THE CHURCH – WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER
Expository
Sermons that Lead a Congregation through The
Letter to the Ephesians
by
Rev. Ken Behnken
6. THE CHURCH – WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER. Ephesians 4:1-16
As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
But
to each one of us grace has been given
as Christ apportioned it. This is
why it says: "When he ascended on
high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." What does "he ascended" mean
except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who
ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe. It
was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be
evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for
works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach
unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
"From the paper to the playing field"
– a life worthy of our calling
United in Christ
– Paul’s key word
– needed: humility, patience, love
Gifted for growth
– grace apportioned by Christ
– the gift of spiritual leaders and their purpose
– the purpose of all gifts from Christ
Every part’s function is needed
– Are you the "coil"?
The
sports pages of yesterday's paper called attention to the fact that major
league baseball Spring training camps are opening, in preparation for this
year's season to begin the end of March.
Now there will be the usual predictions of how the various teams will do
– based on how they look on paper, the strengths and weaknesses of their
rosters. But everyone knows that
nothing is automatic. There are too
many variables that produce surprises.
One manager, told that his team looked especially strong after a couple
of off-season trades, said, "Now we have to move it from the paper to the
playing field."
In
our expository study of Ephesians, what our "coach", the apostle
Paul, has said to us so far has made us look like winners. We have considered God’s Plan – Your Place in It.
We have heard A Pastor’s Prayer
for His People. We were told about Redemptive Power for a New You. We found that we have been Homogenized in Christ. And last Sunday we plumbed The Mystery and Meaning of Faith. That doctrinal part of Paul’s letter, in
effect, makes us look, not only good, but perfect. We are God’s children, redeemed and rescued and renewed
through faith in Jesus Christ. But
Coach Paul knew that to be champions for Christ the Ephesians needed – and we
need – to move it from the paper to the playing field. So, in his inspired writing, he moved from a
doctrinal emphasis to its practical application to life situations.
In
six little words Paul established again his credentials and his authority: "As
a prisoner for the Lord". His faithful apostleship had led finally to
his house-arrest in Rome as he awaited his trial in Caesar’s court. That kind of dedication to his calling
surely makes us sit up and listen to his words.
He
urges: "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." You get the feeling that he could have
stopped right there and would have made his point. What encouragement and impetus for Christian discipleship there
is in that one statement! "Live a life worthy of the calling you
have received." What if
every aspect of our lives were to be guided by the question: Is it worthy of my calling as a Christian? It surely would stop us short of doing some
things that dishonor Christ and hurt those around us. And it would surely move us out of apathy and inactivity to an
energetic pursuit of acts of love and service consistent with our wearing the
name of Christ.
Being
a preacher, however, Paul couldn’t just make his point and leave it at that; he
had to expand on it. And we’re glad he
did – for under the inspiration of the Spirit he gave us something to chew on
in the coming weeks, some practical applications of God’s saving truth in five
areas of our lives as Christians. They
effectively flesh out his "Live a
life worthy of the calling you have received".
Today
he reminds us that as the Church "we’re in this together." We have to pull together as a team. "Dr. J," Julius Irving, you
remember, was one of the greatest basketball players in the NBA – but by
himself he was never able to lift the 76ers to an NBA championship. It’s in that sense that Paul wants us to
know that the Church cannot be "I" or "he" or
"she" or "they." It
has to be "we" if we are going to move things from the paper
to the playing field.
As
you scan the last part of the first paragraph of the text, the key word is
unmistakable – especially as it jumps out at you in bold print. God has made us one in Christ. Of course, there are
differences! Congregations are made up
of a variety of people. And on church
body and denominational levels there are differences in emphases and traditions
and teachings – and they are not unimportant.
But Paul insists that in Christ the Church is one and we
should make every effort to keep our unity of the Spirit. An attitude of love and helpfulness toward
one another as fellow Christians is essential.
It’s the attitude we should have toward Christians everywhere – and it
surely should be the hallmark of our life together as Faith Lutheran
Church: that we "be completely humble and gentle, patient, bearing with one
another in love". That
we "make every effort to keep the
unity of the Spirit through the body of peace" just because "there is one body and one Spirit, one
hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father".
So
we are in this together – and God has gifted us for growth together as
Christians. The first sentence of the
second paragraph explains that our variety within our unity in Christ is a
purposeful variety,. "To each one
of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it." To
each one – do you see yourself included in that? "Grace," in this context, is not
the undeserved love of God that forgives us and makes us his children through
Jesus. We have that! That’s what Paul has been emphasizing all
along. Here "grace"
refers to the undeserved gifts that are ours in Christ – gifts that will
enable us to be the best, most productive, most helpful Christians we can
be. The gifts are apportioned to each
one of us by Christ according to his wisdom and his purpose for
us in his kingdom.
The
last half of that paragraph describes some of the gifts: "He
gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and
teachers." And it states
Christ’s purpose in giving them: "to prepare God’s people for works of
service, so that the body of Christ may be built up."
How
important is a comma? Our punctuation
marks help us make sense out of our written sentences. Well, the Greek manuscripts of the New
Testament had no punctuation marks – so translators have to put things together
sensibly through a feel for the context.
When the King James Version was produced in the early 1600s, the
translators inserted commas that have not been very helpful in the life of the
church. It has this section read: "some to be pastors and teachers (comma)
for the perfecting of the saints (comma) for the work of the
ministry." This conveyed the idea
that it is the pastors and teachers who are to do the work of the ministry –
and there is, of course, a basic truth in this. Every pastor and every teacher or DCE needs to be busy in a
personal ministry to people – and not become desk-bound, seeing himself just as
an administrator or counselor. But
modern translations have corrected the mistaken view of what Paul was
saying by removing the commas, so we see that Paul was emphasizing that we
are in this together. He points out
that one of the reasons for Christ’s gift to the church of pastors and teachers
is "to prepare God’s people for their
works of service."
We
pastors who are older have had a bit of a hard time with this. We are a product of the KJV mentality. We were trained to be ministers, not
so much to be trainers of ministers.
We worked hard at the "work of the ministry" – and the members
were happy to let us do that. Younger
men in the ministry today have a much better outlook at this and better
training for it – in fact, sometimes they seem to stress their training
responsibilities to the point where their own personal ministries are
short-changed. The ideal, I’m sure, is
somewhere in the middle ground.
The
goal of this preparing of God’s people – all of you – for works of
service, the goal of all of Christ’s gifts which he apportions to each one of
us, is, in Paul’s words that complete the second paragraph, so that "we all reach unity in the faith and in
the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole
measure of the fullness of Christ." There’s that phrase again
– "the whole measure of the
fullness of Christ" –
and it impresses on us the need to strive for growth toward perfection in our
discipleship. "Then," said Paul, "we will no longer be infants, blown here and there by every wind
of teaching." The writer
of the Letter to the Hebrews
took Christian people to task for perpetually needing milk, not solid food, in
their dealing with the Word. He told
them they ought to have become teachers, but they were still involved just with
the elementary truths of God’s Word over and over again. And he explained, "Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained
themselves to distinguish good from evil."
There
are some strong humanistic, anti-Christian winds blowing today, for example the
new paganism in the New Age Philosophy
and the rising prominence of the legalisms of Islam – so there’s good
reason for us not to be content with the elementary understanding we gained in
Youth Confirmation Class, but to dig into the Word, individually and together
in our Bible Classes. This is one
reason why I suggested as we began this expository series that you devote the
twenty minutes needed to read through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians each week.
If you do that, it will make these sermonic studies more vital to you –
and will make Ephesians a part of your own personal Bible. Then, as Paul put it, "Speaking the truth in love, we will
grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ." And
then, as God blesses us, we will the more effectively apply the Word of
truth in a life worthy of the calling we have received.
As
participants walked yesterday in the "Kiss a Frog" Walkathon for
Lutheran Social Services, we were guided by little direction signs – and on the
signs were little sayings or jokes. One
said, "Using the Bible daily helps prevent truth decay." It surely is God’s recommended exercise for
healthful spiritual hygiene.
A
month ago I was having trouble with my car.
Sometimes it started easily; at other times it started only with great
difficulty. I finally took it in for
repair and the wires to the spark plug, the alternator, and the starter were
replaced. It ran well, but then I
stopped one morning at a market – and when I came out it wouldn’t start. The starter turned the engine over easily,
but there was no ignition. I called AAA
– and the driver looked things over, had me kick the starter a couple of times,
then noticed that the cable to the coil had come loose. He attached it and the car started
immediately.
I
still don’t understand fully what a coil does – but I do know that a car won’t
run without one. In much the same way,
our church won’t run as it should without you, at least not as smoothly
or as effectively as it should – and not as effectively as it will when each
part, yours included, does its work.
We’re in this together – and maybe the grace that Christ has apportioned
to you as his gift to you and to the church has made you the
"coil" needed to keep things running and the church growing in faith
and life.
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