In my 20 years at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, they somehow found their way to my office. Old men and young men, old women and young women, the married and the unmarried, wealthy and not so wealthy, teenagers and young professionals, but all of them with the same sad story of some kind of devastation in relationships. I've sat with wives who could not believe the betrayal of their husbands. I've sat with people who bore, in front of me, the burdens of the beating of that week.
Lost, Alienated, Unloved
I listened to teenagers who felt lost and alienated and unloved, of unmarried people who wondered if there was something wrong with them, of people in midlife who would tell the stories of the abuses of their youth and weep as if it happened yesterday. I wept with them. There were times when I would cry in my heart, "Lord, how long, how long, how long?" And as I would sit and listen to these stories, I would think of how far this moment seems from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the beauty of the restoration of His love and the forming of a community of love.
How distant it all seemed from the glory of what we are given in Christ. And I felt a deep sense of responsibility and privilege not to tell people that it would be okay because there were moments where it would not be okay, but to point them to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are ways in which those weeks changed me. It put a passion inside of me that I will never escape, to place the power of the gospel of Jesus right next to where people live every day. And I often thought of this passage that we are going to look at this evening because it speaks into this world; it speaks into a world of hostility and brokenness; it's there on the pages.
But it offers a hope of something very different. Different, not because human beings suddenly get their act together, but because Jesus is and He's the Savior and Restorer and Redeemer and Reconciler, and, in the work of Jesus, there's hope for us that we could be people of love and patience and kindness and gentleness; those aren't pipe dreams. Those aren't mountains that are impossible to climb; those aren't just the drippy hopes of tawdry romance novels that you probably shouldn't waste your time reading.
Those are the promises of the gospel. I think it's very easy for us to forget what we've been given, to live at a lower level than we've been gifted to live, to settle for poverty when we've been made rich, to settle for weakness when we've been given power, to sell ourselves spiritually short; we all probably did it this week. We all probably gave way in a moment of relationship to something we shouldn't give way to, a thought that we let course through our brains and begin to form action, a desire that's way less than what the gospel enables us to desire, a hope shockingly selfish that we shouldn't give way to.
And, I would hope that this evening as we consider the passage that's there in your order of worship, God will give us new encouragement and new vision and new motivation. How will we ever be a restorative community if we are content to live in brokenness that the gospel can lift us out of? May God help us! Let me read for you these verses again in Ephesians 4: I, therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 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.
Now, I work very hard at not spending the few moments that I have up here telling you what a passage doesn't mean before I tell you what it means. I want to spend my time telling you what it means. That's just me. But I have to do the other because I think this passage has been misunderstood and mishandled. I've heard it preached this way: It's your job to live up to the standard of the Gospel; get your act together in your relationships, and don't bring shame to Jesus. And if that's what this passage means, we're all in trouble.
A High Calling
Now surely, surely this passage speaks to a high calling that we are no longer just a group of individuals who can live life however we want to live, that we've been called to be the people of God; we are called to the kingdom of God; we are called to be the ambassadors of God; our lives don't belong to us anymore-they belong to Him; surely that's in this passage. But the flow of Ephesians, to this point, argues a different thing. Paul is saying, "Listen, not so much live up to the Gospel, but wouldn't you live out of the gospel?
Don't you understand what you have been given in Christ; don't you understand what His grace does, that enables us to live with one another in a radically new way?" I think that Luella won't mind me saying this, but if not, there's forgiveness in the people of God. Whenever we celebrate our anniversary, I think our marriage is not a legacy to our wisdom and our character. I know in the younger days of our marriage, I was a man who didn't know it, but was in the process of destroying that relationship, in my pride, my self-sovereignty, and the anger that flowed out of that.
But, what we were very aware of is that day after day, month after month, year after year, rescue and empowerment of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been empowered to love. Oh, I can remember moments when I knew I needed to ask Luella's forgiveness, and I didn't want to do that because that would mean I would have to say, "I was wrong!"- shocking that that would ever happen! But the spirit of God wouldn't let me alone. There would be that prompting, that uncomfortability, that would find me finally finding her.
Praise God for that! Praise God for the grace that would not leave me alone. And so, if you are going to understand this call to humility and gentleness and patience and forbearance, you have to do two things: You have to first recognize the height of this calling. I mean how many of you would say, "Sure Paul, naturally I'm a quintessential humble person? I'm known for my gentleness; I'm naturally patient; I find forbearance just a piece of cake." And when you reflect on your neediness, and you have to reflect on the Gospel that rescues you, look at what it says beginning with verse 14 of chapter 3.
This is Paul's prayer: For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, (now listen to this) that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being. Do you understand what He's saying? In all of these things, that from chapter 4 to chapter 6, you're going to be called to, in all of this ownership of God over your relationships and your work and your tongue and your thoughts, you have not been left to yourself, but you have now been empowered by the Spirit of God, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
That now, the reality of your life is in your marriage and in your friendships and at your work and all those fabric of relationships, that are so much the part of the rest of this epistle, you are not alone because the risen Christ now lives in your heart. As Eric Mason said, "...That place that is the seed of your mind and emotions and will, that causal core of your personhood." Now notice what he says next, "That you being rooted and grounded in (What?) love!" Rooted and grounded in love, that I am rooted in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, that that love now is the operating force that now lives within me in Christ.
Christ Lives Inside of Me
That the Christ of love, the Christ who made the sacrifice of love, that the Christ gave Himself in love, the Christ who was the example of love, the Christ who is love now lives inside of me by his Spirit! Praise God! Praise God! How can I look at that and say, "I can't love you?" The ultimate source of divine love now lives inside of me. I don't have words. I'm grounded in love - the very thing that seems to be so difficult in community. I can sort of live next to you; I can be surfacely nice to you; I can be quasi respectful of you; I can force myself to tolerate you; I can live in an emotional detente with you, but it's an entirely different thing to love you.
And so, the God who is love sends his Son of love to make a sacrifice of love to release His Spirit of love, so the One who died as an act of love now lives inside of me by his Spirit, so I'm empowered to love - there's the Gospel! So Paul can't be saying, "Just get your act together." If it was possible for you to get your act together, that redemptive story would not need to happen; that Spirit would not need to be given; that Christ of love would not need to dwell in your hearts and empower you to love.
That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And this wonderful doxology: "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to His power at work within us." According to his power...Where? At work where? (I won't ask you to repeat after me, we did a lot of that this morning)..."at work within us."
This God of incomprehensible power, (This is the problem of a mic that was on another ear this morning.) this power now lives inside of us. So, based on this, this wonderful message, that the ultimate source of love now lives inside of us by the Spirit, Paul says, "Walk in a manner worthy of this." And what's his first application? It is to community; His first application is to a life of love; if you have been blessed in this way, if you've been empowered in this way, if you have been indwelt in this way, then, live out of this.
Listen, Paul is arguing, Jesus died for your humility; he didn't just die for your past forgiveness. He didn't just die for your future hope; He died so in this broken world with flawed people in difficult moments, you could live a humble life; Jesus shed his blood for your humility. And any time you walk down the hallway, and you tell yourself that it's impossible for you to be humble, you are denying the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ - sorry, it's true. Live out of the Gospel that you've been given.
What about gentleness? There can be no more beautiful picture of gentleness than the Ultimate Pastor, the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Prophecies say of Him, "...a bruised reed He will not break; smoking flax He will not quench." He is gentle; and again, gentle Christ, the Lamb who did not argue in His own defense, suffered, so that, in moments where He is calling you to be gentle, you would have everything you need. Remember what it says in II Peter, chapter 1, verses three and four, "He has already given us everything we need for life and godliness."
Everything we need to live a God honoring life in the positions and situations and locations and relationships in which He has sovereignly placed us. You don't have to hope that you will have it; it has already been given as a gift of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to wait for hope; you live in hope; you live out of hope. Patience. There could be no greater treatise on patience than the story of redemption. It's amazing what a holy God in patient love will live with...year after year, after year, after century, after century, after kingdom, after kingdom.
Prophet After Prophet
Oh, never compromising His truth, never calling wrong right, quite willing to discipline His people...but again and again, coming back to the call to repentance and an offer to forgive... prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet coming with essentially the same message, sent by a God of patient love. Jesus, in patience, was willing to walk for 33 years subjecting Himself to things so deeply beneath his dignity as King of kings and Lord of lords, patiently willing to endure it all so that, in moments when you are called to be patient, you will have everything you need.
Forbearance. Forbearance-what is forbearance? It's essentially a form of patience; its patience under provocation; perseverance under provocation. Again, every moment where Jesus was mocked and rejected and argued with and misunderstood, everything He did was substitutionary; He did it all for you. He's achieving a righteousness for you; He's achieving power for you so that you would have everything you need. And then, He says, "...eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit, the bond of peace." He doesn't say create this unity...because you can't.
He is pointing to a mystery that we must not miss or minimize. It is a unity that is only possible in the people of God because it is a unity that's not based on your character, motives and purposes; it's not based on my ability to trust you; it's based on this reality. This is an amazing thing to me. I think there's so much more theological and practical work to be done in this little passage. It's this, that the reality is, the same Holy Spirit that lives inside of me, lives inside of you. The thing that now is the energizing force inside of me is exactly the same in you.
What the spirit wants for you, He wants for me. What He purposes for you, He purposes for me; what He empowers in you, He empowers in me. His work in you will never contradict His work in me. The Spirit's work in us will not bring us into that sinful conflict and that sinful confusion and that sinful competitiveness that is so part of human relationships. That literally, the Spirit of God will agree with the Spirit of God if we get out of the waywhat a beautiful thing that is. That's why the church can be this motley group of people who actually, outside of the spiritual world, often has little in common.
Eric Mason, has watched tv programs you didn't even know were on television, for those of you who were here this morning. Paul Tripp may have political thoughts that you just think are awful. You may be sitting next to someone who thinks that you're almost a Nazi, and they think you're close to being a Communist. You look at someone else, and they have a beard that you think belongs on someone else's face. You talk about the music that you enjoy, and they enjoy music that you just wouldn't use that term for.
But there's something happening. There's something that draws us together. There's something that percolates inside of us, that's beneath the level of all of that, that destroys all of those walls of distinction. What is it? It's not an 'it', it's a 'He'. It's the Spirit of God that draws us together in a unity we would not be able to have in any other way. And in that unity, as the Spirit works, we actually begin to appreciate one another; we actually begin to benefit from our differences; we actually begin to love one another.
The Unifying Spirit
That's not us getting our act together; that's the marvelous gracious work of the unifying spirit of God. Oh, I think Paul is saying, "Oh, brothers and sisters, in Ephesians, don't you understand what we have been given; don't you understand the radical thing that happened? God, in an act of glorious grace, has released you from your bondage to you." He works to release you from your allegiance to your own kingdom; He will root you in love as he invades your life by the Son of His love, and He does all of that so that you can live in this community of humility and gentleness and patience and forbearance and unity.
Why? Because in that community and through that community, He wants to do two things: One, he wants to use the love of that community as a tool of His sanctification. Why is this restoration of community important? ...because that community is the particular ordained vehicle of continuing growth for the Church of Jesus Christ. We are God's instruments; our relationships are God's instrument. And so, He says later on in this very chapter that it's as if every joint and ligament does its part that the body of Christ grows.
But it's not only for the purpose of sanctification; it's for the purpose of evangelism. Jesus says, "Father may they be one as we are one. I in you and you in them, that the world may know that you sent me." There's a way in which the love, the perseverant beautiful love of the community that is the church, is the ultimate argument for the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How can these people, as diverse as they are, dwell in such beautiful unity? The only answer is because the Son of love has come, and He suffered and He has died, and He has filled these people with His love, and, now, they can love.
What a beautiful message. I have hope for you, but it's not because of you. It's because of Jesus Christ, because He has done what is necessary so that we can live in this kind of community of love. I would ask you this evening in your relationships, are you living out of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you walk into moments, and, in subtle ways, are you telling yourself an antigospel? "I can't deal with this; I can't take this; this drives me crazy." Oh I can hear myself saying these things. Or do you say, "For this, Jesus died; for this, the Spirit has indwelt me; for this, the power of God lives inside me; I will walk forward and do what I've been called to do because Jesus is with me; Jesus is for me; Jesus is in me.
There is grace for this moment." Oh don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying that that will be easy; the war still goes on; love is a war and love is travail. But power has been given because the Son of love has rooted and grounded you in love as He has indwelt you by His love. Let's Pray: Lord, thank you for the beauty, beauty, beauty of the hope of this passage. Oh, Lord, we forget who we are; we forget what we've been given; we live in ways that contradict the message of this passage - forgive us. Forgive us for our amnesia; forgive us for our unwillingness.
Oh, may we, with joy and courage and motivation of hope, live out of the gorgeous gifts of the Gospel. In Jesus name, Amen.
