Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: Welcome to Truth For Life where today we begin a study in the fourth chapter of the book of Ephesians. Alistair Begg introduces the study by considering the foundational doctrine behind the apostle Paul's exhortation to walk in a manner worthy of the calling. So what comes first in the Christian faith? Our belief or our behavior? Let's find out.

Alistair Begg: What we're going to discover as we work our way through the balance of the letter is that all of these imperatives, exhortations, calls to activity, are the outworking of the instruction which is contained here just in one verse: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." He wants those who are in Christ to live out their lives as the followers of Christ. He identifies himself, as at the beginning of chapter three, as a prisoner for the Lord. He is in prison. He doesn't make a fuss about it; it is a fact of his existence at this point. He doesn't ask for sympathy. In actual fact, he writes—and he wrote a great deal—and his urgent sense is not for his discharge or for his release, but is for those to whom he writes, here in Ephesus, to become all that God intends for them to be.

Now I want us to notice just a few simple things regarding this. And the first is that the order is important. He doesn't start with the practical; he starts with the doctrinal. He starts by explaining what is true in Christ, what it means to be in Christ, before he then calls them to live for Christ. And as we work our way through, that will become apparent, and indeed it comes across clearly by the way in which he begins. That's why I want you to notice the conjunction, the "therefore." He doesn't say, "I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner of the calling to which you have been called." He says, "I *therefore*, a prisoner of the Lord," making his point and making it clearly that all that he has just conveyed to them is the basis for all that he now calls them to.

How are they going to walk worthy of the calling to which they've been called? On what basis are they going to be able to fulfill these exhortations: to speak truthfully, not to steal, to stay away from sexual immorality, to make sure that they don't become angry and embittered, and so on? On what basis? What Paul is speaking about here is not something that is tacked on from the outside like ornaments on a Christmas tree, but rather it is that which emerges from the inside as a result of the life of Christ. I have told you, he says, I've written to you, all of these things that are true of you. And it is in light of what you are in Christ that your lives now, both individually and collectively, should provide a practical expression of God's grace.

Now, when we proceed with this, we will spend longer on it. But as I say, I want us just to make sure we don't go wrong on this point. And the point is simply this: that before we can live the Christian life, we must first be Christian. You say, "Well, there's a brilliant insight." Well, no, it is a very important insight because I meet people all the time who tell me, "You know, I like the Sermon on the Mount. There's a lot about Christianity that I like. I think I'll give it a try." What they're really saying is, "I'll take some of these ethical imperatives and I'll try and hang them on my life. After all, I could do with being a bit more patient and a bit nicer and so on." So what they're saying is, "I can take that and I can apply it to myself and that will be me; I will be a Christian." No, you won't. No, you cannot live as a Christian unless you are a Christian.

And you don't make yourself a Christian; He makes you the Christian. You see, you don't sign up for this; you are enlisted. That's why he began his letter: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless in his sight." So that when we trace the roots of the goodness of God, we don't simply trace them back to the church where we heard the gospel, to the person who shared the gospel, to the mother who prayed for the gospel, but we find ourselves way back beyond that into the eons beyond time, into eternity itself.

And so Paul, as he enters into this hortatory aspect of his letter, he is writing to those who have been adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. "He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will." What an amazing thing, that he set his love upon us and he adopted us into his family. He didn't adopt us because we looked like we were going to be the high school valedictorian. He didn't adopt us because we were the cutest on the block. He didn't adopt us because we were so manifestly moral and upright. He adopted us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is the wonder of the gospel, this is the wonder of what he has done.

And it is on the strength of that that he is now going to go on and say what he says. He is not issuing a series of ethical commands to be attempted by all and by any; he is rather urging the believers to become in practice what they are in Christ. And what are they? Well, they're saved. Chapter two and verse five, the wonder of it all: "even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved." It's not that you just became, you adopted a different kind of spirituality, or that you were decided to become a little religious, or you began to attend church, or you added a little ethic to your life or whatever. No, no, no, no, no. You were dead in your trespasses. You couldn't do a thing to save yourself.

You were as dead, I was as dead, as Lazarus was dead. "He stinketh," said his sister. "You cannot do anything for him now. He has been dead for four days." And Jesus stood forward and called his name, and out he came. How? Because of the power in his word. It is the word of God, by the Holy Spirit, that breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free. It is not something that we signed up for—"I think I'll join a class, I think I'll be part of this, I think I would like to do that." No, it is something far more magnificent than that. It starts with God. It starts with God. He chose us in him before the foundation of time.

And he says to them at the end of chapter one, "And this became the reality in your lives when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believed." Because on the day that you believed, somebody told you, "This is what you do." You believe, you receive, you said fine. It seemed like you were doing everything. But now you've been on the journey a little while and you've thought about it, and you've gone back and back and back and back until you're before the foundation of time. God has done this. This is what God does. Now, you see, it is on that basis that he then goes on to say: "You've been saved, and you're seated, and you're adopted, and all of this is on account of the fact of his great love with which he loved us."

The great love with which he loved us. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it, that Paul, after his argumentative, fiendish, hateful, spiteful, covetous life, becomes this apostle that says, "The love of Christ compels us." He says, "The love of Christ constrains me." He says it is the love of Christ that fills my heart and fills my preaching. Well, of course it should. Of course it should. I've been reading Bonar in these last days on his call to holiness. And writing in the 17th century, he made this observation which struck me forcibly just in the last couple of days. He says that when Paul and the others proclaim the gospel, they're not inducing men and women to commence a course of preparation for receiving Christ.

They are not saying, "Would you like to engage in this or engage in that and begin a preparatory course?" "No," says Bonar, "they are calling men and women to receive Christ at once and on the spot." Not urging them through a long avenue of gradually amended life, but calling them to a life-changing encounter with Jesus. How about you believe in Jesus today? How about today, since you don't know you've got a tomorrow, if you do not believe, that today you believe? Says Bonar, that was what Paul was doing. And I think he's right. You see, what Paul is saying here is not he saying, "Try and live like sons and maybe God will adopt you when he sees you're kind of nice. Oh, there's a nice person to have in my family, I think I'll adopt him."

No, he says, bow, bow beneath him. Be adopted into his family by grace, and then go out and live like a son. Go out and live like a daughter. And the great, powerful impact of the love of God is what drove the apostle. As you, we, come to the end of a year, the beginning of a new, they do all those reviews. But if you read of them, the great opportunity of the '60s was free love. Free love. And the idea was that if you go to San Francisco and put some flowers in your hair, I'm telling you, it's going to be fantastic. What an amazing lie that was.

You would think that if men and women had really discovered free love, a love that would transform, would be the kind of love: "Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing." Listen, loved ones, there is only one free love, and that is the love of God, who loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. How fiendish on the part of the evil one to offer bondage under the disguise of freedom, and to tell young people that they'll never find freedom in the apparent bondage that is there in the Christian life.

Paul made it absolutely clear because it is the love of God, you see, that touches the heart. It's love that went deep down into the heart of the prodigal. I don't think the prodigal went back up the road out of the pigsty simply because he realized he'd made a royal mess of things. What took him back up the road was his assurance of the Father's love and mercy. "I will arise and go to my father and say to him..." You see, we can come to God. Some of us, our lives are so messed up that we daren't come. Some of us have got our lives so doctored up that we don't think we need to come.

But the love of God for a sinner is not based on merit. It's not based on goodness. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." You were born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. You were born not as a result of a human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God. What part did you have in your birth physically? Zero. What part do you have in your spiritual birth? Zero. Born again, awakened from wrath to flee. I know that some of you have this completely upside down. That's why I speak to you as I do. That's why I'm pointing out—I'm not getting any further than "therefore." Therefore.

Let me put it this way. I'm supposed to have a physical every year. I haven't gone in two. And I don't say that to my credit, but the reason I haven't gone is because I would like to be a little fitter before I go. Because I know what he's going to say. So I want to be fit to be examined. And some of you are operating on that basis as well. "Well, when I get myself a little more sorted out, then I can come to God, then I can go for my appraisal." Listen to the hymn writer: "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power. Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him."

That's how fit you need to be. Fit enough to say, with Newton, "I'm a great sinner, and I realize, Jesus, you are a great Savior." So therefore, therefore. One who has entered through this door doesn't work in order to be forgiven, but because she *has* been forgiven. All of the love and power and plan and blessing of God is that which provides the impetus for the outworking of this reality. And the two need to be in order. That was my first point, I'm sure you've forgotten already, but the order is important. And secondly, they mustn't be separated. That the doctrinal and the practical go hand in hand; they are interwoven with one another.

This is very, very important because some people are—and we put this in positive terms first of all—are very doctrinal. "Oh, I love doctrine. Have you read so-and-so? Did you ever read the Puritans? I have a big book on this," and so on. Wonderful stuff. But it's distinctly possible that you get so caught up with that that you never actually get into the practicalities of sharing this great and glorious news that you have. In other words, the temptation is to be like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration when they saw this amazing glory of God as Jesus was transfigured before their gaze, and the reaction was, "Let's build three shelters here. Let's stay here. This is fantastic. There's no reason to go anywhere now."

But Jesus says, "No, we're going back down the mountain." They go back down the mountain, what's their first encounter? With a demon-possessed boy. And some of us, we want to just stay in our little cloister somewhere reading books. But what about the rescuing the perishing? What about caring for the dying? What about telling them of Jesus—he's mighty to save? Oh, I hope you don't read your books and the books make you think that if God's going to save people, he'll just get on and do it without you. That's what they said to William Carey before he began the Baptist Missionary Society: "Sit down, Mr. Carey. If God wants to save people in India, he'll save them by himself." I hope you don't believe that. No, because God uses means.

On the other side of it, the less than positive side of a doctrinal preoccupation is people that like to argue about it all the time. How many angels fit on the end of a pin? Are you supralapsarian? What are you? What do you know? And you spend all your time talking about this. Meanwhile, people are standing at the bus stop and trying to get on with their lives and go, and they're all heading towards eternity. "Oh," you say, "I'm glad you're saying this, Pastor, because I've been feeling that for a long time. We've had enough of that doctrinal stuff; it's time for the practical stuff. We need to be the church. We need to just get on with it and be what we're supposed to be. We're practical people. We need to deal with the practical matters of life. Be done with this doctrinal stuff."

No, no, no, no, no. You see, the order is important: the doctrine precedes the practice. And the balance is important because they're held in connection with one another. You can't go out and be the church unless you are the church. Jesus said, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." You say, "Yeah, but we've got to get to the real issues. I mean, there's a lot of practical issues that need to be addressed." Agreed entirely. But you remember when the friends, with a concern for extreme practicality, took the man who couldn't walk to meet Jesus and let him down through the roof?

They were all stunned, presumably, by the response of Jesus. When Jesus looked at the man, Mark tells us in Mark chapter two, he looked at the man and he said, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now anyone viewing that scene would have said, "This is wrong. We didn't bring him here for an invisible forgiveness. We brought him here for a visible, physical transformation. Jesus? No, no, no, no. The real issue for this man is that he needs his sins to be forgiven. And in order that you might know that the Son of Man, namely Jesus, has power on earth to forgive sins, I'll say to the man, 'Take up your bed and walk and go home.'"

Nobody was more committed to the social engagement that emerges from the gospel at the end of the 19th century than William Booth of the Salvation Army. This is Booth: "To get a man soundly saved, it's not enough to put on him a new pair of trousers, to give him regular work, or even to give him a university education. These things are all outside a man. And if the inside remains unchanged, you have wasted your labors." Well, we need to stop. The order is important: doctrine, practice. The conjunction between them is equally important. And that conjunction, "therefore," is directly tied to this conduct, walking in a manner worthy of this call.

But you need to know this: don't go south on "in a manner worthy." What I mean by that is, Paul is not suggesting that we merit the grace of God. Rather, it is God's grace that enables us to walk worthy. "Tis grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home." This is not Saving Private Ryan. Remember at the end of Saving Private Ryan, he kneels down by the grave and he says, "Earn it. Earn it." No, that's religion: go and earn it. Christianity says, no, you can't earn it. Christ has accomplished it for you.

But now walk in a manner worthy of the calling. In other words, in a balanced manner, in an appropriate manner. In other words, there is—you know we sing that hymn, "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wondrous compassion and purity." I mean, it's not right for me to be doctrinally engaged with these great truths and then to be a miserable sinner, to be a miserable rascal. But we know that we *are* miserable rascals. At least I don't need to include you; I can speak for myself. We sang it in the hymn. I wrote it down: that "o'er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing." See, that's grace. It's quite natural for us to weep with loathing over other people's shortcomings.

But grace shows me that I'm the biggest problem, that my shortcomings could only be addressed in one with no shortcomings. So that in Christ, adopted, included, saved, seated, called—called to what? Called to life from death. Called from the dominion of darkness into the dominion of light. Called to unity, called to purity, called to holiness. Called. You see, God issues a general call. I call Sunday by Sunday: repent and believe the good news. That is the call of Scripture. You have all heard that call. But have you heard the call of God in your heart? Calling you by name? Saying to you, "This is not some kind of generic matter; this is you and me." Awakened just as Lazarus was awakened. He didn't call everybody out of the tomb; he called Lazarus.

And he will call you by name. And when he does, you'll know. And when he does, you'll respond. Because his call is a life-giving, effectual call. And without it, we cannot come.

Bob Lepine: You’re listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you’d like to hear or read more about what it means to be in Christ, you can access additional teaching from Alistair on this topic at our Learn More page. Look for it on our website at truthforlife.org/learnmore. We’re always looking for ways to help you become more deeply established in your faith, and that’s why we offer so many free or low-cost materials that will teach you more about what the Bible says. And today, we want to invite you to sign up for a short-term reading plan titled *Breaking Free from Jealousy*.

When you sign up for the *Breaking Free from Jealousy* plan, you’ll get a daily email for five consecutive days. Each email is a brief devotional in which Alistair addresses the dangers of jealousy and how to deal with it biblically. Sign up for free today. Visit truthforlife.org/readingplans and request *Breaking Free from Jealousy*. I’m Bob Lepine. Thanks for listening. Our unity as Christians involves more than simply attending the same church each week. Join us tomorrow when we’ll examine what biblical unity looks like. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.