Church: The Way It’s Supposed To Be

Part One: Unity
Ephesians 4:1-6

Today begins a 3 week series from Ephesians 4 entitled: church – the way it’s supposed to be. Today – unity; next week – service & growth; the next week – relationships. Let’s pray together as we begin this journey into God’s plan for the church.

God I pray that you will begin to do things in our church that we are not used to. . . things that will align us with your mission & heart, things that will surprise & excite us, things beyond our expectations, and things that will glorify you & increase your reputation in our community. In the name of the Father Son Spirit.

Context
I want to give you something that will help you to understand the New Testament – a theological construct that goes like this: Christology is soteriology is ecclesiology is ethics. Which means: Christ is salvation is church is ethics.

Which means that when you have Christ, you have salvation; and when you have salvation, Christ saving people, you have the church (the company of the saved); and when you have the church you have ethics (how the saved are to live).

In Ephesians 1-3 Paul writes about Christ & salvation. Then in Ephesians 4-6 Paul writes about the church & ethics. Who we are in Christ (1-3 = Christ & salvation) is to determine how we live our lives (4-6 = church & ethics). With 4:1 Paul begins to lay out how the church should look, function & live = practical theology.

Paul points to 5 character qualities that are to mark our lives (humility, gentleness, patience, tolerant love, peacekeeping) followed by a short creed of what unites Christ-followers (1 body Spirit hope Lord faith baptism God & Father).

Walk On as a prisoner for the Lord
Paul writes from a Roman prison (description - picture). But he calls himself a prisoner for the Lord. Rome doesn’t define his life, Jesus does.

The late singer/songwriter Rich Mullins used to sign all his letters and notes, be God’s – meaning be God’s possession.

The church is supposed to be a community of people whose lives are God’s. We are to view ourselves as Jesus’ prisoners. We are held in his company & captive to His audience of One.

Bill Hull writes in his latest book on discipleship, the deepest sin of my life is holding on to the right to lead my own life. If you are leading your own life today, you are messing up the church, keeping it from what it’s supposed to be. Are you the Lord’s prisoner? If not, it’s time to repent.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received the phrase live a life is 1 word in the Greek – the word for walk. An action word, progress word, movement word.

One of my favorite U2 songs is called Walk On. The lyrics depict someone hanging on to the fraying thread of faith in spite of going through difficult times. At the end of the song Bono lists all the things to leave behind:
all that you can fathom
all that you make
all that you build
all that you break
all that you treasure
all that you steal
all that you reason
all that you sense
all that you speak
all you dress up

But the thing you can’t leave behind is love. Walk on. It’s one of his attempts to describe the life of faith.

So commands Paul. Walk worthy of the calling you have received. Walk a life marked by these 5 character qualities. Paul is not talking about behavior modification. He’s talking about behavior transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit.

These are fruits of the spirit.

As we walk on, the only geography that really matters is the geography of the heart.

be completely humble

To be humble is to be aware of the priority of God in our lives, of our own sinfulness & frailty & of the equal value of all other persons. We are called to give up self-importance & honor. Our Christian faith is an assault on our self-seeking.

and gentle

Gentle people are sensitive & caring. They highly value others. Gentleness nurtures people & respects them. Gentle people are not violent or harsh.

be patient

Patience is that largeness of soul that gives others the room to fail, learn & develop. Patience allows people space to mature at their own rate. Impatience is simply another form of self-centeredness – wanting people to be on our time, follow our agenda, and conform to our plan for their lives.

bearing with one another in love

All of us can be a burden & a pain to live with. Tolerant love is what churches, families & friends should express. We put up with people who are in the sometimes slow process of being conformed into the image of Christ.

We need to cut each other a little slack.

Don’t be fooled. These relational values – humility, gentleness, patience, tolerant love – require strength to live out. These relational values describe the strong suit of Christ-like character.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace
we’re not called to make unity. We’re called to keep the unity that already exists by virtue of the Spirit. We are called to work hard at keeping what we already have in Christ – unity & peace.

Unity does not mean sameness. Unity is found in diversity. Diversity of backgrounds, experiences, gifts, personalities, viewpoints & theology.

Humility, gentleness, patience, tolerant love & peacekeeping swim against the stream of our culture. These are anti-cultural, counter-cultural. NOT behavior modifications. ARE manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit in changing our hearts into the heart of Christ.

Unity based in theology

4:1-3 is a picture of the outworking of our unity in Christ. 4:4-6 is a theological affirmation of what our unity is based on. The creed is Trinitarian – Father, Son, Spirit – and Lord, or Christ-centered (Lord is found in the middle of the 7).

one body

Paul uses the body metaphor to describe the church. There is one church. Ray Steadman can help us here. He writes, the essence of a body is that it consists of thousands of cells with one mutually shared life. The church, then, consists of thousands of churches who together share the life of Christ.

The churches in Canby refer to themselves as the First Church of Canby. We are one church meeting in different locations. I have always viewed the church as a trinity – one church existing as Catholic, Protestant & Orthodox. All of us together form the church – none of us by ourselves is the church.

one Spirit

The Holy Spirit, the 3rd person of the Trinity. The Spirit is the life & power of the church.

one hope

We live in hope & our hope is Christ. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).

Friday morning I was listening to a story on NPR about the blues guitarist BB King – it was his 80th birthday. The story ended with BB King singing a song with the basic message – let’s party & have fun because once this life is over, its over, that’s it.

Friday night I spent time with Renae Roskott’s family reeling in the shock of her sudden death. I saw woven in their tears & grief the hope of Christ. This wasn’t the end. This was the beginning. Renae was finally free of her pain. We hope in Christ.

One Lord

Lord means “ultimate authority.” The only one we should bow our knees to is Jesus the Lord. therefore God highly exalted him to the highest place and give him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).

When the kids were small there were times when I felt it important to establish my parental authority. I’d sit them down & tell them that I was the boss & they weren’t. I had to keep pounding that into their little heads. We are no different. Jesus is the boss & we’re not.

one faith

What Paul has in mind here is the body of truth that encompasses the salvation gospel about Jesus Christ – “the faith.”

One faith comes after one Lord. No accident. There is one set of historical facts revealed to us about Jesus Christ. They are summed up for us in The Apostle’s Creed.
I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
And was born of the Virgin Mary
He suffered under Pontius Pilate
Was crucified died and was buried
He descended to the dead
On the third day he rose again
He ascended into heaven
And is seated at the right hand of the Father
He will come again to judge the living and the dead

one baptism

Is it a baptism by immersion after conversion? Is it infant baptism before conversion? We stand in the tradition of the church that believes in believer’s baptism – baptism by immersion after one has accepted Christ. We are in a minority in the church universal – the majority of the church practices infant baptism by sprinkling. Where’s the one baptism?

Where the church is unified in baptism is here – it is the baptism of the Spirit into the body of Christ, into his life, death & resurrection. The rest is symbolism, the husk around the kernel. Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox ALL believe that the Holy Spirit baptizes us into Christ. This is where we find our unity.

in the early days of the Alliance, one of AB Simpson’s (founder of The C&MA) right-hand men was Henry Wilson, an Episcopalian, who practiced infant baptism which Simpson rejected. Simpson had a very simple creed – Christ our Savior, Sanctifier, Healing & Coming King. He wasn’t bothered by differences of baptism. I look up to him for that – I wish we could be the same.

one God & Father of all

The God of the universe is our Father. Our Father who art in heaven. We are his children, 1st-over in creation & 2nd-over in salvation.

Trinitarian & Lord-centered. Regarding one Lord:

Christ is Head of the body, the church
Christ sends the Spirit & the Spirit reveals Christ
Christ is the source of our hope
Christ is the center of “the faith”
Christ’s life, death, resurrection define baptism
Christ reveals the Father to us

Walk on: 3 applications
1 – The character qualities of Christ & the fruit of the Spirit Paul writes about will only be manifested in our lives as we are changed from the inside into the image of Christ. This is a call to spiritual formation. The church is supposed to be composed of people who are continually in process of being spiritually transformed into the image of Christ.

2 – The church is supposed to be composed of people who know what it is they believe.

3 – The church is much bigger than we think it is & live like it is.