAKER_01: But in God's mind, it is of greatest importance in the life of the believer because it is the prime characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Who did not count equality with God something to be held on to at all costs.
SPEAKER_01: But he made himself nothing.
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: Taking on human form.
SPEAKER_01: Form of a slave, so that he might die the death of a slave.
SPEAKER_01: Aurelius Augustinius, better known as Saint Augustine, came to Christ in the year 387.
SPEAKER_01: He's known to have said, For those who would learn God's ways, humility is the first thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's also the second thing.
SPEAKER_01: And the third.
SPEAKER_01: When we walk worthy because Jesus and the gospel are worth it, then the Spirit of God begins to work in us, displaying his character through us.
SPEAKER_01: As children grow and mature, they develop character, and the same is true of Christians.
SPEAKER_01: As we grow, we grow in the character of God, and we grow in love and appreciation for God's children.
SPEAKER_01: That moves us to work toward unity.
SPEAKER_01: We must be actively committed to the preservation and practice of Christian unity if it's ever going to be evident to the world around us.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it.
SPEAKER_01: I get emails and information all the time about conferences and classes and opportunities to grow as a pastor, as a leader.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I see seminars all the time on self-confidence, self-assertion, and self-esteem.
SPEAKER_01: I've never gotten information on a seminar or a conference on learning to be humble.
SPEAKER_01: The world doesn't teach gentleness, but it does teach assertiveness.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that, when God moves us to maturity, when he grows us, moves us to maintain the unity of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Notice that it's not something that we're told to strive to create.
SPEAKER_01: We don't work to create unity.
SPEAKER_01: He says, maintain it.
SPEAKER_01: Keep it going.
SPEAKER_01: That's why when you're driving your car down the interstate, you stop every once in a while and you put some gas in it.
SPEAKER_01: Because you want to keep it going.
SPEAKER_01: You keep maintaining it.
SPEAKER_01: The unity here is one that exists by divine creation and divine design.
SPEAKER_01: We are merely maintaining that unity by acting properly towards our brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When God's children walk worthy, they get along together.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the reason for all of this is because of God's creation.
SPEAKER_01: He says there's one body.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And you were all called to one hope.
SPEAKER_01: And there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who's overall and in all.
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard of the teenage boy who talked about his kid sister?
SPEAKER_01: He said, My sister has a superiority complex.
SPEAKER_01: She thinks she's almost as good as me.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that's the attitude many of us have toward one another sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously, these last few verses here speak of the union that all believers have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There's no I'm better than you.
SPEAKER_01: There's no thinking that way about one another.
SPEAKER_01: There's no superiority in thought or action.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you might take a moment if you do this sort of thing and circle all of the occurrences of the word one in verses four, five, and six.
SPEAKER_01: And then circle or underline all of the occurrences of the word all.
SPEAKER_01: The message is very pointed.
SPEAKER_01: God is speaking to his children, and he's saying, one, one, one, one, all, all, all.
SPEAKER_01: Do you get it yet?
SPEAKER_01: We share an allegiance to the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We've set aside our own personal desires, our own rights to become his children, a part of his body, and he has created us to function in harmony with one another in unanimity because he has put his spirit within us.
SPEAKER_01: What a joy to see our Chinese brothers and sisters evidencing that same spirit that all of us have.
SPEAKER_01: We can be together one.
SPEAKER_01: And our aim, the challenge presented to each of us is to live lives that are consistent then with who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When that is lived out in the body of Christ, the result is a maturing group of children.
SPEAKER_01: Who step by step, day by day, month by month, year by year, are growing in their maturation, are living in unity and fulfilling the desires of the Lord, all because of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord who is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Is that where you are?
SPEAKER_01: If you have walked with Christ in faith and trust in Him, spend some time this week asking Him to grow you.
SPEAKER_01: If you are here, as Scott said earlier, maybe not having trusted in Christ yet, you are here for a reason.
SPEAKER_01: God has brought you here to hear the good news of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in Him and Him alone.
SPEAKER_01: And join us in this fabulous family.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Our Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We struggle to grow.
SPEAKER_01: We struggle to walk with you.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we we trip and fall.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we stick out our feet and trip each other on purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we hit each other and we bite each other and we argue with one another.
SPEAKER_01: These things ought not to be, but we are still growing.
SPEAKER_01: You are still working in us to complete your work.
SPEAKER_01: And we ask that you would do that.
SPEAKER_01: That by your spirit you would mold us into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That you would take us from this place and make us like that city on a hill that can't be hidden.
SPEAKER_01: That others would see that the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ are worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Lord be pleased among us to use us to bring others to saving faith so that we might have more of these glorious mornings of witnessing faith and trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: We worship you because you are worth it.
SPEAKER_01: We give all honor and glory and praise to you because you are worthy of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now be pleased to cause us to walk worthy of you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.