Bibles with me this morning to Ephesians chapter 4. We’re going to be in verses 1 through 16. And I’m blessed this morning because I’m preaching the morning after the easier time change. I’m not available in March on the morning of the hard time change. There’s no excuse for missing church this morning and not being alert, right, because you have the extra hour of sleep. And then the depression will hit at 4.30 this afternoon when it’s dark. All right. For those of you that may not know me or may not have heard me, I’ve been down here quite a few times this year, which has been a real blessing. But my name’s Mark Rivers. I’m one of the ruling elders at Grace Presbyterian Church up in Norwell.
And it’s just been a blessing to be able to come down here as needed and preach the word of God to you. And so, if you’ll stand with me now as I read Ephesians 4, 1 through 16. And this is the word of the Lord. 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 spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean, but he also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all things, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up to him in every way, into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, When each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated. Let’s pray. Lord, I ask now that you will open up the hearts and minds. Lord, that you will take us, focus us. Lord, work among us. Lord, help us to think, help us to learn, help us to know. Lord, may we hear your word in our heart. Lord, give us honesty with ourselves. Give us honesty about our attitudes, our approach, our beliefs, our faith. Lord, show us where we need to repent. Lord, encourage and strengthen us where we might be slipping. Lord, help us to rejoice. and what you’ve called us into, and in knowing you. Lord, I ask that you’d work mightily now in these next few moments. In Jesus’ name, amen.
My guess is that if you know anything about President Andrew Jackson, what you’ve probably heard or what you might remember from grade school is that when Jackson was inaugurated, the White House was stormed and trashed. by his people. You see, even though our country had thrown off royal rule, aristocratic rule many years before, almost over 40 years before, it had a hard time throwing off the idea of a ruler like a king. As some of you may know, George Washington was often referred to as His Excellency, which might seem bizarre to us in this day and age to call a president of the United States His Excellency. And once the center of government was moved to Washington, D.C., quite quickly there sprung up almost an aristocratic I guess, ethos of the town.
And Jackson was really the first populist president. And when he came to office, Jackson, if you know anything of his history, he was born in the Carolinas. He had a very rough upbringing. He was a very rough man. And when he came to the White House, he was really the first man of the people, the common man. The aristocrats of Washington hated it. They thought him this backwoods ruffian, these bumpkins. And sure enough, the day of the inauguration, they stormed the White House and it became a chaotic situation of which Jackson actually ended up, I think, going somewhere else and they drank all the booze and everything else, kind of fulfilling the fears that the aristocrats of Washington had, that the old guard of Washington had, that this man and his kind were not worthy of the presidency to which he’d been elected. He was not a man who walked worthy of the calling to which he had been called.
Now this morning, as we come to Ephesians, We understand that we have been called to the greatest calling that we could be called to. In Ephesians 3.8, Paul says this, he says, Though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.
This was according to the eternal purpose that he had realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through the church, God is demonstrating his manifold wisdom. And you are that church. You have been called out of darkness, into light, into one body. where there’s neither Jew, nor Gentile, nor Greek, nor Scythian, nor barbarian, nor slave. There’s just one.
And so when we come to Ephesians 4, 1, Paul starts this and he says, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Now, this morning, it’s kind of a simple question. Are we walking worthy of the calling of which we’ve been called? It’s kind of an irony in the way Paul writes that. I’m a prisoner. There’s nothing notable about being a prisoner. It’s actually a bad reputation. But he says, walk worthy of this calling.
And so this morning, I want us to look at a number of things from this passage because of the greatness and the weight of this calling to which we’ve been called, that as we think about, are we walking worthy of this calling, and how do we walk worthy of this calling as a person called into the body of Christ, the church of our Lord Jesus Christ? And so the first thing we see this morning that Paul urges us is to seek to maintain the unity of the church. When we look back in the text, If you turn over to 4.4, it says, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called, and I would argue that’s the Holy Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. This, some might argue, I don’t know that I would agree with it, is perhaps an early, real primitive confession or creed of the church, the way that Paul’s quoting this.
It’s possible. But what he starts out by saying to the Ephesians, there’s only one God. And he mentions, it’s Trinitarian what we see here. There’s one father. One Lord, one spirit. And we know there’s no disunity in God, right? There’s no division. There’s no separation or wills competing against each other. There’s no strife. There’s one God. One essence, three persons, the triune God.
The natural, for lack of a perfect term, result of that is that what is revealed of God is in unity in who He is and what His will and desire is for His people. Paul writes, there’s one body, one spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one faith, One baptism. It’s unity in God. There’s unity in what God has revealed and told us and intends for His church. The idea of God, when it says Father of all, is over all and through all, stresses the sovereignty and omnipresence of God.
His rule over all things. There’s no division in Him. Now, I think, if we understand this correctly then, we understand in the true church, there is also unity. We sometimes refer to that as the invisible church, right? Whatever the true church is, it is united. There’s not division in it.
And as Paul has said, for instance, in Ephesians 2, 13 through 18, as he’s taught this and led up to this point, he says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in the place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both, and in the immediate context, this is Jew and Gentile, both to God in one body through the cross, therefore killing hostility. And he came and he preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
We’ve been united into one. Paul says we are of now of the same household. He says, we’re citizens of the same country. There’s a unity in those things, right? We might say in our, we’re all Americans. Unity in Americans. We say of our family, we’re one family. There’s no division in the true invisible church.
Nor, ultimately, when we are in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, will there be division? Right? Denominations will cease, right? Now, that seems simple enough, except we live in 2026 Christianity, right? In North America. I don’t even know how I did, I had meant to like throw this into the Google machine. I’m guessing thousands, I don’t know how many official denominations, branches, hundreds. Thousands, right? So how do we approach what’s happened?
Well, first of all, because of this unity, we should be zealous to maintain the unity of the church, the visible church. We should be eager. That’s the term that Paul uses if you look back. In verse three, he says, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. That can be really difficult. First of all, just kind of practically, this was obviously a problem in Paul’s day, and most likely in this letter, it’s the tensions between Jew and Gentile.
We live in a culture where divisiveness is almost like a virtue. And it’s definitely a sport. Christianity is full of all sorts of divisions. But our desire should be unity. Our desire should be to be as united as possible. I am a Protestant. I protest. Right? I am confessional. And there’s things that I think are extremely important in that confession. Important enough that there are people who name the name of Christ that I have to divide from. But I do that, and hopefully we do that weeping. Sad. Desiring it, praying it not to be so. Wanting unity, seeking unity wherever possible. And it is challenging. And it was challenging in Paul’s time, Galatians 1, 6-9.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if any is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed. We have to draw some lines, right? There’s gonna be people who name the name of Christ of which we cannot affirm. We cannot put our arm around.
Now, there will come a day when the one hope is realized. That will no longer be a problem. But we always must take that posture in a posture of humility, a posture of forbearing. As Paul says in 1 through 2, bearing with one another, with patience, There has to be an absence of pride and a desire for that unity. By the way, that starts here, in the day-to-day of the local church that is together every Sunday and throughout the week. So we seek to maintain the unity of the church. Second, we recognize the empowerment of the church.
As Paul continues on, he says, but grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives captive, and he gave gifts to men, saying he ascended, what does it mean, but that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all things, that he might fill all things. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God to a mature manhood. It is Christ who is working in his church to bring about his will. And the power and ability within the church comes from the Lord Jesus Christ through the Spirit.
It is 100% God-enabled, even though we carry it out. You can think about that for the rest of the day. You’re not going to totally understand that. But that’s what the Bible teaches. Paul, when he talks about his own ministry in 1 Corinthians, says, I labored more abundantly than all of them. But it wasn’t me. It was the grace of God in me. In Ephesians 3, he says, this grace was given to me to do this. And that grace has been given to us as well. Now, a few things of this passage.
This quote is actually from Psalm 68 when he says he ascended on high and he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And that picture in Psalm 68 is of a warrior king who has triumphed over his enemies and is now receiving gifts. And there’s a little bit of a textual variant in there because it says in the New Testament, he gave gifts to men. If you read this in the Old Testament, it’ll say he received gifts from men.
Not sure if Paul was pulling from a different tradition, or he’s just kind of moving along what the natural progression would be in that a king would receive the gifts of his spoil, the warrior king, and then he would distribute back to the people. But the point of this is, is that Christ has conquered. He descended and then he rose and ascended. And this has been the continuous theme throughout Ephesians and in other Pauline writings.
In Colossians 2.23, it says, and you who were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with all its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them.
We understand this earlier from from Ephesians 1, at the end of Ephesians 1, where he says that Christ, by the power of the resurrection, is now above all these things, far above all rulers, authorities, anything. And Paul talks about, in Ephesians 2, how he has delivered us from these powers that used to be over us.
And now he has given the mission to the church to proclaim this victory. to proclaim His Lordship throughout all the earth. It’s really what the Great Commission is tied to, going and proclaiming all authority has been given to the Lord Jesus. You go and you proclaim that, and you make disciples of that, that Jesus Christ is Lord. And He’s given us the grace to do it. the gifts to do it.
Now, there are arguments that this is referring to like giving ministers and pastors and elders the gifts and then they equip the body. But I would argue that just in the whole of Pauline writing, that he makes clear in other places like Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12-14 that the entire body is gifted. All Christians are gifted in some way. I think if you were to go through and study it, when Paul talks about gifts, there may be as many as 20 listed, in different ways.
And so it’s not so much a focus here like clergy laity focus, rather on, hey, Ephesians, you’ve been given the grace and you are empowered by the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill his mission in his church. I think this can be hard because the day-to-day of the Christian life is so mundane and can be extremely challenging. We can very easily lose focus that this is a spiritual thing, and that we’re locked in a spiritual battle, and that over and over and over again, even though these forces are defeated and will ultimately essentially be no more, We still live within the realm of which they have a lot of power and it’s heavily influenced. We talked about this last time I was here. And that the church is making war in essence, even though the victory’s assured. And we’re called to put on the armor of God to make war, even though the victory’s assured.
One thing I would say to pull out of this, because I think it’s all encompassing, is you’ve been empowered to live the Christian life. The grace to do what God has called you to do will be there. The grace to serve his church is there. If you’re truly a Christian here this morning, you’re empowered to do the things that you need to do.
Now, they’re not spectacular. Listening to me is not spectacular this morning. But by the grace of God, this is one of those things. And yeah, I wish it was more interesting too. But do you know what I mean? When you bring someone a meal, when you sit down and just listen to someone, there’s nothing spectacular. When you encourage someone with the word of God, when you give money to somebody who’s desperate, or you go and pray with somebody who’s sick, there’s just nothing fascinating about those things, right? But you’ve been empowered to do it. You’ve been empowered to love one another, even though sometimes that seems impossible, right?
So we understand the empowerment of the church. And then we see maturity as the goal of the church. We wanna walk worthy of this calling. We have to understand that maturity is the goal of the church. If you look at, go down to Ephesians 4.13 and it says, until we all attain to the unity of faith, of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now, I would argue that there’s an eschatological component to that, that that will only be fully realized for the church in the presence of Christ. But the church should be continually growing and maturing as we are here now.
So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Nowhere in our culture, I would argue, is immaturity valued. It’s just not a virtue. The word by nature means that you should be somewhere where you are not right now. Anyone that works with junior high students longs to see maturity, right? I know work with junior high students. When your children get older and leave the house, you long for them to continue to grow and mature. Even your plants and your trees, you wish they would grow and mature faster, right? Nowhere is immaturity of value. It’s not a good mark if we are immature. So how do we walk worthy? What should we desire with this maturity?
Well, first of all, as Paul says, it means being grounded doctrinally. If you look in your Bibles, Paul says this, that in the maturing process of the church, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. We should be a doctrinally grounded people. People grounded in the word of God. And we should embrace that. It should be something that we see as a good thing.
So much of Christianity today has a bizarre pride in being simplistic. In not growing in understanding. in shunning the harder things of theology, the harder things of the Bible. Sometimes people, adults who do really hard jobs will be like, oh, it’s over my head. It’s like, no, it’s not. You’ve just fallen to a trope. Our churches sometimes can be extremely shallow and mirror the culture and the things that they say and teach. And then we wonder. why people go astray, why they walk away so easily. I’ve been reading a book this past week or so called The Fever in the Heartland. And it’s really a tragic book.
It’s a book about how in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had a major revival in the United States. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans, especially in the Midwest and some parts of the South, joined the Ku Klux Klan. And one of the saddest things for me in reading this book is that the deliberate strategy of the Ku Klux Klan to grow, and this was especially true in Indiana and the Midwest, was to go into Protestant churches and bribe the ministers.
And they would bribe the ministers and then the ministers would literally preach positive things and preach all the evils that the Ku Klux Klan preached. And they converted thousands through the pulpits and through the Protestant churches in these areas. Those are people that were being blown around by every wind of doctrine. There were always some in those churches that just couldn’t fathom how people believing Christian truth or claiming to believe Christian truth could fall for such ideas. And yet, it actually culminated with a rally of Klansmen in Washington, D.C. of thousands and thousands, I think in 1925. Hard for us to comprehend that. But the fact that the churches were used that way, they weren’t doctrinally grounded.
Second of all, we should contribute meaningfully. We’ve been enabled. We’ve been given what is necessary. And Paul goes on to say at the end, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Earlier, he says, been equipped for the work of the ministry, been enabled to do the work of the ministry by the power of Jesus Christ, by the gifting of Jesus Christ.
We supply, and again, it’s not to our glory. Paul starts this section out by saying to walk humbly. Paul himself, even though incredibly gifted, says, I’m the chief of sinners. I’m the least of the apostles. So we always maintain the humility, but we do the work of the ministry. We equip, we build, doctrinally grounded, fidelity to the word of God. And we are the ones through whom the Lord Jesus Christ proclaims and furthers his kingdom, grows his church. This morning, I’ll just close with the same question I asked at the start. Are you walking worthy of the glorious calling which you’ve been called? Let’s pray.
Father, these are hard things. Lord, we all grow apathetic at times. Lord, we grow a bit faithless sometimes. Lord, we lose sight in the everyday, day-to-day things that it’s you at work. Lord, sometimes the interaction and work of the body can be draining, can be just mundane. And Lord, sometimes it just seems like it doesn’t matter.
Lord, open our eyes again to the majesty and greatness of what you’re doing in your church. Lord, give us the humility and patience. Lord, help us to only separate, Lord, according to your word. And do that so grieving, desiring to see restoration, desiring to be united. And Lord, encourage us with the one hope that we have.
Lord, there will come a day where every knee will bow and every tongue confess to your glory. Lord, I ask all of these things this morning, work mightily through us, Lord, in your name, amen. As a hymn of response this morning, we’re going to sing in your hymnal number 188. so so to the end.
Be thou forever near me, my master and friend. I shall not fear the battle if thou art O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Where shall thy servant be? When, Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end, Oh, let me feel Thee near me The world is ever near I see the sights that dazzle The tempting sounds I hear Thy foes are ever near me ♪ Around me and within ♪ ♪ O Jesus, draw the mirror ♪ ♪ And shield my soul from sin ♪ ♪ O let me hear thee speaking ♪ of passion, lovers of self-will.
O speak to me, assure me to place it o’er control. O speak and make me listen, thou guardian Let’s pray. Father, as we go from this place, strengthen us, Lord. Encourage us, Lord. Keep Satan off of us. Keep the powers that want to distract and destroy us away. Lord, give us strength for what you have for us this week. May you be glorified in our lives. I ask this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.