Worthy Walk - a call to Unity
Ephesians 4:1-3 · Bob Eckel · Jul 8, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261910566556

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This was fun, getting into Ephesians 4. And the teacher always learns more than the class. So we're privileged to teach. And I think Randy and Roger would agree with that. So let's begin here. In fact, I think let's just go through the verses, because we only have three today. We don't need to read them all. But I think the transition will be clear. And we're going to drop back a little bit into the last chapter.

So the first verse, therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling of which you are called. How are you doing here? Nobody is volunteering. An important turning point here. In this epistle, the first three chapters, like many of Paul's epistles, contain doctrine, and the last three are exhortation.

If it were opposite, what would we do with that? And how much of the church is an application before they're founded in doctrine? Think out loud. What if we were told how to live the Christian life without having the doctrine to know how to go about doing this? Anybody want to answer? That's what most churches do teach.

Why aren't you doing all these things? But then they haven't really given you sound doctrine at all to even know where to begin. And also you fail. environment because you realize you can't succeed. So does that drive us to sound doctrine? What if you're continually failing, not pleasing God enough, falling short in your thoughts or deeds or lack of things that you've done? Maybe we should have done this and should have done that. You feel guilty as can be. I become depressed. Well, that's true. There's a lot of depression in the church. There's a lot of depression in the world.

One thing that I'm learning as the Vice Chancellor for Research, meeting with the high ends of the university, I'm seeing how this university operates at the highest level. Not that I deserve credit. The Lord's put me there. But the Chancellor's concerned about 13 suicide watches on the Anschutz campus.

13 people who are having watches put out for them because of their risk for suicide. You know, depression in young people is very common these days. and even in the church. So what's wrong in the church? Margaret's right, I think you get depressed because you're failing God, right?

Doctrine first, application second. And that's what we're all about here. And Ephesians 4 turns the page to application. So, as J. Vernon always says, what's it there for? I therefore the prisoner of the Lord. What's it there for? Well, it must relate to what? Randy taught last week, he reviewed the entire third chapter. I think particularly here we can look at the last two verses because this really sets the stage.

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. Application. To Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Let it be. But look at this. According to the power that works in us. That's sound doctrine.

It's not us bringing our own power to live the Christian life successfully. It's the power that each and every one of us have in us. Now that seems kind of distant to someone who's living under law and not under grace because they don't understand the power they have it. but yet there's no sound doctrine. And you can't live the Christian life joyfully by the way. Isn't our life in the Lord joyous?

Not depressing. And depression is the ultimate end of the human existence, isn't it? To feel badly about yourself. And it's one of the most selfish things in the world. Now that doesn't mean medically people can't be helped with depression through medications. But yet the root cause is often a spiritual issue.

So anyway. Jew, Gentile is one only? Is that maybe what this relates to a little bit? Remember chapter 3 was ultimately the unity that the church was all about. And that could be a more specific application of this. So keep that in mind as we go through chapter 4 and what follows. But nevertheless, it's a lot more than that, just Jew and Gentile. And the unity we're going to come back to in verse 3.

So what does Paul mean when he states that he's prisoner of the Lord? So the question to the class, is this just his physical state, or is this much more? Think out loud with me. Tom? From the very start, when the Lord literally laid hold of him, he knew that he had an important mission entrusted to him, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, he could do it. It's kind of, as I think, through this a little bit more in detail, isn't he captive to the Lord?

Yes, but it seems like such a weird word to me, because prisoner sometimes doesn't mean you have your own volition, or usually. I don't think it is. How about all? I mean, either is physical. You know, but if you think about people in prison, none of those people really want to be there. Well, they don't want to be there, but the consequences of what they've done... I just find the word to be very... What is the Greek word, though?

It is along this same line. It is prisoner? It is prisoner. Well, the thing that's important to remember is that he was literally, at the very least, he was literally a prisoner. He is in prison, so he is a prisoner. So that's good. That's good, because we have a literal... But then I think there is relevance here.

Why is he writing to the Ephesians? Because in the main service, if you remember in the last couple of weeks, Paul was in Ephesus and he tells him, I've got to go to Rome and I've got to face this hardship. Well, I didn't say I have to go. He's got to go to Jerusalem. He knows he's going to face hardship. He's going to Jerusalem, right.

So there's like this sense of being a prisoner. We think of prisoner and we always see like, well, you must have done something wrong morally, but it's possible to do something. But I think to continue that, in the sense that he's a physical prisoner in Rome, but yet the prisoner of the Lord does mean that he's captive to the power of the Holy Spirit working in him. I think there's more here. I'm not reading between the lines. I think I'm not overly spiritualizing this. If you look at the commentators here, they go beyond simply being a physical prisoner in a Rome prison.

It's obedience, right? And what's the obedience to, Randy? to the Holy Spirit's direction. Okay, it's to the faith. Remember, we're not obedient to a set of rules. I'm listening to Deuteronomy with McGee going to work in the morning. Let me tell you, I'm getting bogged down. To his credit, I mean, these Jewish people, look at all they had to do.

Thankfully, once a year at least, oh my goodness, be glad that there's this principle called grace that we all live under. Any other thoughts here? I think it's important to think beyond simply history. Sort of think of this as, in a way, when we become believers, we're never going to lose our salvation. We're never going to be out of the Lord's, you know, sphere. No matter what we decide to do, once we're a believer, we are a prisoner. If you want to look at that, I mean, in that kind of focus, we're still a prisoner to the Lord.

But Regan does like the term. But I still think it doesn't matter what we want to do. Once we become a believer, we are there. It doesn't necessarily always have a positive connotation. It doesn't for sure, but I think here we can look at it with those pair of glasses.

But you know sometimes too, when Paul uses words, it has to do with who he's talking to, what they understand. and I think probably because he's writing this letter to the Ephesians, this, you know, they're under Roman rule. I mean, they sort of understand what this term means in their perspective. That's, you know, I think we see that a lot when Paul's writing.

There's also another term that's used other places by Paul is bondservant. Slave, right? I mean, it's pretty much the same idea. We're bondservant. So that concept And it's a wonder, and we're willingly bondservants. We willingly accept him by faith. We weren't forced to accept him by faith. We willingly accept him by faith.

This is the best prison that Paul will ever be in, right? The spiritual prison that he exists within. I love that when we look at all of Paul's letters, we see things like he says, hey, let those in the house of Caesar greet you. Why? Because he was in prison and he had a captive audience every time he changed a guard. He's like, hey, let me tell you about Jesus. Right. Over and over again. Any other thoughts here? This is what makes teaching the word of God so special, because it allows you to drill down and really think about how it relates to me and all of you, each one of us individually. Let's go ahead.

So, beseech you, here is, let's go back to the verse, I therefore the person of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling. Okay, beseech you, present active indicative, what's that mean? Present tense, active, that means it's your responsibility and it's factual. Now for prisoners, to the Holy Spirit, it's the power that works in us, right? I'm going to come back to that. This is a strong term. Admonisher begs you. Okay, let's look at the verse again.

I'm begging you to walk worthy of the calling. That means, you know, walking worthy is our responsibility by what? By law? No, by faith in the power that works within us. Step back. Let the Spirit work. we have a new life in Christ Jesus and that's what Paul's calling us to. Alright, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Walk, regulate one's life is the simplest way I can define this and you can look at a lot of Thayer's definitions and that one I like best because I think it relates to us. Regulate your life by faith in the new creature we are in Christ Jesus.

That's by the power of the Holy Spirit. Worthy, what does this mean? What does it mean to be worthy? Well, let's look at some scripture here. Philippians 1.27, only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Boy, that's a lot of work. Worthy of the gospel of Christ. And what's the gospel? The simple gospel. The simple gospel. 1 Corinthians 15, right? Christ paid for our sins, was buried and risen from the dead, bringing Mormons into 1 Corinthians 15, and we're crucified. Not only are our sins forgiven, but our old man is crucified.

That's the gospel, and our walk should be worthy of that. That's what we're to be worthy of. So that whether I come and see you or I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit and with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. I don't bring that verse up again, but also relates to the unity he'll talk about in verse 3. And what is our calling? Whatever it is, it's our vocation. That's the best translation of calling. It's our vocation. that relates to this worthy walk of which we are part of.

2nd Timothy 1.9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works but according to his purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

So there seems to be a progression here. Initially before Christ's work on the cross we are unworthy. I like where you're going, go ahead. So if we're unworthy initially of the gospel, it's pure grace on his part. As things evolve in our life, now we're being called to conduct ourselves to be worthy of that initial grace. Regulating our lives according to the power of the spirit, right? That's pretty amazing. It is. And it's a work. What's the work? What's our act of responsibility? It's living by faith. That's why we studied the first three chapters before we're in the fourth.

Randy? You mentioned listening to Jay Werner McGee through Deuteronomy. So walking is a Jewish or Hebrew term, right? It's not something that Romans would have done. It would be a Hebrew or Jewish vocabulary. And the thing is that when he says walking in Deuteronomy, Wherever you walk, you're supposed to be talking about the law. This walking is always reminding each other of the law. But Paul says, this is a new walk. This is a different kind of walk.

And it's not by the law. So back to Dave's point, we're called where the holy calling is to God's glory, isn't it? I mean, I'm not dismissing what you said. I think with our purpose of power here, our purpose is to bring glory to the Lord. That's what our walk is. To bring glory the Lord. And how many times do you and I talk about, especially in your vocation. My vocation? Which vocation? All vocations. All those vocations. But as Hal said so many times, we're the only Bible many people ever read. Just our life and how we conduct ourselves. Not that we do things legally, but we walk because that's who we are. In Christ, that's who we are.

Yeah. That's right. It gives notice. But no pressure. Huh? No pressure. No, no, no. There isn't any pressure. No, I'm joking. But, you know, I mean, for someone like me, you know, and you've heard me say it, feeling like a loam ship in the night. Sure. That's a lot of pressure. Where's the pressure coming from? I'm not saying it in a negative way. It's a self-imposed pressure.

I get what you're saying because we talk about this a lot and we have so many friends that are not believers in the science field. But we don't think about that. No, I know. Somebody turn to Ephesians 2 a second. This was not part of the lesson, but it necessarily needs to be right now. How about somebody reading verses 5 through 8? Anybody, please.

Even when we were dead and our transgressions made us alive together with Christ, by grace you've been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Now remember when I reviewed Ephesians 2 with us, we all picked our favorite verses, and that's one that many of us picked.

But keep in mind, the flesh, I mean, Regan, this goes for all of us, the flesh is never going to change. So the circumstances we're surrounded by all are of the earthly system. And our old nature has a capability of always being the old nature. It never gets any better. But the grace by which we saved, it's not by works. And that salvation is an ongoing process.

When we fall short of the Lord, we confess Him. By the way, in our Bible study tonight, we're going to be getting the study of 1 John. I love 1 John because if you put it into context, 1 John is written late after all of Paul's epistles. Because, by the way, if you're sinning, you're not of the Lord according to John. But we know that we all sin and fall short. But John has us positionally where Paul placed us. And it's so important to realize we're all going to fall short.

And the pressures of the world system never cease. But the grace by which we are saved is once and for all. It's a done deal. And we need to take back. And I'm guilty of not doing this and relax and let the Spirit work through our lives. And that's what it means. Allow your life to be regulated by the power of the Spirit. And that's an act of faith. Alright, let's go ahead. And to this we were called, eris activa invicata. It's factual. We are called to this life.

And a more general calling is to any vocation. It's interesting that called and calling are two different Greek words. And the calling is to this holy calling that is described in 2 Timothy. But being called is to be called to anything. You could be called to join the armed services. You could be called to a new job. You could be called to move into a new neighborhood. That's a general term, but the specific calling is to that Christ life that Paul has set the stage already for. Macaulay, I love this.

Our walk should not contradict our belief. It should complement our belief. Let's look at that again. Our walk, meaning the way we carry our lives should not contradict our belief, but it's to complement our belief. There is no pressure here. It's by faith we allow our walk to be seen by all around us. We don't do it to impress them, we do it because that's who we are. And it's not what we do, it's who we are that makes the difference and brings glory to the Lord.

Now we all fall short, but the Lord has crucified us with him and positions us, remember Roger, position is what we're all about in these Sunday school classes, has positioned us in Christ Jesus. Colossians 3, 12, 14, Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. And by the way, we're going to come back to that because it relates to the verses that follow. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. This is the life that complements our belief. How are you doing it loving your neighbor? The flesh doesn't have it in it. But in Christ, that's a love that transcends the condition. We have a neighbor we don't love right now. Details to be set on the wall. Alright, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another, love. Kind of complements the Colossians 3 passage. Alright, lowliness.

What? That's not what the world is telling me. Lowliness? Is that the message? What's the world system's message? It ain't lowliness, is it? I'm number one. Boy, you see it in sports, you see it in entertainment, you see it in business, you see it in every aspect of the world system.

Lowliness is to be stepped upon and being unworthy. That's not who we are. And by the way, we are on a different planet here. Remember our home, as Paul says, my actual possession or my home is in heavenly places, not here. So that's the mindset we need to have. So, loneliness.

I'm not sure where I got this from, but I kind of like it. Having a humble opinion of oneself. a deep sense of one's, quote, moral littleness, modesty, humility, lowliness of mind. Now, can't the flesh put on humility? So what does it mean for a believer to be humble or lowly, as stated here?

In light of what we've studied in the past three chapters, what we see here is that we know who we are in Christ. We didn't earn it. We didn't deserve it. It's not of our own doing, and so we can be lowly or humble because we know who we are. It's not by works, by any of us have been saved, right? So the lowliness is by God's great grace and mercy to bring us to himself, and that makes us lowly. So do we beat ourselves up?

In other words, to be humble, do we continue to take the old man and just tear him apart? not according to Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death, and I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with a mind I myself serve the law of God, but with a flesh the law of sin. Praise God. O wretched man that I am, you were, but were not any longer. God sees us as totally righteous. He hath made him who knew no sin, to be made sin for us that we might be made the sons of God.

2 Corinthians 5.21, a great verse.

Christ himself, Matthew 11.29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

Isn't it neat that our Savior looked at himself as lowly. And why did he look at himself that way? I thought he was the king of eternity. He submitted himself to this difficult life on earth. Philippians 2, right? He took on himself a form that was not of his original form to become human. And he's lowly and gentle.

Wow. And we can't in the flesh be that. But by faith, our life, the way it exists within each of us. wants us to be a doormat. It's not being a doormat, whether it's in your work or anywhere, but it's I think being appropriate, and there's a difference. to being a doormat and yet being who you are across. Just to bring a personal thing, Clark's son is going through a divorce. His wife has filed.

He did not file. She's thrown him out of the house. Should he get a lawyer? The possessions are minimal. I don't know what to tell him in terms of what he's going to do, but the question is, what could she do? There's no just cause for divorce other than the fact that they don't get along. But anyway, is it a doormat? Is he going to let her walk all over him, or does he in fact get some defense and help secure his future at some point?

Randy, I mean, that's the problem with that situation. No comment on the divorce, but I think in the context of humility here, It's a right viewing of yourself in light of Christ in your interactions with the body and the world around you. So there may be legal reasons in this case that you need to do something like get an attorney, but it's not out of arrogance. It's out of being responsible as a steward.

But if I know who I am here, and I've had people correct me in any number of situations, and if I think of myself highly, then I will not take your correction. If I think of myself highly, then I might be like Paul having to rebuke Peter because he's not interacting with the Jews and the Gentiles correctly. And so if I think of myself properly with humility, then it's like, hey, I know who you are in Christ and I know who I am in Christ. We're the same, even though you're the president and I'm I think not being a doormat is appropriate, but that has to be spirit-led in terms of the position we take that is based on righteousness and the glory be to the Father.

I think that walk is spirit-led. By the way, we all have different personalities. Personality is not right or wrong. It's just different for each one of us. The Holy Spirit can work in us independently to bring glory to God with our personalities. Personalities are immoral. They are neither moral nor immoral. My bad. They are amoral, so neither immoral nor moral. I mean personalities are what they are. Okay, and a reminder for us.

1 Corinthians 4.7.

For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you didn't receive? Now, if you didn't receive it, then if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? I mean, talk about humility. That's what this is all about. What do you think you have that's not God, that's allowed that to exist within your life? So, good reminder. So, people that boast, look at that. Doesn't this section remind you of the fruit of the Spirit?

Galatians 5.22 and more, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Gentleness, meekness. How many people think meekness is weakness? Well, that gentleness is only in Christ.

2 Corinthians 10.1, now I Paul myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

So it's His nature. who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent and bold towards you." Okay, so isn't that interesting? Lowly among you, but bold. There's the spirit working through Paul to be bold under some circumstances, but realize that that boldness comes from the grace that God's given him and that initially and continually makes him lowly. Trench, this came out of, I think, maybe Wiest, but I'm not sure, but he's quoting somebody else.

It is an inwrought grace of the soul and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God. We're talking about now gentleness. It is that temper of the spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good. and therefore without disputing. This meekness before God is also such in the face of man." Let's look at that again. It is an inwrought grace of the soul and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God. It is that temper of the spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing and this meekness before God is also viewed by man. Reasonable, I think.

Titus 3.2 To speak evil of no one, to be peaceful, gentle, showing all humility to all men. How you doing here? Not well. I mean I think again the flesh does show up here. By the way it says to speak evil of no one. Never mind. Alright.

With long suffering, bearing with one another in love. Long suffering is patience, forbearance, slowness and avenging wrongs. in respect to people not things. It's kind of interesting. The long suffering is not with things, but in context it's with people.

So we can be frustrated. I was frustrated coming here this morning with the traffic lights and long red lights and things. So anyway, but that's a thing. We're talking about people now here. We're not talking about the red light being too long. It depends on which way I come, never mind.

Second Timothy 4.2 Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering or forbearance and patience in teaching.

Shows up elsewhere. Bearing with McCulloch says put up with it. He's in your face. Forbearance put up with it. You know I think that sounds like it's appealing to the flesh to me. Anyway. Don't you think I'm thinking about our neighbors. And that's all their fault, right? No, but what I'm thinking about with this long-suffering thing is, you know, and I think part of it is finding another way to work with them, to deal with them, to interact with them.

Well, let me tell you, Margaret's shown that in so many ways. I mean, this is... No, but all I'm saying is, I think part of being in the Christ life is not reacting to something that you don't agree with. But it's finding another way that you can deal with people in an appropriate manner that is in love. I mean, I just think, you know, that's who we are. And I think, and it doesn't matter what the circumstances, I think you can find another way to deal with people. Because people is our, that's our main problem. People's our main problem. People are our main problem. It's not the dogs, it's the cats. Remember this is the people. We're writing to people here. The dogs and cats.

Alright, again the exchange life. I mean this putting on meekness and gentleness and forbearance and patience really is not of ourselves. The other thing is Paul has been on a tear, if you will, on this topic of love. When you look at the last section that we were in, Paul uses the architecture or the engineering of love and then you had us look at that Colossians passage where he says you got to have all this character but then over all these things put on love. Love is the trump card here. We taught 1 Corinthians 13. It's almost like Paul thinks we ought to take this love stuff seriously.

Alright, again, in 1 Timothy 1.16, however, for this reason I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering. Again, exchange life. It's Jesus Christ in you that's going to show the longsuffering, not you and your flesh. And that's a life, isn't it? It's a life, it's not simply you know, a condition that we need to work ourselves up to.

And in love, agape, whose love is this? We've been talking about that. It's not our own love. We can't engender that love. But love is unconditional. I mean, we've heard that so many times. But it is. And that's only of the Lord. And again, we may not like somebody, but we're not called to like them, we're called to love them. It's easier to love in the spirit than it is to like in the flesh. So that's something worth thinking about. Alright, 1 Corinthians 13.

Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. It's not puffed up. So the whole chapter deals with love. Thanks Randy for bringing it up. Sorry I got ahead of you. No, it's good. We're on the same page. Let's go on to verse 4 or 3 then. Any thoughts about 2 that we didn't touch on?

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Wow, let's look at that again. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Endeavoring to keep, interesting verb tense, present active infinitive, and it reflects purpose and desire.

It's just not purpose. But the infinitive tense means that we in fact are into it personally. And Macaulay said, this is both difficult and implies determination. It's just not determination. And it's not only hard, but it brings in both capacities. Again, let's go back. This endeavoring to keep. This endeavoring verb means to be both difficult and implies determination. and has to be spirit led.

And we're called the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The unity means unanimity or agreement. So we have to be in agreement with the spirit to make this bond of peace follow. This term, interesting enough, the unity is only found here in Ephesians 4.13. It's kind of unique to Paul at Ephesians for whatever that means. So what are the implications here?

What peace? What peace are we talking about? Peace is used in different ways throughout the New Testament and the Gospel account. Peace I'll leave with you, not your peace, my peace, etc. What kind of peace are we talking about in context here? Sounds like it's with one another. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom all the body nourished and knit together bonded by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God. So this is kind of in a sense the relationship between the bonding in peace that relates to the body and how ultimately the flesh is not to really be part of that process. And Wiest quotes expositors and says, the unity therefore which is wrought among these Ephesians by the Spirit of God will be theirs insofar as they make peace the relation which they maintain one to another or the bond in which they walk together.

So, this peace is in the body. It's not peace for the world. The only peace that the world can get is when the Holy Spirit individually brings them to salvation. People pray for peace all the time, peace in the world, wake up. I don't think that's a worthy prayer based on scripture.

Again, Jew-Gentile walking together, keep in mind that theme has been in Ephesians and could be applicable here in terms of the relationship between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers who are now one in the church. Philippians 2, the unity therefore which is wrought among these Ephesians by the spirit of God, notice how this unity comes about, will be theirs insofar as they make peace the relation which they maintain one to another or the bond in which they walk together. Notice we have unity, we've got peace, we've got bond. And fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and one mind. Notice love here too. You can't say that Paul is not consistent with the theme of his epistles. Unity, bonded, peace, love, it's all part of who we are in Christ Jesus. And here we are thinking about the entire church body.

1 Corinthians 12.13 For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, back to the theme, whether slaves or free, rogues or slaves, and have all been made to drink into one spirit.

And John 13.34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

You know, there's a nice condition there. What's the condition of loving one another? Unconditional. Unconditional. Well, what about this verse makes it unconditional, Tom? It's Christ love. There's no way we can love one another without being in Christ. As I have loved you, right? So what kind of love is that? Do we have Christ love?

We do positionally. And having the position translated into our condition is an act of faith. But how many times do you see that love one another? They seem to forget, as I have loved you, as being the precondition. You can't love one another unless you understand and are being loved by Christ. I mean, you're in Christ. It's impossible.

We tend to have a cause and effect mindset, right? Like, if I give you money, you give me the thing that I want to buy. And we have this idea of transaction. Even when it comes to love, it's on all the TV shows. But agape demands from us a unidirectional exertion of a will that only comes from God.

It's funny because I didn't understand that as well until I became a parent. I didn't even understand it this way as a married man. But when my kid was just being absolutely obnoxious, someday they'll be listening to this recording. When my kid was being obnoxious, I'm still called to love. And that happens in the body too. I know I'm obnoxious.

I mean, those of you who have been privileged to be parents, there's such a privilege of being a parent, learning a lot about yourself and about love. It's really true. It's good that you share that. Let's look at these verses again. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation to which you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Lots of meat there.

And I think there is only one way to summarize this. Overall, this passage says, for me to live is Christ. And Paul goes on and says, and to die is gain. I didn't put that there, but you know, either way you win. Because the life of Christ is for us now and today, forevermore. But once we're out of these earthly bodies, there's gain for each and every one of us. Other thoughts about today's passage?

Yes, Matt. One. OK. Take one. According to the power that works in us. And how does that work? And what my question is, what you the word you mentioned is to relax. So we go ahead. I'm sorry. Sorry. If you're, let's say, in the flush situation. So the how of this. to make it operate for me to rest and say, God, I'm resting in you, which may take away some of the fleshly responses of anger and frustration. So is that maybe the how of it is to rest? The rest is a good place to start. And a lot of Miles Stanford's text relates to that.

The rest we all have as believers. In keeping with that, it kind of triggers me back to a few weeks ago when we had that handout, Believers and the Fathomable Riches in Christ. And it seems that you read through that list of verses, through those couple pages, all those riches in our changed nature to do these things. Therefore we rest in his work.

Now remember, Pat, the rest is not like we are robots and God is zapping us with his truth. I mean the truth is in the word of God and it's spirit led that we can appropriately interpret what God's telling us by the power of the spirit revealing it to us.

Back to what we mentioned at the very beginning of the class, we've got doctrine first and application second. Without sound doctrine there's no rest. I mean I'm generalizing that comment but I just don't think you could rest and allow the spirit to begin to work if in fact you don't. see yourself positioned, Roger, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Randy?

Galatians 5.16 Paul writes, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

And that's a doctrinal truth that no one taught me for decades. Almost two decades I didn't have that taught to me. And so I was trying to do good by the flesh and I didn't have the doctrine and therefore I could not appropriate it. The other thing about sound doctrine, and I alluded to this before in my comment, is that you never feel that joy of the Christian experience that you have. But I think coming to the end of yourself allows the spirit to begin to work. It's a work of grace constantly in our lives. It doesn't occur overnight. Remember, Paul was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ for up to three years in the wilderness.

We don't know anything about that experience. Isn't that going to be neat? The question is, I'm going to divert, this is very tangential, but in heavenly places, how much of this earthly experience are we going to be commenting on? We'll have the knowledge of Christ, But are we going to return to this earthly sphere where we're surrounded by sin and by worldliness and the devil? I think in heavenly places a lot of that, and maybe all of it, is going to be totally gone. We might remember the things that brought glory to the Lord. Who knows? Scripture is so undetailed about what that heavenly experience is all about. And we all kind of look at that, I don't know about you, a little fearfully. I'm not quite sure what this is going to be all about.

But Paul says it's the game. for me to live as Christ and die as Gain. Think of Paul, what he went through. Isn't it good to have an earthly example who knew he was the greatest among sinners, I mean the way he described himself, near the end of his life. So Pat, back to your question, it's a very, very good question because sometimes I say where is the power of the Spirit in my life? My flesh is just flaming right now.

You take a step back and you realize that God has allowed that to be shown to you to realize that in yourself is no power. That it's ultimately his spirit that works in us. It's not plugging this extension cord into the wall to get a light to shine. It's really an act of faith. We have a responsibility and that's to live by the faith. And the faith is the doctrine that was in Ephesians 1-3.

Let's go to a closing prayer. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for the chance to gather together and study your work. We thank you for the life of the Spirit in us. We do pray that as we abide, we would be reflecting that walk to the world around us, as well as loving one another by your Spirit. And we just pray for the unity that he brings if we look to you. We just thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen.