Truth For Life

Guest (Male): Our unity as Christians involves more than simply attending the same church together each week. So what are the key elements of being conformed into the image of Jesus that lead to us being united in the gospel? We'll find out today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg examines what true biblical unity looks like.

Alistair Begg: Well, we've picked up our studies again in Ephesians 4. I invite you to turn there if you will. We've come, as we said last time in what was essentially an introduction to an introduction, to the point at which Paul moves largely from the doctrinal section to the practical section. It's always dangerous to state it in such categorical terms because it doesn't fit entirely, but nevertheless, broadly speaking, he does what he does in other of his epistles: lays down the doctrinal foundations, and having made them very clear, he then makes application of them as he brings the implications home to his readers.

Now we said last time, and we won't repeat ourselves apart from this, that the order of that is vitally important. The doctrine gives the basis for the action, so that it is because all of these things are true of us in Christ that we now have to respond to these exhortations to live in the family of Christ and for Christ. It is a reminder to us that while justification, the work of God's grace for us, takes place outside of ourselves and is instantaneous and is complete, the work of sanctification, being conformed to the image of Jesus, is not a feeling that we feel, but rather it is an action to which we're called. It is on account of the impetus of divine grace that we are then able to respond to the call so that we might do as God's Word tells us to do.

We said not only is the order important, but we also said that it is vitally important that we do not separate doctrine and practice. To become totally encapsulated in a concern about doctrine and to, as it were, pass by on the other side when we are confronted by need is to fall foul of the clear instruction of the Bible and to miss it entirely. To immediately always be wanting to get onto activity and activity and activity that is not grounded in the verities of gospel truth, then again, we will go just absolutely wrong.

So it is important that we have this clear in our mind, so that in going forward, because so much of it is hortatory—come on now, do this, stop doing that, you need to do that—unless we constantly say to ourselves, "Wait a minute, it is doctrine and then it is practice. It is practice on the basis of what is true," and that will save us. That, of course, has been the great pulsing, driving, central focus of Paul as he has driven home to these Ephesians, who've come, some of them from a Gentile background, some of them from a Jewish background, to understand that where they were once alienated from God by their sin and they were hostile in their relationships with one another, on the immensity of God's amazing love towards them, all that has now been changed.

It has not been changed because the Gentiles tried to be a little less anti-Semitic or that the Jews tried not to hold so firmly to some of the things that they had said so that they collapsed their convictions to make life better for one another. No. Both of them, understanding their background, coming to understand the wonder of who Jesus is and what he's done, have been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and have now been put together as an entirely new family.

And it is to that family, the called of God who've been called out, who've been called to, who've been called together—it is to that family that Paul now issues this call: "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you." This is not something casual to him. "I urge you to walk or to conduct your life in a manner that is worthy of the calling to which you have been called." In other words, the doctrine that they have believed is now to be lived. Or, if you like, he's saying to them, to us, "You are God's children, so live in a manner that makes that obvious."

That is what Paul is saying here. You are the children of God. Live like the children of God. In the course of developing this in chapter four, he is highlighting two things: one is unity, to which we will come now, and the other is purity, to which we will come later. I want just to say a word about this purity. If your Bible is open at chapter four, notice what he says in verse 17: "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds."

Now remember, in chapter four, verse one, he said, "I'm urging you to walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling to which you've been called." In other words, you've got a whole different walk now that you have been made a member of Christ's family. Christ is your elder brother. There are people all around you, and you are walking together. In the 60s, we used to sing, "And we will walk with one another, we will walk hand in hand, and they'll know we are Christians by our love."

Well, that's what he's saying here. He says you're going to be walking in such a way that makes it clear to people that you're different. The issue is that by your lip and by your life, it will be apparent that you no longer walk in the place you once walked. You no longer have your mind filled with the things that they were once filled with. You have been made radically different. In other words, he says, "What I'm providing you with is learning for living. I want you to live in the light of what you have learned." And when you do, people will know.

That is the story of the gospel. He reaches down into our lives with our toes sticking, as it were, through the soles of our shoes and adopts us into his family, clothes us with the righteousness of Christ, brings us into relationships with one another, changes where we walk, how we walk, and with whom we walk, and says to us, "You belong to me now. Now make it obvious to the world that you do belong to me in purity and also in unity."

Now, the unity part of it, we will spend the balance of our time on. Essential ingredients in the cause of unity are provided there in verse two. These five characteristics are pointing us always and inevitably to Jesus because remember, we're walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. What is our calling? Well, we've been called to be conformed to the image of Jesus. That's Romans chapter eight; you can read it for yourself. Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says, "And here's what's happening to you: we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus."

Now, what will that then show up like in a community? Because remember he's writing here not in terms of individuals, but he is writing to them in plurality. Here is the family in Ephesus. Here are these church congregations gathered in different places. Now he says, "I want you to make sure that you maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." And if you're going to do it, let me tell you five essential ingredients in order to bake this cake of unity. Number one: humility.

Now, that was not viewed as a virtue in first-century Ephesus. It's important we understand that. So people would not say, "Oh, now, that's a nice thing to be." No. The average person in first-century Ephesus would have said, "What is that about? Humility? Lowliness? That's ridiculous." Well, how do you think it's viewed in 21st-century America? It really does have something to say about an increasing preoccupation that I detect with the constant referencing of social media to see how many people like me, how many people listen to me, how many people have been responding to my amazing insights, and seeing again the wonders and glories of these remarkable children and grandchildren, which the whole world is waiting to see. There's a balance, isn't there, between genuine affection and appreciation and a kind of gushing self-orientation that is frankly nauseating.

The Christian church is supposed to look different in the matter of humility. Paul did it. Remember, he writes to the Corinthians in his second letter. He says, "Listen, we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. What, after all, is Paul? What, after all, is Apollos? What, after all, is Cephas?" he writes. "Only servants through whom you came to believe. One plants, another waters, only God makes things grow."

In other words, gifts are gifts. No matter how influential you or I may apparently be, no matter how appreciated we may be, when we put our heads on the pillow at night, we know that what Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4 is the right question: "Who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If you then received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" Spiritual pride has got to be the ugliest of all pride. If God gives spiritual gifts that enable somebody to do something that extends his kingdom, sets forward his purposes, woe betide that individual if he forgets that it's a gift.

"I urge you to walk worthy of the calling to which you have been called in all humility." Don't you wish it had said, "in some humility" or "in a little humility"? No. The comprehensive nature of the challenge is such that we know that only the enabling grace of God will temper our self-assertiveness and our natural tendency. Only his grace. But it doesn't happen in a vacuum. That's why you go to the seat that is the low seat. You don't get put there; you go there. That is why we do what we do because we are called to do. It's not a feeling; it's an action. It's a divinely enabled action, but an action nevertheless.

Some of us are running out of time for this as we get older. May God help us. Humility. Pride, you see, lurks behind all discord. I guarantee you, if it's in a sports team, if it's in an office, if it's in a music group: pride. Gentleness. Gentleness. Once again, gentleness was not a virtue in first-century Ephesus. It was a self-assertive culture. The secular Greek for this word was used to describe, for example, a domesticated animal, an animal that was biddable, was completely disciplined, and under control. That would have been a gentle one.

And so he says, "You know, you may have lived your life previously as a kind of pit bull, but now you ought to live your life much more like a very biddable golden retriever." So in other words, you could be doing well on gentleness and doing poorly on humility; that's the point. When Paul urges Titus to tell his people in Crete how to live, part of his instruction to them is this: "Listen, when you go out there into the community, Titus 3:2, speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling, be gentle, and show perfect courtesy." How? By the enabling grace of God.

Next, patience. Patience. The word here for patience means to be long-souled. In other words, the ability to take the long view of things, the ability to recognize that aggravating people need to be responded to in the way in which God has responded to us because we ourselves are aggravating people. Jesus's toleration of his disciples when they were argumentative, when they were stuck on themselves, when they wanted to sit on the big chairs, was his patient response in the awareness of the fact that they were all under construction.

Surely it reveals how tough the Christian journey is when I find that I'm very, very willing to extend this kind of long-souled view to my own inadequacies and imperfections, but I'm entirely unprepared to extend it to yours. In other words, I am unduly patient with myself and horribly impatient about you. That's why Paul is writing this way. Forbearance fits with it, doesn't it? In the same way, "forbearing one another in love." If you look up forbearance in the Oxford English Dictionary, it reads in terms of definition: "abstinence from enforcing what is due."

In other words, this is what this person deserves. No, but don't do that. Bear with one another in love. You see, without that kind of mutual tolerance, no group of human beings will be able to live together in peace. Love actually is the one ingredient that binds all the rest together. It's kind of like the all-purpose garment. "I want you to walk in a manner that's worthy of the calling to which you've been called, with all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love."

And then, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Where you have a church family that is enthusiastic about unity, you will find them committed to these five ingredients. If you have a church family that likes always just to have big arguments about minutiae of doctrine, you move amongst them, you quickly find out that they've always got some predilections, some negative, whatever it might be, and you realize we're not getting a feel of unity here. We're not talking here about the central verities of Christian doctrine and so on, but just people who like to be argumentative and a jolly nuisance.

Well, when you move amongst that community, you will realize that they are not eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. They're not enthusiastic about it. They're not saying to themselves, "What should I do in this situation or what should I not do in this situation in order to establish the fact that we as a church family are actually enthusiastic about having a unity that is something different from some kind of structural, created external unity?" Because think about it: in my lifetime, there have been all sorts of plans for church unity—the dismantling of one denomination, the folding in of another, and so on.

Where are they? Mostly they've just crumbled to nothing. Why? Because they're not grounded in the very basis of unity that God provides. Now you'll notice the verb is crucial: "eager to maintain the unity." This is not a call to create unity; it is to maintain unity. We are called to live as one because we are one. The church of Jesus Christ is united, despite all of the various bits and places and various notions.

When you get to the very core of things, you can travel anywhere in the world, engage with people that speak any language in the world, and find yourself sitting next to a brother or a sister in Jesus. You don't create that; you discover it, you enjoy it, you marvel at it. You were brought up in Taiwan? You were raised in liberal France? And here we are, and we are rejoicing together in the wonder of who Jesus is and what he's done. That is a unity which God creates, and it is that unity which is then to be maintained.

You see, these people understood it because they had been opposed to one another. The Jew and the Gentile absolutely couldn't stand each other, but they had been made new, and it was on the basis of this doctrine again that their unity was established. The unity that is to be maintained is not a unity on the basis of the lowest common denominator. That is, well, certain people don't like the idea of—this is how it happened in liberalism in the early part of the 20th century in Britain—certain people don't like the idea of a literal resurrection, therefore we don't have to hold on to a literal resurrection, we can let that go.

Somebody else has got a problem with something else. Well, we can drop that as well because really the whole issue is unity. And the mantra went like this: "Doctrine divides and love unites." It's a false antithesis. The expression of God's love for us is a doctrinal love. That's why Paul begins as he begins. Here he says is the basis of your unity. He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. He has adopted us as his sons. It is in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. He has made known to us the mystery of his will, and indeed, it is the very fact of Christ himself that is the basis of our peace.

Humility—and we'll come back to this—humility and unity are vital in a church family that longs to see unbelieving people become committed followers of Jesus. Before Christ went to the cross, he prays in his high priestly prayer in John 17 for his followers as follows: "I pray, Father, that they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

You see the doctrine? That the unity that exists within the Godhead would be the foundation of the unity that exists in Christ. He's going to go on and say there is only one God and one Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, one Spirit, one body, one faith, one baptism. It's all doctrinal. To this, we will return.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you'd like to spend more time meditating on what the Bible teaches, check out the book we're currently recommending. It's a devotional titled *Your Only Comfort: Devotions for Hope in Suffering*. This is a collection of 30 readings drawn from the sermons of Charles Spurgeon, the 19th-century writer and preacher who was well acquainted with suffering himself.

In fact, let me read you an encouraging excerpt from his book. Spurgeon says, "Now, child of God, if you are suffering today in any way whatever, whether from the ills of poverty or bodily sickness or depression of spirits, recollect there is not a drop of the judicial anger of God in it all. You are not being punished for your sins as a judge punishes a culprit. Never believe such false doctrine; it is clean contrary to the truth as it is in Jesus." To find out why Spurgeon could make such a bold claim, request your copy of his 30-day devotional, *Your Only Comfort: Devotions for Hope in Suffering*. It's yours when you donate to Truth for Life. You can use the mobile app or donate online at truthforlife.org/donate.

Thanks for listening. Being in a church or even being a member of a church doesn't necessarily mean you're in Christ. Tomorrow, we'll learn the difference. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.