Blessed Assurance – Unity & Maturity – Sermon – Pastors Dave Page and Marlee Page

The opening sentence of chapter 4, where Paul says, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received,” marks the turning point in the book of Ephesians. The King James Version of vs. 1 begins with the words I, therefore…..if you see the word therefore you better know what it’s there for….in this case the word therefore has us looking back to the first 3 chapters – Paul’s theology.

Ch. 4 then has us moving from the theology of the Church to practicality of the Church.  This is typical of Paul’s writing. You can observe the same change in Romans 12 for example 

So what can we take from his passage as application of Paul’s theology in the context of the church?

Well, here’s the first – Vs 2 & 3

Paul isn’t wasting a lot of time here – he get’s right to it. The unity – the unity of the Church – which Paul tells us begins with character, our character. The people who bring unity are first of all “humble and gentle.”  This would be very countercultural to the people in Ephesus, remember Paul is dealing with a very Greek audience. Humility was despised in the ancient Greco-Roman world as a slave-like quality.

What was admired was the mega-souled or “great-souled” man who was complete and self-sufficient, that is the man the Greeks would have applauded. Those seem to be the types of people our society applauds today as well – self-made, conquering, masters of their domain. But here Paul points to humility and links it together with “gentle[ness]” (or meekness, as it is more often translated)….and please understand this, this meekness/gentleness is not weakness. It is rather strength under control. There is nothing spineless or timid about it. Jesus described himself with both words, saying, “I am gentle [meek] and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29).

And so those who walk in unity are not only humble and gentle but, as the second part of this verse says, “patient, bearing with one another in love” (v. 2)

We are to “be patient,” not short-tempered, literally long-tempered. The twin quality of “bearing with one another in love” means far more than tolerating each other — love is to oil our relationships, be the fuel for our relationships.

Think about the Apostle Peter, who began as a proud, rough, impatient man…. in his first letter he says: “… have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart” (1:22); “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers …” (2:17);“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (4:8)

Both Peter and Paul are helping us to understand that Christian unity particularly in the setting of the Body/the Church, doesn’t begin with an external structure or denomination, but rather in the attitudes of the heart — humility and mildness and patience and loving tolerance of one another.

“The unity of the Spirit” (v. 3) takes people who are so different and makes them live in soul-satisfying unity. This is what Jesus taught and exemplified for us. Yes, there will be times of differences among us as the Body of Christ / Church – we are Human beings, broken Human beings…but when the spiritual fruits of humility and patience take precedence, under the umbrella of love, there is unity.

And we must remember that Christian unity, even in profound diversity, brings great glory to God!

Vs 12 is to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. Church, this is about Discipleship – and us growing as a Church family – growing not in numbers, all though that may happen when we get this right, but growth in getting closer to what God is calling us to be…makers of disciples, makers of disciples who make disciples…and so on…

Paul is saying in verse 12 that the means of our growth is discipleship. He says quite simply that God has given gifted leadership to the church “to equip/prepare God’s people for works of service” (v. 12) — or as it literally reads in the Greek – diakonia which means ministry.

This is a watershed text for the doctrine of the Church.

It effectively eliminates the traditional model of the local church as a pyramid, with the pastor at the top of some hierarchy, like an emperor in their own church, while the laity are arrayed beneath them in ranks of inferiority. That’s not what we are called to be….

The Biblical model is the entire Body of Christ, in which those in pastoral or teaching roles prepare God’s people for works of ministry.

One of the documents we provided to the search committee detailed our philosophy of Pastoral Ministry in which we said that a Pastor has 2 primary areas of focus:

1. The Word – teaching and preaching in a manner that equips the Body for Ministry, as Paul is encouraging us to live out…
2. Prayer – the other is prayer – not just that I am to be praying for all of you and your daily walk… but to make sure that you are equipped to pray for yourselves and for others…this is essential –

I think prayer is the most powerful tool we have to work with…I can tell you that we’ve been praying for this Church specifically since Feb of 2021.

When we consider that we are all involved in Ministry, then we realize that we all have our part to play in building up the Body of Christ, and that all of our parts are equally important.

Can I give you an example from the fire service that makes this point….

When we teach new fire officers about how to supervise and command incidents, we teach them about the 3 levels of command – Strategy, Tactics and Tasks – 3 levels of command

• Strategy – put the fire out
• Tactics – use water to put the fire out
• Task – use a hose to get water to the fire in order to put it out…

When we ask students which of those three things are the most important, most often people will say strategy…but the reality, the correct answer, is the task level.  While we as officers may end up supervising an incident of 1 type or another, all of us need to be competent at being able to complete any task given to us otherwise the whole system breaks down. It’s very similar here in the Church – we need to understand our calling and purpose within the body, and work to provide the service we are called to, not only that, but we also need to support others in the Church in their efforts to do the same thing.

Every Christian believer should be involved in ministry. PERIOD. We believe that! it doesn’t matter what our age is or how physically able we are. There is something for everyone to contribute and those contributions are needed if we are going to grow together and live out our calling as His Church

The Bible is clear about this – Every believer is to minister! We all have a part to play!

Vs 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Lastly, this is “the how” we grow as the body, and this is masterful, how Paul has framed this… Our text says it in verse 15 as “speaking the truth in love,” but in the original Greek language it is the participle aletheuontes, which means truthing. This carries the idea of not only speaking the truth but doing it. This is the medium through which growth is maximized.

When there is “truthing in love,” when truthing lives are coupled with humility, gentleness, meekness in addition to love, the Spirit is free to do His work, and do His work powerfully – and the result is wonderful. These are foundational principles of Discipleship

Paul has said a lot in just these few verses. So, how do we apply this in our context of the church…..

Well, I think there are four things we might consider as application in the context of the church, this is the hard work that needs to be done….

• Establish and support gifted leadership which, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, teaches and lives out God’s Word. – You’re doing this hard work in praying and study together. Our work then is to seek out how we can each other in this calling, to look for ways to help support each other in what God is calling them and the church to do together.
• The hard work of discipleship…in which God’s people are prepared for works of ministry and are using their gifts to the fullest, whatever their parts may be….living these gifts out on a daily basis, through out the week…finding a place to get involved in one of our various Ministries – I can assure you that there is a place for your gifts in the activities of this congregation….and in your daily life-the world needs you / us.
• Through a progressive Shared maturity of God’s people, so all of use are riding high on the tide of one another’s lives….or supporting each other as we face trials and gaps in our lives…..are you involved in a small groups or a mid week program? – these are wonderful mediums of growth for us as believers – to journey together with God….
• Through truthing in love — transparent, honest, loving speech and actions towards one another and those we come in contact with everyday…..inside and out of the Church….Jesus Christ modelled this for us…and we should be modelling our faith for others….People are watching you…and me…In a post Christian, increasingly secular Canada, our behaviour as Christians stands out….and that’s a good thing because our society and sense of community is disappearing…wouldn’t you agree that there is generally a loss of community today…

If you have internet access and a Netflix account, our culture asks us “what else do you need, who else do you need?”…this is not a statement for young people only – I know a great many “ADULTS” that spend hours per weak on the internet/Netflix – and the problem with that is that this is speeding up the fragmentation of society, it’s destroying community….and not only are we seeing fragmentation in community… but that’s moving on to a new phenomenon know as atomization…

Have you heard of this term, atomization. Fragmentation has progressed to atomization, we are increasingly isolated as individuals.

This is a great opportunity for the Church, to live out our calling. The church can not become a network of isolated believers in a world that is starving for community, we are called to dive into this hurting and atomized world and show love, to show unity.

What is God calling you to be, I think Paul has made that clear this morning – so maybe “What is God calling you to be?” is not the right question to ask….maybe the question we should be asking – What is our answer going to be…?