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Skip Heitzig: Why do we do this? Why this format of a Wednesday night Bible study through every book of the Bible, every verse of every chapter of every book from Genesis to Revelation? Why do we do that? What is the value of doing this on Wednesday nights with this format? It's good to remind us of a few reasons why we do it.

Reason number one: It gives you the big picture. You get the story of God's redemption. I look at Wednesday night as the connective tissue. You understand why and how certain truths connect, and you're seeing everything in its context. That's very important. In interpreting the scripture, every text has a context. Any text that is taken out of context can become a pretext for a proof text. Simple meaning: You can make the Bible say anything you want it to if you take a verse out of context.

Number two, it trains us by this kind of format, verse by verse. It trains us how to study the Bible and apply it personally. What we do here on Wednesday nights, if you do this enough, you're going to be doing this in your own quiet time, your own devotional time on a daily basis.

Benefit number three: You learn where things are in the Bible. In fact, I still have one of my original Bibles that I used to take to church as a young Christian, marked up, little notes on the side. I remember hearing those truths, and it got to be—and this is why I think you should have your own Bible, a real Bible, not a fake Bible. Glad if you have a fake digital Bible, but to buy a real Bible that you can handle and open up, you know where things are.

You eventually get the lay of the land, and you know it's in this book on the left side or the right side, on the top or the bottom. And it helps you navigate so when you need to find out truths for your life, you know where to find them. You don't have to rely on Google or a Bible program. You know where that is. So it gives you enormous benefit. That's why I think this kind of format that we've started the church with is one of the most important things you could do for your spiritual walk.

So, we are in Ephesians. We have covered, by God's grace, three chapters. We now are in chapter 4. I can't promise how far we'll get, but we will begin in a moment in chapter 4, verse 1. Here's what you need to know about chapter 4. We are beginning in chapter 4 the second part of the book. The first part of the book is doctrinal. The second part of the book, beginning in chapter 4, verse 1, is practical or applicational. And this is a typical Pauline pattern of writing letters to churches.

Paul would always lay the foundation. He would give greetings, he would give his prayer for them—this is how I'm praying for you. Then he would lay the foundation with doctrine. Then there would be a pivot point from the doctrine to the application of those truths in their personal lives.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, for example, Romans does this pattern. The first 11 chapters are doctrinal. Then we get to chapter 12, and he gets very personal, very applicational, very practical. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

The keyword that tells us there's an applicational transition is the word "therefore." In other words, based on all the 11 chapters I have just written, because of that, therefore, now present your body to God. And he begins in chapter 12 with the second part, which is the application. Same thing here. Notice how verse 1 of chapter 4 begins: "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you"—or entreat you, or beg you, or exhort you—"to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called."

If you remember, I told you that Ephesians can be divided not only into two parts—the doctrinal and the practical—but into three parts. So that he talks about the wealth of the believer, he then talks about the walk of the believer, beginning in chapter 4. In chapter 6, verse 10, he will launch into and finish the book with the warfare of the believer. So we have three parts: the wealth, the walk, and the warfare of the believer.

For the first three chapters, he loads us up with the truth of our wealth. 27 times he uses the phrase "in Christ Jesus," "in Christ Jesus," "in Christ" or "in Christ Jesus." This is who you are in Christ. This is what you have in Christ. This is what God has done with your life in Christ. You are seated in heavenly places far above principalities and powers. You are heirs of God, sons and daughters of God. There is no difference between Jew and Gentiles. He has combined you all into one body, taken down the middle wall of partition. You have a godly inheritance. That's the wealth of the believer.

Now he talks about the walk of the believer, beginning in chapter 4, verse 1. Based on what you have, based on who you are, now therefore, walk this way. Walk like this. Live your life according to these truths. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they walk. Have you noticed that certain people have certain cadences, certain walks, and you can spot them from afar? Even though you can't maybe see the face, you notice the walk and you think, "I think I know who that is," by the way they walk.

When I first met my wife, Lenya, I noticed her across the room. She was this dazzling beauty at a potluck dinner. And then she made not only that impression, but she made a further impression when she came and shook my hand firmly, which I have always appreciated. But then when we started dating, I noticed that she walked fast. And that was important to me because I'm six foot five inches tall and I have like a 36-inch inseam. So when I walk, I cover a lot of ground. Usually I would date girls, and I'd walk a little bit and I'd look back and they're just catching up. And I'd walk with Lenya and she'd walk as fast or faster than I. So I thought, "This is a good thing."

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they walk. Well, there's advantages to walking spiritually. In the New Testament, this idea of walking with the Lord or our spiritual walk is a common metaphor. You probably already noticed it. For instance, in Colossians chapter 2, Paul says, "As you have received the Lord Jesus, walk in Him." Or in Galatians chapter 5, "Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." Or in First John chapter 1, verse 7, "If you walk in the light as He is in the light, you'll have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses you from all sin."

The walk is important. To walk with God means to live your life with a God-consciousness where, just like we sang, "Jesus, You're the center of my life." You're the center of my life. I am living my life consistent with what I say I am, what I say I believe in. And in Ephesians, I'm living my life, walking my life according to the wealth that I just read in chapters 1, 2, and 3.

I heard a story about a man who was 75 years old. He went to the doctor for a checkup. The doctor noticed he was extraordinarily healthy for 75 years of age. The doctor said, "What's your secret?" The man said, "Doc, when I first married my wife, we made an agreement that if one of us got cross with one another and raised our voices and started yelling, that we would respond a certain way.

The deal was, if I yelled at her, she would remain silent and go about the house and do her work, do her business, and we would come back and later on resolve it. She made me promise that if she raised her voice and yelled at me, that I would step outside, take a walk, come back and resolve the conflict. Doctor, I attribute my health to many years of much walking."

Likewise, there are wonderful benefits to a spiritual walk. In fact, if you have spiritual wealth, once you realize who you are in Christ, you—I, we—should have a corresponding consistent walk.

Guest (Female): This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Your support helps reach people every day with biblical truth that speaks into real life, bringing clarity, purpose, and hope. And this month, we'd like to thank you with two resources designed to help you grow in your faith and understand God's plan for your life and relationships.

When you give today, you'll receive the Expound Ephesians nine-CD series with digital download, along with Pastor Skip's book, Beyond the Summer of Love. These resources will help you discover your identity in Christ and experience the lasting hope found in God's design for life and relationships.

Your gift helps extend the reach of Connect with Skip Heitzig, connecting more people to God's word. Request your resources when you give $50 or more at connectwithskip.com/offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord"—now just indulge me. This is how he began chapter 3. Look at it. Verse 1 of chapter 3: "For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus." Chapter 3 says I'm the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Chapter 4, I'm the prisoner of the Lord. Interesting, Paul wrote this from prison in Rome, but he never regarded himself as being a prisoner of Rome. He so believed in the sovereignty of God in his life that he was in prison by the will of God.

Imagine if we started thinking that way. "Why do I have this lousy job? I'm a prisoner of the Lord." "Why do I have this difficult marriage? I'm here by the Lord's will." "Why do I have this situation and that situation?" "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called."

What does that mean, to walk worthy? The idea of worthy is a word that means to weigh as much. And the word denotes putting on an ancient scale weights that correspond to the weight on the other scale so that they balance each other out. So here's all the wealth you have in Christ: chapters 1, 2, and 3. The scales are tipped. Walk worthy of all that. Walk in such a consistent manner that it works. You reflect the weightiness of the wealth that you have been given in Christ.

It means to weigh as much. We will often say of somebody who's a hard worker, "He's worthy of his pay." That is, he or she works in such a manner as to demand the full payment of their wage and nothing garnished from it. They're worth it. They're worthy of it. Jesus even used this when He said a workman is worthy of his wage. It is to weigh as much.

So, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called." Now he tells you what a worthy walk looks like. Verse 2: "With all lowliness, gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Your spiritual walk is never divorced from our spiritual walk. You are called to walk with other believers, not just your own private personal relationship with God. But he is writing here in the context of walking with other Christians. And if you are going to walk with other believers, you need to have humility. To walk worthy is to walk in humility. He expresses that in verse 2: "With all lowliness."

Get this. This word "lowliness" is a word found in the New Testament, and only in the New Testament is it used in a positive sense or connotation. The Greeks used to speak of lowliness; it literally means low-minded. Be a low-minded individual. The Greeks used this very word to describe a vice, not a virtue—something they look down on negatively rather than looked up to positively. And so, it is believed that Christians, especially Paul, probably coined this term himself, taking a Greek word that was a put-down for people and made a vice into a virtue.

You see, the Greeks did not esteem lowliness. They thought slaves are low-minded, idiots are low-minded, people who aren't refined are low-minded. That's a very negative connotation. The Greeks esteemed self-confidence, self-esteem, self-reliance. Paul says if you're going to have a worthy walk, you need to have a lowly walk. And it's a positive, not a negative attribute.

Then he further says, "And gentleness." If you have an old King James, "meekness." Remember a couple of weeks ago in the book of James on the weekend, I told you the meaning of meekness. That's the word that is used here for gentleness. It's the word praus, or it means power under control.

That's a very important connotation. It's to be a powerful individual, so you could use your power against another to control them, to manipulate them, to strike at them, but you won't because you are a meek person. And a meek person is not a weak person; a meek person is a powerful person whose power is under God's control. Low-mindedness, gentleness or meekness, with longsuffering.

Longsuffering is a word that is used to describe God Himself. God says that He is slow to anger. And the word here for longsuffering has the same idea: slow to anger. It is the Greek word makrothumeo. Makrothumeo is a combined word of two different words: makro, which means large or long, and thumos, which means heat or boiling or liveliness.

The word, when you put it together, means it takes you a long time to rile you up. It takes a long time to get you heated up. It takes a long time to get you lively in a situation so that you will get heated is the idea. Makrothumeo means, well, it's translated here "longsuffering." That's an attribute of God. So if you're going to walk worthy, you walk in lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering.

And then I love just sort of summing it all up: "Bearing with one another in love." You know, sometimes people are just aggravating and ornery and not fun to be around. They have personalities that are cantankerous and you just got to put up. You'd like to change them; you can't change them. You can't change the situation. So you just have to put up with them, bear with one another in love.

Jesus said if somebody slaps you on one cheek, what should you do? He said, "Slug them back." No, that's the NSV, that's the New Skip Version. That's the version I grew up under. I had three older brothers, and for me to live in my family, I had to be a survivalist because I got slugged a lot by them.

Eventually I had to learn to put up with them till I got big enough and tall enough to take them on. But that's not Christ's way. "Bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

We do all this. We have a lowly walk, we're gentle, we put up with one another. Why? Because we want to keep the unity going. Now please notice, we don't make the unity. We don't manufacture the unity. We aren't the ones constructing the unity. We're keeping the unity that already exists.

There already exists a marvelous unity in the body of Christ because Jesus is our head, we are the body—different, many different members. Sometimes we get cross with each other, sideways with each other. That's when we have to endeavor—try to keep, to maintain—the unity that Christ has put by His death, burial, and resurrection, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

"There is one body," says Paul, "and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in"—because he was from the South—"y'all." Seven times he uses the word "one." There's one, one, one. Three of those seven times are references to God. He says in verse 4: "There's one Spirit, one Holy Spirit." Verse 5: "One Lord, Jesus Christ our Lord." And verse 6: "One God and Father, God the Father."

So there exists already a wonderful unity inside the triune God, the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they do not compete. They know who they are, they know what their role is in relation to one another. Our unity with each other is based on the unity that exists in the triune God and that He has conferred upon the body of Christ.

I love all these ones. There's one body, there's one church, one Spirit, one hope of your calling. You know, when you get to heaven, there won't be one section for Baptists, another section for the Pentecostals, another section for the Lutherans. We're all going to be together, fellowshipping together in the presence of the Lord. There's going to be a perfect unity. Why not start now?

And how do we start now? By not making a big deal out of the walls that divide us, the denominations. "Oh, you're a Presbyterian. You're amillennial." Now, there are certain things that we divide over, but there are other things we do not divide over. Because of the oneness, this is how you endeavor to keep, this is how you keep the unity of the Spirit or maintain that in the bond of peace. You throw out these artificial walls that we put up that divides people into different camps.

Guest (Female): We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, here's a reminder. When you give $50 or more this month, we'll send you the Expound Ephesians series along with Pastor Skip's book, Beyond the Summer of Love, as our thanks.

These resources offer biblical insight and encouragement to help you grow in your faith and experience God's design for your life and relationships. Your support helps keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people to God's word. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time.