Trinity Baptist Church

Walking Worthy!

The Lowly Walk, Part 7

Ephesians 4:2

 

Ephesians 4:1-3

 

So far, we’ve looked at three of the five characteristics that are involved in what Paul describes as “walking worthy of our calling.”

 

First, he talks about “all lowliness”.  We called that total humility.  IT is the result of being honest about who we are before God.  As we spend time in the presence of Jesus, we realize just how much of slef gets int eh way.  And if we will walk worthy of our calling, we’ve got to get rid of self and let Jesus live in and through us.

 

Then we moved on to gentleness.  It is a quiet, willing submission to others.  No matter what is done to us, we do not seek retaliation.  There is no need to defend ourselves because we are nothing.  The only One worthy of defense is God.

 

Then last week, we talked about “long-suffering”. No matter what the circumstances, no matter what people try to do to us, no matter what the will of God is, when we are walking worthy of our calling we patiently endure for the sake of Christ.

 

Tonight I’m going to be adventurous and attempt to cover the final two characteristics.  And keep in mind these are cumulative or progressive.  The key attribute is all lowliness.  Once that is in place and functioning properly, the others come much more easily.

First, let’s look at what it means to be “bearing with one another in love”.  You’ll see the phrase there in verse 2.

 

For simplicity’s sake, let’s call it

 

 

It is the natural outflow of patience, with that patience being the product of gentleness, which flows from loliness.

 

So what kind of love is tolerant love?  The old KJV uses the word “forbearing”.  NKJV shortens it to “bearing”  The concept is that of suppressing with silence. It's the picture of throwing a blanket over sin.  IT’s the idea of 1 Peter 4:8 which says, "Love covers a multitude of sins."

 

From an Old Testament perspective, it is Proverbs 10:12 which reminds us that, "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sin." It's that thing that says, “Not  only can I endure what you send my way, I can love you in spite of it!”

 

See a lot of people never get there.  They patiently endure what their opponents and enemies send their way.  They grit their teeth stiffen their resolve and take it.  But that isn’t the point Paul is making here.   Can you take it and love them in spite of it?

 

Tolerant love is the kind of love that makes room for failures, and by the way our love ought to leave some room for failures.  Do you know why? Because anybody who’s trying to love us has got to make some room for failures on your behalf.  Right?  Doo you really think you’re that easy to live with?

Everything you do is always right?  You never get on anybody’s nerves or make any mistakes or violate their love for you?  Who are you kidding?

 

This morning we talked about the conversation between Peter and Jesus regarding love and the two different words they used to describe Peter’s commitment.

 

The Greeks actually had a bunch of words to describe what we call love.  Whereas we use the word “love” in a lot of different contexts, they used different words.  We talk about how much we love ice cream or chocolate chip cookies and at the same time use the same word to talk about the love for our pet or our spouse and even our God.  But the Greeks had different words for the different levels.

 

There are three we are most familiar with: eros, phileo and agape. And just to simplify their meanings, think about it this way:

 

Eros, which spoke of a physical, lustful kind of desire could be described as a love that takes. I love you because of what I can get out of you. That's a very base, worldly kind of love.  It’s the physical drive that makes us seek satisfaction.

 

Then there's phileo.  We general describe it as a brotherly love.  We get our word Philadelphia from that word.  It is the city of brotherly love.  We could describe phileo as a love that says, “I love you because of give and take.  I love you because of what I get from you and, and what I give to you.”

 

That’s a pretty good description of friendship.  The world knows about this too.

But then there's agape.  That’s God kind of love and it’s the love that says, “I give.  There is no take.  There is no getting in return.

 

And that's the word used here in Ephesians 4.  Tolerant love s is the kind of love that only thinks of the highest good of the other person.  In fact, if you want the best definition of what that kind of love means, then consider this:  It is love that seeks the good of another at any price.

 

And that is illustrates by what God did when He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.   It is God so seeking the highest good of us at any price that He gave Jesus.

 

It’s Jesus going to the cross because “greater love has no man than this, that he lay down is life for his friends.  It is absolutely selfless.  No matter what anybody does to me I'll never seek revenge.  In fact, I’ll go beyond that to love them because my kind of love only gives.  It has nothing to do with the give and take, so what I get means nothing, be it good, bad or indifferent. It just throws a blanket over evil and in that regard it is invincible goodness.

 

It’s what Paul meant when he said to the Romans, “Love never fails. The greatest of these is love.”

 

Now look at how this fleshes out.  Through the pen of the Apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit says, “I want you to walk worthy of your calling and here’s how you do it.

 

 

It all begins deep down inside of you with an attitude and commitment to be humble and gentle and long-suffering so that it ultimately expresses the kind of love that just seeks somebody else's good, no matter what they do to you.  Even when they sin against you, you just throw a blanket over that sin and hide it.

 

God wants to produce in us a humility which leads to meekness which leads to long-suffering which leads to a forbearing, tolerant Christ-like kind of love.

 

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:43 about love?

 

You have heard it said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say unto you, Love your enemies." Do you know what that means?

 

Seek your enemies highest good no matter what it costs you. Then He went on to say, “Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you."

 

Why?  Why in the world would I want to do that?  “Sp that you may be the sons of your Father, who is in heaven."

 

That's the way He does, you're His child, therefore that's the way you do. The ones who hate Him He loves, the ones who curse Him He loves, the ones who persecute Him He loves.  Now you're His son so you go do the same thing.  That's the standard. That’s the way it is in the family of God.

 

 

Then He goes on to say in verse 46, "If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? The tax collectors even do that." That's no big deal.

 

"And if you greet your brethren only, what do you more than others? Even the heathen do that. But be perfect, as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect."

 

And how is His perfection manifest? He loves His enemies. He loves the unlovely. He loves the unlovable, no matter what they do to Him.

 

Listen:  Tolerant love is Jesus hanging on a cross loving the people spitting on Him.  It's Stephen lying beneath the rocks as they crush his life out of his body and, and looking up and saying, "God, lay not this sin to their charge." It's accepting anything that comes your way and returning nothing but love, only love, only concern for the other's highest good.

 

Now, when we get to that point, then what is produced?

 

Verse 3

 

 

This is the goal.  That’s what God is out to produce in us.  That’s what makes the church different from every other entity in the universe.  We’re not just a little social club where we pay our dues and do our thing.  We are  a divine institution of God, supernaturally born, supernaturally sustained, with a supernatural and eternal destiny, and we are to be marked by supernatural characteristics.

 

And when we are humble and meek and patient and divine, that’s when we're working on becoming what God designed for us to be.  And that’s exactly what the verse says.  The word endeavoring comes from a Greek verb which means to work at it and do it in a hurry.

 

It then carries two ideas.  First there is the idea of effort and zeal.  But there is also the idea of get at it and don’t let up.  We've got to work on unity. And you don’t do it by serving on committees or sitting in church in a crowd.   This is a personal passage.  It starts in our individual heart.  We've got to work at it, we've got to make haste.

 

It’s disturbing to look around and see how many churches are fussing and fighting.  I spoke to a lady the other day who was in attendance at a little church and three ladies walked out because there were no palm trees there on Palm Sunday.

 

We can find so much little nit-picking stuff to be upset about.  But God says, “I want you to forget about all of that and develop an attitude of absolute lowliness.  Let it produce a spirit of gentleness so that you will patient with people and not get bent out of shape by what happens or what they do, or even what I send your way.  That way you won’t have to worry about retaliating.  In fact, why don’t you just love them like I love you?

 

Listen:  Walking worthy is simply me being in my heart what I ought to be so that I can love the ones around me and then they become what they ought to be and they love the ones around them and pretty soon you’ve got a wildfire on your hand.

Working at unity is a full time task and it demands full effort by every Christian. I hear people say, “We're going to do all we can to create unity or build unity.”  It doesn’t work that way.  You can't create unity.  You cannot build unity.  You cannot make unity.  All you can do is destroy it.

 

You say, what do you mean? The Holy Spirit already did it.

 

Look again at verse 3

 

, "Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit." In other words the Spirit has already made us one.  It's just a matter that either we keep it or we destroy it.  Isn't it great to know you don't have to create it? You just have to keep it.

 

In the next few verses He goes on to describe that and we’ll save that for next time.

 

But just for tonight, remember this:  He has made us one.  The unity of the Spirit is ours.  All we are to do is to work hard to maintain it.  It's not organizational or ecumenical.  It is personal and spiritual. And the key is humility.

 

And notice how he closes verse 3.  The thing that holds it together is "the bond of peace." And the word bond means a belt. He pictures the body of Christ standing there and wrapped around the body is the belt is peace.  It is what cinches us up together.  Peace, the beautiful peace that is born of love. So true peace based on true love based on true patience, true meekness, born of true humility that makes us one.  Let’s pray.