Transcription
It's just such an honor to come together as the body and to take of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And the fact that He is present, He is here with us, and we get to come in this room and tell Him how great He is and everything we do to the praise of His glorious grace.
Um, we've been in the book of Ephesians for about four months now. Um, that's how long it's taken to get to the first three chapters. And I hope it's changed your life. Like, I mean, I hope you're a happier person. Know, just, just generally. I mean, think about it. Like, I, I hope that these, these truths, like, you meditate on them. Like, like if it's a bad day, or if it's whatever, you go, "Wait a second. I was chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. Uh, He, in love, He predestined me to be adopted as one of His children. He, He redeemed me and I'm forgiven." I mean, just to think I was dead in my trespasses and sins. I was by nature an object of wrath. And now He's going to lavish His grace upon me. I've been made alive with Christ. I'm seated in the heavenly places right now with Christ, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion.
I hope as you, you think about these things in everyday life, like when you're sitting around doing nothing, or when you're driving, that you don't just jump on the phone real quick or try to, you know, watch one more video, but you just kind of let your mind rest on these promises and actually meditate on, "Wow, I'm seated with Christ in the heavenly places right now, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, above every name that's ever been named or will be named. I'm with Him. This is insane. I have this hope one day of seeing Him and being with Him." Meditate on these things. I hope you've seen your level of joy rise as we've spent so many weeks just talking about what He's done. This is, they didn't even get, it wasn't even about what we do. This is all what He's done for us. We're the objects. We're just the objects of His grace. We just sit there. He's done it all.
And, uh, last week we kind of turned a corner because we got into chapter 4. And that's where God says, "Because of everything I've done," or Paul says, "I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called." Remember the, the balances. And you, you've got the cross on one side and everything that God did. And He says, "I want you to have this equal value. You, you know, live a life that is worthy. Walk in a way that's worthy of all these things we've been given."
So how do we do that? How do we? Because I hope that's your desire. You go, "God, I've been given something so sacred. I'm partaking of the body and blood of Jesus. I'm, I'm forgiven. I'm, I'm a child of God now. How should I live in a way that honors Him?" Well, He answers that question in verses 2 to 3. And the answer might surprise you. The first thing He says after He says, "Hey, I want you to live a life that's worthy. I want you to walk in a manner that's worthy." He explains how in verses 2 and 3. He says, "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."
So, in light of everything that God has done, He says, "You know what? I want. I'm begging you. Come on, live in a way that's worthy of everything He's done." And then He says, "This is how you do it." He says, "With all humility, with gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Does it surprise you that the first thing He talks about is unity? Because you want to live a life, you want to walk in a manner that's worthy of all of these promises, then be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
That word "eager." It's, we don't really have like an English equivalent. "Eager" is good, but it, it carries with it this idea of urgency. Okay? So if you put "urgent" and "eager" together, you get "ent" or "ur-er." It, it's the idea of both of these words in the Greek. It's like, it's, it's like, "Ah, I want to do this," but there's also like an urgency, like, "We got to do this now." There's an immediacy that, that, that God is saying, "You, you want to please Me? You want to live a life that's worthy? Then be eager, be urgent about this. You've got to live in unity. You've got to become one."
And again, that might surprise you that you go, "Why would that be so important that He would put that first?" It's interesting. He does it in, uh, First Corinthians also. Here's a church where, you know, people are, you know, in gross immorality, they're getting drunk, they're suing each other, they don't believe in the resurrection. You know, the first thing He says to them is, "Hey, I heard there's divisions among you." This is so huge, you guys. This is so important. Because for so many of years, so many years of my Christian life, I really didn't care about this. I didn't care about unity. I was taught to, you, you know, "Hey, we're the ones that have it right. And these other quote-unquote Christians, stay away from them." And so I had a very elitist, like, "Wow, you guys, your theology is so off. I don't even want to talk to you." I mean, it was a time when, when, you know, I didn't believe in some of the supernatural gifts. I was a pastor at the time, and I thought, "Every once in a while, someone would come in and talk about their prayer language." And I'd be like, "Oh, that's weird." Like, I really didn't want them in the church. Not that's strange. I don't believe in speaking in tongues. And just trying to figure out a way how to kind of squeeze those people out because I know what that leads to. Weird prophecies, and then they start dancing and chewing on the carpet. And I, I don't want that. You know, I want the people who believe like me, worship like me, think like me. There was no eagerness. Yeah. Now I do speak in tongues. So it's weird.
Um, but it's that whole thought of how God says, "Hey, would you be humble? Would you be gentle? And would you be eager to maintain, not create, not make something up?" He says, "I want you to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." This is not something where I need to rile you up. It's something inside of you. If the Spirit is in you, you want unity with the believers. It's like, you're, it's, and, and your job is not to create something that's not there. He says, "God put it in you." Now, the importance is to maintain that.
Why is this so important? You've got to remember everything we're doing in Ephesians here, from 4 to 6. We got to go back to the context. Text and remember that in chapter 2, verse 14, Christ died to make us one. In in Ephesians 2, it says, "He himself is our peace, who made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace." You see that? The whole idea of His body being torn was so that the Jews and the Gentiles could become one, one new. He goes, "I know you used to fight and everything, but now that My body has been broken, My body was broken so that you could be one." So, so this is why it is so big. Unity is so huge because Jesus is saying, "I died on the cross to make one new man."
Then later in chapter 2, he says, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord." Do you see what the cross was about? The cross allowed us, you and me, we get to join ourselves with Isaiah, Jeremiah, with Paul, who wrote this letter, with Peter, with all of these saints. This was, this is what the cross was about. All of us now get to join into one temple. This is what He died for. He says, "Christ is a part of this building. He's the cornerstone. You got the foundation, apostles, prophets, then you got these believers all through the years." And it's like, "We're building this one temple." And so becoming a believer is me joining that temple. That's why the first thing He says is, "Maintain that unity, that connection with the believers of all time, the believers all around the world."
And then the other thing is, if you remember chapter 1, this was the plan of God, okay? Chapter 1, verse 9: "Look at this, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth." So He says, "Look, in Christ, I've had this plan." This is God saying, "I've had a plan. I've had a plan is for the fullness of time, and it was to unite everything in heaven and earth under Christ." And He says it again in chapter 3, 3:9 and 10: "And to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places."
Again, He's saying there, "Think about this, okay? Before you were born, before there was a world, there was God, and God had a plan. And the Bible says it was just hidden in Him. It was this plan that, that, you know, Adam didn't know about. Eve didn't know about. Cain and Abel didn't know about. Seth didn't know. A lot of people didn't know about this. It was just hidden in God. But it was His plan. He goes, 'One day, through the cross, I'm going to unite everyone.' And then, and then we're going to be so united that then suddenly demons, angels will look on and they'll see the manifold wisdom of God. Wow, He died on the cross so that all these people who follow Him now can be joined to this one temple, and it turns into this dwelling place for God. This is His plan."
That's why in Ephesians 4, He then says, "Hey, you want to please Him? You want to live a life, walk in a way that's worthy? Be eager to maintain this unity. This was God's plan. This is massive." This is why the worst thing we can do is to separate ourselves from the body of Christ and isolate ourselves. That's why I don't believe it's coincidence that in the quote-unquote Christian church today, you have so many people leaving the church and saying, "Yeah, I don't, I don't need the church. I have my own relationship with God and my own spirituality." You guys, that's not a coincidence that we think this way because at the core of satanic thinking is this idea of separating yourself, isolating yourself. Remember when we talked about Satan? I gave you a quick Wikipedia about his history and how in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, he was that high angel, he was Lucifer, this beautiful angel. But what, what happened? He's like, "You know what? I want to, I will ascend to the throne of God." He didn't want to come under under the throne. He didn't want to just come together as the people or the angels or the beings of God. He's like, "No, I want to do my own thing. I will." And so it's no coincidence that we have this pandemic going on in the world of of being independent. And it's c-r-e-e-p-i-n-g into the church where suddenly it's, "I don't need you. You don't understand theology like I do. You don't understand the gifts like I do. You don't understand what church is supposed to be like. I do. So I'm going to go off and I'm just getting my own relationship with God. I don't need the church."
I really believe that the enemy has deceived us. He's deceived me to where I just did not see the importance of unity for many years. Um, it's really weird how it's become normal to just not know who's going to be here next week or who's going to be with us. So like Sarah, I have no idea what's going on in her head. This might be your last week. You get mad this week and go to the church down the street. I mean, that's normal. Or maybe me just talking about this, he's like, "God, he's in Ephesians forever. You're just going to go down the street and they'll talk to you about how to be happy." And it, it's just, but that's normal. Or, "Gosh, 5 o'clock. That's not a great time." Or, or, "You know what? This guy really offended me." Or, "She was bothering me." Or, "He amens too much last week. He yelled at us. Said we don't scream enough." You know, whatever it is, it's like, "I'm done. I'm out of here." Like, that's normal because we don't. And this is, this is the great deception, is that we no longer see ourselves as family. Like, I, I don't think, I don't think to myself, "I wonder if Rachel's still going to stay as a part of our family next week." No. And I, I get it. There are families that are split apart and everything else. That's not God's intention. You, what my kids growing up wondering if Lisa and I were going to stay together. We're, we're family. Is what we do. I mean, you guys are moving, but still, you'll be back. Um, it, it's just this whole mindset that we don't look at this as a body or as a family anymore. It's just a place we go for a while, and then we'll go somewhere else. And some of you guys came from other places, and I mean, I get it. We got to move. We do other things. This is not some, some weird guilt thing. I'm just saying we don't look at the church as a family anymore. And I believe that's a great deception. Um, it's just a place we go, get something from it, and move on.
So here's the problem. Because it seems very simple, okay? The Bible teaches that we are to be unstained by the world, right? Like we are supposed to separate ourselves from the world, from worldly thinking, worldly actions. Now, we, the old us, we used to walk in our trespasses and sins. We would just do whatever we felt like doing. That was the old us that said we're following the course of this world, Ephesians 2. And the Bible says we need to come out from that and be holy as He is holy. So keep yourself unstained by the world, okay? I get that. Don't be stained by the world. And then I look at Ephesians here and many other passages. It tells me, "Attach yourself to the church. Attach yourself to this temple." So it seems like one of the most simple truths: distance yourself from the world, attach yourself to the church.
But here's what makes it difficult. What if the church starts taking on worldly thinking and worldly practice? Then you start going, "Okay, I'm supposed to attach to the church, but who's the real church?" What if the church starts allowing things that the Bible expressly forbids? And then they just go, "Well, that's just the way we interpret it." This is where it gets tricky. Because you can go to any Christian bookstore. Actually, we don't have those in the Bay Area. But they used to have these things called Christian bookstores. You could go to Amazon, Christian section, and, and, uh, you can find someone that will allow you, a Christian author or pastor, who allow you to do anything you want to do. You want to get divorced? There's Christian books that'll allow it. You, you want to change your gender? There's Christian books that allow that. You want to be in a homosexual marriage? There's Christian books that'll allow that. You want to kill, abort your baby? There's Christian books that'll allow. So at what point do you go, "I'm supposed to attach myself to the church, but then that's inside of the church, and it's not even the church anymore." See, this is, this is where it gets difficult, right? And, and then the doctrines get weird. And suddenly there's churches that are saying, "Christ really wasn't the Son of God," or, "Or He didn't really come in the flesh." And you're like, "I don't know."
Then I run into situations where where people who believe they're saved by grace through faith, and it's like, "Man, Jesus is everything to me." And then I go, "Okay, but you also pray to Mary. Help me understand that." You, so do I divide? Now, when I pray to Mary, it's like I'm asking her for like a prayer request. Like, "Oh shoot, I don't know what to do with this one." And there's all these different things where you're going, "Wait, I don't know if you're a brother. I don't know if you're..." It gets confusing. I mean, there's certain things the Bible does say when the, you know, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, he goes, "You got to expel the immoral brother from a from your midst." But then you, well, "How immoral do they have to be?" Right? Who, who determines that line? Second John says, "Don't, don't go associating with people who, who deny that the Christ has come in the flesh." Paul says in Galatians 1, "If someone preaches a gospel different from the one that I preach, let them be accursed." Okay? But what if it's just a little different? And there's questions that have been debated ever since, you know, Christ left this earth. And so, so when I'm just telling you, this is something I've been wrestling with for years. There's times where I'm like, "Gosh, is this a brother?" I think so. I mean, he absolutely trusts in Jesus and Jesus alone and what He did on the cross. He believes in the infallibility of the scripture. He just, he just, gosh, he, he interprets some of these passages differently, and they don't seem like core doctrine, you know? But who's to say what's most important? I really don't know.
And so I still pray about this. And I'm like, "Okay, Lord, every person I meet, uh, that I try to get to know, and I'm trying to understand what they believe and how they live and everything else to go, 'Gosh, do I treat this person as a brother or sister?'" And I think for years, and many people have tried to create like boundaries. Like, "If a person does this, then..." You know, back in the days when I was a kid, they used to have like degrees of separation. Like churches would have a system saying, "Okay, well, this person believes in this, but he doesn't believe in that. So that is a third degree separation." You know, meaning you can still call him Christian, but that's it. Don't talk to them. Okay? Then there's second degree, where, "Okay, you can partner on some things and you can fellowship with them, but they're not one." And then there's first. You know, it's just like you start listing all these things that aren't so clear in the Bible, and it can get so frustrating. And this is where my mind goes. I mean, this, as some of you know, I wrote a whole book about unity. And it was so frustrating because people were saying, "Tell us where the line is where you no longer call them brother or sister." I'm, my gosh, I'm trying to find it. I don't know. You know? And so everyone's like, "Okay, then I'm not buying the book." I'm like, "Come on."
But I noticed something as I was reading this this week. I was telling Mercy, I was like, "Dang it, I wish I knew this before I wrote the book." But I, he, this wrestle. What does Paul do? Because he doesn't spell things out. I mean, sometimes he even says, like, with the Sabbath, like, "We started these Saturday night gatherings so that it would kick off a Sabbath." And he says, "Hey, some people are going to think it's Saturday, some going to think it's Sunday, some think it's every day. Hey, you just got to be convinced in your own mind." You're like, "Ah, that doesn't help. You're an apostle. Why don't you just tell us what day and exactly what we're supposed to do?" But he just kind of leaves it out there, leaves us hanging. And so it's kind of the same thing here where I'm like, "Okay, God, I want to attach myself. I want to maintain the unity of the Spirit, but I don't want to do it at the expense of holiness and truth. So where's that line?"
But as I was looking at it this week, I realized, huh, he actually doesn't give us the exact strategy. Instead, he tells us a type of character that we are supposed to pursue. So it's, see, my mind naturally goes to answers and strategy and just tell me what to do. And what he does here is he tells us who to be. He says, "With all humility." All humility. The word "all." Like, "Be the most humble person on the earth. Just be the most humble person on the earth." My wife and I have done so much marital counseling over the years, and in all our years, we've never seen a humble couple divorce. It doesn't happen. It's about the character. It's crazy how humility just instantly brings people together. But he, I want you to be as humble as you can be. I want you to, "with all gentleness." So he starts with this. And I could, I could do like a long series on humility. But okay, he says, "with all humility and gentleness." And I caught something this week about that "all humility and gentleness." I just think, "Okay, those are cute words." You know, "patience, sparing with one another in love." But then I realized, "Oh, humble and gentle. Where else do we see that?" There's only one place in the Bible where Jesus describes His own heart. And chill is talking about this. Matthew 11, verse 28: "Come, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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." Jesus is saying, "Come to me, you tired, you heavy laden. You think that I'm just this God that's way out there that is going to just destroy you for the things that you've done? You think I'm going to heap this huge burden?" He goes, "No, come to me. He goes, I'm gentle and humble." And it just, it just made me look at the word of God and go, "Gosh, the word of God is amazing."
Then Paul in Ephesians, he says, "Hey, the first thing you want to please Me? You want to pursue unity? Then with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace." Humble and gentle. Does this describe us? Because it describes Jesus. So awesome. You see, pride leads to isolation. This is why we separate from people. It's like, "I don't like you. You're not as good as me. You don't understand the situation. I'm getting away from you. I know better than you." See, it's, it's everything the Bible speaks again where against where He says in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, He goes, "You can't say to another member of the body, 'I don't need you.'" I have no permission to look at Allison and say, "I don't need you. I'm better off without you." The eye can't say to the hand, "I don't need you." Yeah, the, the hand doesn't understand the eye. The eye doesn't. We're like such different parts. He goes, "Yeah, but you, you, you are not allowed to say, 'I don't need you.'" But when your pride, you, you're that eye that goes, "Yeah, but you can't see it's like, gosh, look what I can do. I'll show you what I can do." You know? Like, it's just this whole idea of you can't do that. You're not permitted to do that. But it's your pride. Think about the relationships you've left. You didn't need them. You go, "I'm preaching to myself. I've confessed. I left a church too soon. Maybe a couple churches too soon. I just wasn't thinking. I just thought, 'I don't need them. I would do better without them.'" It leads to isolation.
I want to show you a verse from Proverbs. Proverbs 16:5: "Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an Abomination to the Lord; be assured he will not go unpunished." Okay? So anyone who's who's got an arrogant heart, you got to look at these words. "Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an Abomination." That, that, that means a cursed object, like where God just goes, "That is so disgusting that you would have an arrogant heart." See, sometimes we, we look at sins and we have our own categorizing of them. Like, "Ah, that's not that bad. I've got a little pride. I get it. Who doesn't?" Instead of looking what the scriptures say. And it's like, as I was just meditating on this, I'm saying, "God, I don't want any arrogance in my heart. I don't want to be an Abomination." I hope this bothers you. I hope it bothers you to the point where you're on your knees going, "God, make me humble." Because I know You love it. I know You oppose those who are proud. You give grace to those who are humble. Just get it out of me.
I mean, think about it again, in light of Ephesians 4:1-3. What do we have to be proud of? We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were following the course of the world, following Satan, and just following whatever our bodies and our minds wanted to do. And we were by nature objects of wrath. And you're proud? And then God, by grace, made you alive together with Christ. He goes, "Don't you understand? It's My grace so that you are saved." He goes, "So that no one would be bo- would boast." He did that so that we wouldn't be arrogant. So when we say, "We understand that," and then we're cocky, God's like, "That is sickening. That's an Abomination." This is why we want this out of our lives.
In 1 Corinthians 4:7, he goes, "What do you have that you didn't receive?" Think about it. What do you have right now that you weren't given? For those who think, "Oh, I'm just more, I'm more intelligent than the rest people in this room. I understand this book better than anyone in this room. I'm closer to the Holy Spirit than I'm more humble than anyone in this room." You said, "Oh, you did that yourself." Because what do you have that you weren't given?
I was reading through a lot of the Kings, uh, in Chronicles this week. Um, in 2 Chronicles 32, he's talking to Hezekiah and he says, "Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. But Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah." Is that awesome? What did he change? Just his pride. So here, the wrath of God was upon him. So he humbles himself, and God says, "Okay, you're good." That's it. That's it. This is why we got to get the pride out of our lives.
I love what Josiah, Josiah talks about him in 2 Chronicles also, because "your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before Me and have torn your clothes and wept before Me. I also have heard you," declares the Lord. I love that. Do you remember that? That was when Josiah, you know, they found the book of the law and in the temple had kind of been lost, and then they start reading it. And Josiah's like, "Oh my gosh, that's why the wrath of God is on us." He tears his clothes and he just humbles his heart, says, "God, forgive me."
See, maybe tonight is one of those moments for you where you realize, "Oh man, I, uh, I, I've been proud. I saw it as a, a little sin." You guys, we have to stop treating pride like it's a little sin. It will absolutely destroy this body. It is a stage for cancer. Pride will destroy a body faster than anything. And so tonight, I just thought, "You know what? Lord, I, I was praying, praying for you all before you came in today, just going, 'God, would You just make us humble? Can You like, supernaturally make us humble? Just show us the pride in our lives.'" I was praying this week on, "God, show me." Because I've struggled with pride my whole life. You see some growth and everything else, but it's still there. And I was like, "God, show me." And what He pointed to was, I believe, as a, Lord, just making me think of even my prayers to Him. And something I do every once in a while is I, I think about my prayers and I think about the Lord's Prayer. And sometimes I see, "Wow, I am praying for something and for things that have nothing to do with the Lord's Prayer." Um, sometimes pray for success, achievement, for things to change. And Jesus, when you pray, say, "Our Father," recognizing that He is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I just think about my prayers the last month or two and going, "Wow, God, I've not been thinking about You being hallowed and lifted up. I've not thought about Your kingdom coming and Your will being done, not my will, but Yours be done on earth as it is in heaven." And it's just humbling because you realize, "Wow, I'm still so self-centered after everything God's done for me." God, humble my heart. This is what I want. I want You to be hallowed. I want You to be lifted up.