A Worthy Walk, Part 1

It's one thing to memorize historical data in the Bible study the moral lessons in its stories, but it's quite another to internalize the whole of Scripture and insight for living we're committed to both.

That is understanding God's word and living it out to and if you've been following along with this, you know that Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Ephesians.

The series is called becoming a people of grace. Today we come to Ephesians chapter 4 where we discover Paul pivoting from teaching theological principles, commanding personal response. Chuck titled today's message a worthy one. We have a love affair going with this letter to the Ephesians and all of us are enjoying the journey together. I perhaps more than any of you how I need this sometime have people ask me if I've been reading their journal or if I talked to their life before I preached a sermon I said no I just preach on what I need to hear and I'll let you listen in. That's how I feel about these things in your worship folder you will find an outline of the letter to the Ephesians that really is a chart that you may want to place here following our reading of the Ephesians 4 verses 1 to 6 and just mark the spot will be back here shortly.

Ephesians 41. Therefore I the prisoner of the Lord, imploring you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patients, showing tolerance for one another in love. Being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit justice. Also, you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all not too hard to figure out that's about unity is in it and will be dealing with that. In a few moments please join me in prayer just have a few moments of silence here. You bring your need to the father who cares about it more than you do, how good and how rare are moments of quietness and yet how unnecessary Lord.

Everything seems to be full of noise and music.

We didn't turn on sounds. We didn't prefer and just everywhere to find a place of real solitude is hard to do, teach us a fresh and new as we meet together to value times like that times when we can really be lost in wonder and love and praise, remind us to sing to you when alone with you as we give you our our praise for you are our righteousness. We worship you will holy God. Now there are thousand distractions and and each one of us has his or her own list of of concerns that could preoccupy us during this vital time of continuing worship and we hear someone saying and when we give our offerings, and when we listen to the teaching of the Scriptures are minds can wander sees our thoughts. Lord, in capture our hearts to bring every thought into captivity for the glory of Christ be honored in the reasons behind our giving today encourage those who can't aren't able to give and refresh and inspire those who are able to give abundantly and remove from our minds that the distractions so that we can really focus our thoughts on something as valuable as our walk in unity together. May we be freed from defensiveness and in anger in the things that resist truth so that the seed of the word can lodge on soft fertile soil and grow, change in us. These quiet moments. Now as we give as we continue our worship. We thank you in Jesus name all of us who love to read. Have our favorite authors don't wait. In fact, if you really like and author. Chances are good that you have collected that authors books over the years authors love collectors and you know when you when you really love and author. You learn his style and you find that you don't really look for a title or a particular subject that she or he might have written on but you look for the name and you often going to the bookstore you say has so it's all written a new book lately and they'll say yes we have this when you almost without looking into it, had learned to trust that writer that author to communicate in a way that you find it entertaining or inspiring are our understanding every writer has a style and as you study the style of the writer.

You find yourself connecting with a sense of comfort and encouragement and understanding the Bible is a collection of would you believe about 40 writers. We can't call them authors because the Holy Spirit is the author of the Scriptures, but these 40 writers under the inspiration of the spirit chosen by God had put together those truths that make up the 66 books of the Bible when you talk to people who have studied the Bible you find out that they have their favorite writers.

I have a good friend who says my favorite all-time writer in the Scripture is Jeremiah. He said when I hear something from Jeremiah my life just sort of lights up and I and I look up and I smiled because I have the sense of kinship with Jeremiah have another friend who says about Moses just to me there is no writing better than the first five books of the Bible and in the way Moses puts his thoughts together is is a sort of cemented in my mind, one of my Greek props used to say it was Luke chose Luke. He said the the intellectual stimulation of a vocabulary and the syntax of a of a physician like Luke is like no other writing in all the New Testament that was his preference, but I have the feeling if you asked the general Christian crowd. A number of Christian people if they have a favorite author. Most would say Paul. Paul is my favorite. Many would say, and like all the other writers.

Paul has a style I find Paul's style fascinating not only because it is so consistent because it times the very same words are used from letter to letter. I also notice that in Paul's style usually lays a solid doctrinal groundwork, and that takes up the better part of the letter certainly half of it often more and then there's a turning point, which I call the hinge and like a door has a hinge. The hinge in Paul's letter then introduces the practical side, so we have orthodoxy and if you will, or the proxy we have doctrine that we have a duty we have the theoretical and then we have the reality and it all hangs on the hinge and when you study Paul you find the hinge you know you're moving from the vertical emphasis to the horizontal emphasis from our relationship to God and understanding him better to our relationship with other people and relating to them better show you this turn to Romans chapter 12 and I will introduce you to one of the hinges. These hinges never squeak by the way their well oiled, and they often are our favorite verse of a particular letter. Romans 12 one. Is the hinge. The first 11 chapters have been full of great doctrine depravity, salvation, the work of Christ, the cross, sanctification, and then you move into the whole study of the Jew and the Gentile, and God's sovereign work in calling and electing when you get to the hinge. Paul writes in verse one. Therefore, that's the word therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies see the practicality and to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. And if that isn't enough, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed. Do you feel the long index finger punching you in the sternum. You see Paul, do you feel Paul now suddenly saying stop thinking theoretically and start realizing this is designed to change your life.

The secret is the word therefore one of my Bible teachers used to say you need to always figure out what that therefore is there for. And in this case it's to change the emphasis from the vertical. Focusing on God to the horizontal.

Focusing on your relationship to the Lord and to others. I sure you know that would look at Galatians skip the Corinthian letters turn to Galatians, which is Paul's magnum opus on liberty.

It is really the Magna Carta of Christian liberty and for four chapters look at Galatians 544 chapters, he makes it so clear that we are no longer shackled by the constraints of Judaism or the demands of legalism.

We have been freed.

It is the letter of freedom.

If you struggle with legalism you need to become a student of Galatians, it will set you free. Look at verse one of chapter 5, you will hear the hinge it was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery and he goes right on describing how you can live out the freedom that Christ is made available to each time I meet up with a legalist and that's not that seldom remind them that the book of Galatians is still in the Bible that there was a freedom that is there that they have never really understood and are afraid of. But as long as you have this kind of practical direction, you won't be afraid because Paul now puts will be rounds the corners on living a life of freedom and teaches us to do it with maturity and discernment and wisdom skip Ephesians were going to be there in a moment. Look at Colossians 1 more if I may. Chapter 3 again this is so Pauline. He does this again and again. He's talked for two chapters about the great doctrines of Christ because in writing to the Colossians. He's dealing with the heresy of the day, Gnosticism and intellectual religion that kept people from Christ rather than through them to him and he's established a very firm Christology for two chapters to get to chapter 3 and there it is again in therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, look at the practicality set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the masterful. He's established that Christ is the preeminent one, above all the affairs of this life knowing that there is everything in life to drag us down. He says in chapter 3 now focus on Christ, seek the things that please him and honor him and you will be able to handle whatever life throws at you. Ephesians is really the classic example of that.

And when we get to chapter 4 once again we come to another hinge and as a matter of fact, if you can read it, just as Paul wrote it, you would see that for one of Ephesians has the very same opening three terms in the Greek text as Romans chapter 12 verse one quiet surrendered implore in verse one of chapter 4 of Ephesians and BCH in Romans 12 one. You got asked the translators because it's the very same word, I beseech you therefore is the way Romans 12 one begins Ephesians begins the same way though it reads differently because the I is emphatic in the original, and so the writers are I should say the translators in hopes of capturing that put the high above the imploring so he says therefore I go, I called the prisoner. Remember I'm on your side. Remember I'm the one who is student defense of the Gentiles.

I call the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, and suddenly he moves into another series of practical directives. Some of them are command some of them are pleadings. Here's a pleading, I implore you to do what to walk letter relief in the great.

It doesn't say to make a mad dash or to climb the highest mountain or to move into the marathon of misery through the rest of your life as you live for God. Now he doesn't say that I implore you to walk to walk to take one step at a time, putting 1 foot ahead of the other to walk to walk how to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called for three chapters. He has been emphasizing the calling the calling.

We have been called by God who initiated the plan of salvation. We have been called by Christ who implemented the plan we have been called and sealed by the Holy Spirit, who has inspired and enabled the plan now. He says let it make a difference in your wall walk worthy. That's a great word. I love words by different say the other day. You are a word vulture. I took that as a complement II do I get on words like a buzzard gets on roadkill telling you I will take I will pick out a word. I will dig away at us. Check out the etymology of find what what the background of it is and I do find it fascinating worthy of sounds like something you do in front of the king or you sitting in front of the Lord himself. But this is about us. This is foxy own a XIO EN we got our word axiom from it and the root word is to weigh something. In fact, really, when you check it out. It means to be of equal weight. It's a mathematical term is you love math, there's an equation and axioms axioms indicate that the equation is true because what is true on one side is of equal truth, on the other and it becomes axiomatic here. It's not about math.

It's about life, I implore you to walk in a way that balances out your calling your calling is great and pure and holy. Your walk is to be pure and great and holy. When I had the privilege of playing a very small part in the memorial service for the late great coach Tom Landry behind the scenes before we were ever in front of the public. I had a chance to listen to one ballplayer after another played on Coach Landry's team and I want to tell you it was a pleasure to hear what they had to say. The most common remark was the one Randy White made before the public a little later he walked the walk. He walked the walk. He didn't corner us and embarrasses us he didn't drive his faith down our throat. He didn't preach and use his coaching position in an unfair way to take advantage of us or to exploit us as a team.

He walked the walk and we couldn't deny that it was true.

Walk the walk worthy of the calling that's what he has in mind here he walk worthy of the calling you have a chart that we gave you several weeks ago and stuck it back in the worship folder today.

Just look at it here for a moment. It's a horizontal chart that takes you from Ephesians 11 all the way through to 624 the whole letter and in my chart. I've shown you the hinge notice it right in the center of the letter at the end of chapter 3 before chapter 4 gets very far underway. I didn't write it there but there's a therefore across the hinge. We looked at what God has done for us in Christ. In chapter 1 we saw what Christ has done for us in chapter 2, and we saw what the mystery means to us in chapter 3, and all of that is so great and all of it is so important. It was like laying the foundation for everything that he now wants to say regarding the living of the life. When we get to chapter 4 immediately we move into the walk of the believer, followed by the life of the imitator. Interesting that you didn't know it but we are told to imitate God in chapter 5 of Ephesians you think walking the walk is tough. Think about imitating God.

You can't do it without the power of the spirit and that's why chapter 5 is full of truth regarding the Holy Spirit and the living out of the fruit of the spirit through the power of the spirit and then the last section is the strategy of the warrior as we deal with the spiritual battles that are upon us back to this early part of chapter 4 as we learn to walk in a balanced way. Member the old course. Some of you will remember.

After all he's done for me after all he's done for me. How can I do list and give him my best. After all he's done for me that's an axiom that's an oxymoron chorus if you will all he's done for me. How can I do less than balance it out with a life of obedience followed. So beginning in chapter 4, he implores us to take the truth we've learned about God and Christ in the spirit and to carry it out in our daily will.

This is insight for living and we've come to the hinge in Paul's letter to the Ephesians where the door of theological teaching transitions to provoking a personal response.

Chuck Swindoll titled today's message worthy walk and there's much more to learn from this passage to discover more about this ministry.

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Call 1-800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/monthly be listening Friday when Chuck Swindoll continues to study and Ephesians called becoming the people of grace right here on insight for living. The preceding message worthy one was copyrighted in 2000 2001 and 2009 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll.

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