Battle Ready: "Walk the Call": Ephesians 4.1-3 Pastor Daniel Reese

If you have your Bibles, Ephesians chapter 4 is where we will be this morning.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

It's time to jump back into it.

We're going to be in chapter 4 this morning.

We're going to be in chapter 4 all the way leading up to Advent.

I forgot how many weeks that is, but we're going to finish chapter 4 before Advent.

Before we jump into chapter 4, though, I think it's important that we quickly summarize

where we have been in Ephesians up to this point.

The first half of Ephesians, the first three chapters of Ephesians, is primarily doctrine.

For three chapters, Paul outlines who God is, what He has done, who we are, and what

the benefits are of being adopted into His family.

We learn that even the faith that we have to believe in Jesus wasn't something that

we got on our own.

It was given to us by God.

Everything that we have in Jesus is because God initiated the relationship.

He provided everything we need to have the relationship, and then He rewards us for having

that relationship that He initiated for us.

That's what the first three chapters of Ephesians are.

We learn that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and God claims us as His own.

As much as the enemy will lie to you regarding your salvation, God did not make a mistake,

and He has no regrets when He adopted you into His family.

We spent 14 weeks then going through the book of Hosea.

For 14 weeks, we saw how the people of Israel were neglecting the Lord in His contentment.

Continuous pursuit of them.

Throughout the book, He warned them.

He sent prophets.

He sent warnings, and eventually He sent judgments.

Throughout the entire book of Hosea, it was like God was holding up a mirror to show them

their reality, to show them what they had become, and they refused to look into it.

Now, that doesn't mean they stopped being His people, but sometimes parents have to

make some hard decisions to get their children's attention.

And that's what ended up happening with God and Israel.

So it's almost like Paul took a page from Hosea, and for three chapters, he reminded

the people of God of who he was and what he had done.

And now the next three chapters are going to be, how do we live in light of that reality?

How are we supposed to live with that information?

Israel failed to see it in Hosea, and it ended badly for them.

My prayer is that we can do better.

So let's read the first three verses together, and then we'll go from there.

Paul says, I therefore, a prisoner for 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.

So right out of the gate, Paul says, therefore, referencing chapters one through three.

So in light of who God is, the one who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in

the heavenly places.

The one who chose us before the foundation of the world.

The one in whom we have redemption.

In light of that, Paul urges us to walk in a worthy manner.

So I think there's at least three aspects that we can gather from this text.

There's three things that we need to focus on, and we need to remember.

The first one comes from verse one.

It's a calling.

This is a calling.

Now let's understand what this calling is.

Notice real quick that this is a call you receive.

This is not a call you make.

You are not the caller.

This goes back to everything we've already covered in the previous chapters.

By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves.

This is not anything you've done.

It is a gift from God.

The call that we receive is a gift from God.

So if we were to keep this in the context of what Paul has already written in Ephesians,

this is not talking about a job.

There are many of us who have had callings, and you are living that out.

Some have been called into the ministry.

Some have been called to work in a particular field.

Some have been called to be a parent.

Those are all great callings, but this is not what Paul is saying that you have been

called to in this text.

This is a calling to salvation.

So although I am called to preach, although I am called to be a pastor, I have a higher

calling, and that's my salvation.

Paul says in 2nd Timothy chapter 1, therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our

Lord nor of me and his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of

God who saved us and called us to a holy calling.

Not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in

Christ Jesus before the ages began.

Does that sound familiar to you?

Does that sound like something we've already covered?

It's like Paul has this theme going on.

Your salvation was given to you before you took your first breath.

I grew up like many of you that I grew up in a time before cell phones.

I know I'm not that old, but I grew up before cell phones.

Believe it or not, my parents would just send me out into the world and hope for the best.

Hope I made it safely.

Hope I was where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there.

They would send me out without even giving me a quarter to make a phone call.

I laugh at my kids all the time.

I laugh at many of you as well.

When they wonder, how am I going to survive if I don't have a cell phone?

My son last night, he has a screen limit, right?

What if, what if I need to text somebody after my screen time is over?

I don't know.

I mean, you're going to make it.

When I needed to get a hold of my parents, I would go to a pay phone and I would dial

1-800-CALL-ATT.

You know the number?

I knew that.

Boom, boom, boom.

I had their number memorized, which many of us don't have numbers memorized anymore,

but I had their number memorized and I would make a collect call.

They would answer and they would hear, you have a collect call from, and this is the

time you would say your name so they knew who was calling.

Instead of giving my name, I would get in as many words as possible in that one second

after the beep.

You have a collect call from, pick me up at school.

Right?

I forgot my keys.

I forgot my backpack.

Right?

That's it.

That was it.

They couldn't respond unless they wanted to pay for the phone call.

In that moment, they had to stop whatever they were doing and come help me.

It was a one-sided conversation.

When somebody makes a phone call, there is a purpose behind it.

The purpose in God's call to us is because He has a purpose for our lives.

When God makes a call, it's because of the grace that He wants to bestow.

So when you think about your salvation, you think about, okay, I was saved before the

foundation of the world.

He chose me before I took my first breath.

The question we need to be asking is, why?

What purpose does God have in mind for redeeming me?

Why did He choose me?

Why do we have an Amazon distribution center in Davenport?

It's because Jeff Bezos was thinking, I really like those people in Iowa.

I want to provide a bunch of jobs for them.

No.

No.

It was because he was being strategic and getting things that he sells closer to the

people who were buying them.

If he can put a distribution center in different parts of the country, then we can get stuff

faster than we would if they were just on the coast.

And guess what?

He makes more money.

God calls you because you might be the only believer in your workplace.

You might be the only believer in your neighborhood.

And He is calling you to spread His message.

He calls you to help distribute His love to those around you.

He calls you to walk with others as they go through a hard time.

He calls you for a purpose.

Now our locations might be different, but the purpose is the same.

Penn Gillette.

Many of y'all know him.

He's a magician.

He's half of the team, Penn and Teller, where they perform their magic act in front of sold-out

shows.

They perform on television, they do all these things.

Penn is an atheist, and he boldly proclaims that.

He's proud of the fact that he is an atheist.

A few years ago, he gave an interview about Christianity.

This is what he said.

He said, if you believe there is a heaven and a hell, and you think it's not worth telling

someone about, how much do you have to hate him to not proselytize?

To believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell people?

Now, proselytize simply means to advocate or promote your beliefs.

So a prominent atheist is promoting evangelism.

If you have received the free gift of salvation, and you are going to reign and rule with the

people, and you are going to rule with Jesus, if God has called you with a purpose, how

much do you have to hate someone to not tell them about it?

If you've been forgiven of your sin, if you've been redeemed, why would you not tell someone

how they can be forgiven of their sins?

How they can be redeemed?

I mean, we pass on all kinds of information, don't we?

Hey, there's this great sale going on at this store.

You should jump in on that.

Hey, the roads are bad today.

You might want to take another route or leave a little early.

Hey, kids sign-ups are going on right now.

If you want your kid to participate, you better get on that.

So it's not like we're afraid to pass on information, but for some reason, when it comes to our

faith, we forget that we have been called with a purpose.

When something good is going on, tell people about it.

Tell people about your church.

Tell people about the opportunities where they can hear the gospel.

Tell people what the Lord has done in your life.

We have a great opportunity this week.

When you leave, I want you to grab one of these cards.

We've advertised it.

It's the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast.

Do you know what the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast is?

It's for you to invite any nonbeliever to come sit at a table where they're going to

hear the gospel.

It's a free meal where you can hear the gospel.

Take one of these cards.

Get the tickets.

Invite your neighbors.

Invite your coworkers.

Do it.

You can't spare three hours on a Saturday to share the good news of Jesus.

You don't think that's going to create opportunities for you down the line to have conversations

about Jesus?

You were called with a purpose.

And so when things like this come up, you need to jump on those things because not all

of us feel comfortable going to our neighbor and just talking about Jesus.

But guess what?

They have to eat.

Invite them to breakfast.

So grab one of these on the way out.

Scan the QR code.

Get your tickets.

Do it.

I can't think of one time that I called my parents collect and they didn't respond.

They came because they were good parents.

They didn't just leave me out there to figure things out on my own.

But he'll make it home.

He'll get the keys unstuck.

You have received a call.

If you were a believer in Jesus, you have received a call.

Are you walking in a manner worthy of that calling?

Are you understanding that you have been called with a purpose?

Next you see in verse 2 that we are to have a certain attitude.

Verse 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in

love.

One of the greatest oxymorons on earth is an arrogant Christian.

One of the greatest oxymorons on earth is arrogant Christian.

What do we have to be arrogant about?

You didn't do anything to earn your salvation.

We've covered that.

You didn't do anything to make yourself right before a holy God.

As Christians we are to walk in humility because it is only by the grace of God that

we were chosen by him before the foundation of the world.

Our attitudes should reflect Jesus.

What was Jesus like when he walked the earth?

He ate dinner with sinners.

He socialized with the outcasts of culture.

He relied on God's word when he was tempted.

He took seriously the worship of God in the temple.

He put other needs before his own.

He sacrificed because of the calling that he had on his life.

He laid down his life so that you and I could be recipients of the grace of God.

Paul tells the Corinthian church what the attitude of a believer should look like.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 he writes, we put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

may be founded with our ministry.

But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions,

hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger,

by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful

speech and the power of God.

Is that the description of your attitude?

You see the problem with a lot of us, at least for me, is that I tend to put my comfort and

my needs and wants before others.

I begin to think that I deserve something or I begin to think that I can accomplish things

on my own.

Jesus relied on God for everything he did.

His attitude was one of dependence on the Father.

Our culture says, look out for number one.

You get yours.

When you're having a bad day, how do you respond?

When you are facing an uphill climb with some illness in your family or you personally,

when you face hardship and difficulties, what is your attitude like?

This past week I was at a conference and one of the speakers was Catherine Wolfe.

I would encourage you to Google her.

I would encourage you to read her story.

I would encourage you to get to know her.

At 26 years old she suffered a massive stroke.

She almost died but she was left paralyzed on her right side.

She could have easily thrown in the towel.

But instead she responded with a message of hope and her attitude is contagious.

God is using her because she sees the bigger picture.

She sees what all this is for.

Paul says in every way we want our attitude to reflect Jesus so that no obstacle is put

in someone else's way.

I am sure we all know someone or maybe you used to be this but a person who refuses to

go to church because they have some church hurt.

The pastor did them wrong.

Church leadership did them wrong.

And now they want nothing to do with the Lord.

I feel like our primary ministry in La Mesa was to the de-churched population of our

town.

God kept bringing us people who grew up in church as a kid but left because the culture

was toxic.

I mean it's hard enough to get people to come to church.

It's even harder to get them to come back to church when they've had a bad experience.

The greatest command according to Jesus is to love God.

The second is like it.

Love people.

Paul tells us what love is.

I'm sure many of you had this read at your wedding.

Love is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast.

Love is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

This text is not limited to marriage.

This is how we are to live as people of God.

As Christians we are to be long suffering.

In a culture that wants to cancel anything that is offensive.

That wants to get rid of anything that goes against what it thinks is right.

We are to be the antithesis to that.

People are not my enemy.

Republicans and Democrats are not my enemy.

Drug addicts are not my enemy.

Homosexuals are not my enemy.

People that wrong me and talk bad about me, they are not my enemy.

My enemy is not flesh and blood but the spiritual forces of evil.

As a church we have to understand that.

When we begin to think that people are the enemies of the church, we are putting up an

obstacle for them.

It's us versus them.

If someone leaves this church, may it never be because of how they were treated.

We rejoice in truth.

And if someone leaves this church, let it be for that reason.

Not because they were unloved but because they chose to believe a lie rather than the

truth.

The problem with the church today is that it is rejoicing over wrongdoing and then we

are calling it love.

Rejoice of sin is not loving.

Changing the word of God to fit into some cultural movement is not loving.

I don't rejoice in homosexuality.

The same way I don't rejoice in adultery or pride or any other sin that people are walking

in.

We rejoice in truth and we refuse to put up obstacles that might keep someone from experiencing

the freedom that is found in Christ.

That's what our attitude should be.

Finally in verse 3, Paul gives us the challenge.

Eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Are you eager to maintain unity?

Are you eager to maintain unity?

Are you eager to keep the bond of peace?

When things are going well, I think that's an easy yes.

Yeah, we like unity.

Yeah, we like peace.

But what about when things get a little hard?

What about when you don't get your way?

I texted a couple of my pastor friends yesterday to ask them for some examples that they have

witnessed or been a part of regarding church splits.

Here are some of their responses.

Names were removed from the pews.

If you grew up in church, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

One church split happened because one of my friends stopped wearing a tie and it upset

a whole bunch of people.

One friend said the worship pastor had too long of a beard.

That's why we have drew clean shaven today.

The volume was too loud.

The volume was not loud enough.

One church split over the color of the carpet that was installed in the new sanctuary.

One of my friends said 40 people left his church because they switched the brand of

coffee they used.

He laughed, but that's reality.

Who would leave a church over coffee?

Apparently, apparently in this situation, 40 people left.

How dare you not serve soldiers?

Think about the message that that sends to the community.

When churches split over any one of those reasons, in La Mesa, where we moved here from,

there are over 60 churches for a town of less than 10,000.

In my 10 years there were four new churches that began simply because they split from

another church.

It was for reasons similar to these.

There was a developer that came in town and he was going to put in this big manufacturing

facility and it was going to create a whole bunch of jobs for people.

The town needed something like this because we needed jobs.

After meeting with the economic development board, after meeting with the city council

and other city leaders, they decided not to move their facility into La Mesa.

Do you want to know the reason?

They said if the churches can't seem to get along, this is not a town we want to be a

part of.

If the people of God can't get along, this is not something we want to be a part of.

Even the people of God don't have a spirit of unity.

It affects the community.

We all need to have an eagerness to maintain a spirit of unity even when we don't get our

way.

Even when it's not our preference.

I'm all about having more churches in a community, but not at the cost of the ones we already

have.

Now, I want to commend so many of you because some things have changed around here and you've

been upset about some of the changes.

But as far as I know, you have informed a committee to have me fired yet.

Some of you prefer to get your newsletter in the mail instead of being emailed and you're

still here.

Some of you might be upset because the color of the paint has changed in some places and

you're still here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

One of the things that hasn't changed is the fact that we rejoice in the truth and we stand

on the authority of the Word of God as our source of life.

That is one thing that cannot change.

But everything else is probably going to fall into the category of preference.

And if our preferences begin to overshadow what we know to be true, then we're going

to be in some trouble.

Now, I'm not one to look for the devil under every rock, but I have to be real honest with

you this morning.

If we are not careful and if we are not on guard, we can easily let the enemy disrupt

our unity.

Also you are aware my guard has been up in a significant way since May.

I walked out of our experiencing God's service in May uneasy because I didn't sense unity.

I heard things like we need to build a bigger building for DeWitt.

Then I would hear no, we don't need a bigger building for DeWitt.

We need a bigger building in Eldridge.

Then I would hear no, we don't need a bigger building in just DeWitt.

We need a bigger building in both.

There's not unity.

There have been accusations thrown out there that if we don't build or don't buy, we don't

have faith that the Lord will provide.

If we don't move this direction, then we are not trusting the Lord.

Those are things that have been said to me.

There is not unity on the Elder Board as to what direction to go.

Now, I'm not going to speak for them.

I can only speak for me, but here's how I see it.

If the Lord calls us to move forward and we're going to expand the way we're going to expand

Eldridge, we're going to do it.

If the Lord calls us to that, and let's say the cost is $20 million.

If the Lord calls us to that, I will be the front of the line moving forward because I

have no doubt that He will provide.

I won't hesitate to move forward for a second.

Now one of the ways the Lord will confirm that to me is that we are unified as a church.

We are unified as a staff.

We are unified as an Elder Board.

In the meantime, while we wait on the Lord to lead, we have to continue to do what the

Lord has called us to.

We don't just sit back and wait.

If we get so full that we have to go to three services.

I don't want to.

That's not my preference, but that's what we'll do.

If our classrooms are so full and it's hot and cramped and kind of miserable, I'm going

to put my comfort aside and celebrate that the Lord has grown our church.

We're going to be faithful while we wait.

If I have to sit on the floor because there's not enough seats, I'm going to celebrate the

fact that there's somebody there to sit in it.

Let's not let the good things the Lord is doing amongst us be ruined by our comfort and our

preferences.

There are Christians in the Middle East.

There's Christians in the Middle East who risk time in prison to come to church, and

they sit on a dirt floor with no air conditioning.

I get upset at times when I'm a little warm sitting in a pad of chair.

If I feel that way at times, I'm sure maybe some of you do as well.

In light of who God is, in light of what he has done, let's walk in a worthy way to the

calling that we have received.

Who are you showing hatred to right now because you haven't shared with him the hope of the

gospel?

What do you need to repent of?

Where do you see your preferences taking precedence over what we are called to as a church?

We have to fight for unity.

It's not just going to happen.

We have to fight for it.

We have to be eager for it.

We have to walk in humility.

Now, if we're sitting in a meeting and I get out voted, that's okay because unity is more

important to me.

If I don't get my way, that's okay because unity is more important to me.

And so I'm pleading with you, put your guard up.

Join me.

Put your guard up because the enemy would love nothing more than to split what God is

doing in this place.

We have to fight for unity.

It's not going to happen naturally.

We don't fight with each other.

We fight against the forces of evil.

In a few chapters, we'll get to the armor of God and we'll talk all about that.

But when you think about the armor of God, when you think about all the pieces that you

have to put on to fight the battle that you don't see, so many of us are walking into a

battle but naked because we're not prepared for it.

And so I'm pleading with you, put your guard up.

Pray for unity.

Seek unity.

Pray for the will of God to move in this place.

In the meantime, understand that you've been called for a purpose.

You are the distribution center for the Lord's message.

You might be the only Jesus that people interact with on a daily basis.

You're the one that hates them, loves them.

Take them out to lunch.

Have them over for dinner.

Watch their kids.

Whatever it takes, love them because that's what you're called to do.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that as we just stop and sit in silence,

I pray God that you'll speak.

We pray for unity.

I pray God for renewed understanding of the call that you have called us to.

Help us understand our purpose in the world around us.

And so Father, as we just sit here for a second,

we'll speak.