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Worth the Walk (Ephesians 4:1-6)
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Worth the Walk (Ephesians 4:1-6)
Ephesians: Growing in Christ
Sunday Message recorded 05 February 2023
by Senior Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church
1700 Milam
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
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Transcript
Significance of Tuesday for Married Men
00:00:06
Speaker
Well, good morning. It's good to see all of you this morning. For the men who are married in the room, I want to remind you Tuesday, you might want to check the calendar. I'm not going to tell you. That way you can say, I found it all by myself. I'm just saying Tuesday's kind of special day, so don't let it slip by without noticing that.
Gasoline Giveaway Postponed for Gospel Sharing
00:00:28
Speaker
But I did want to say one thing that's in the bulletin. We have a paid for you event. What we're wanting to do is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our community. And one of the ways that we can do that is through giving people some gasoline. But while we give that gift to them, we tell them about a gift far greater, that the Father is provided through His Son, Jesus.
00:00:53
Speaker
And so we were going to do that at the Valero station, Circle K, over there by the Dairy Cone. But I've been talking with Stephen and the roads really tore up on 90 right now, right in that stretch. So I think we're going to just push the pause button until they finish that whole stretch there.
00:01:12
Speaker
And then we're going to do that. But when we do that, I encourage you to come and volunteer and come help us to tell our community how much that the Lord loves them and He loves you.
Transition from Doctrine to Practice in Christian Life
00:01:25
Speaker
And so if you don't know that, I want to tell you, you know, as we come up on Valentine's Day,
00:01:31
Speaker
You are in the heart of God. He loves you so much that He gave His Son to down the cross to forgive you of your sins. What a great message to share with anybody that we can share with family and with our neighbors and those we work with.
00:01:49
Speaker
This morning, we're going to be looking at Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 6. And I feel like this message is specifically directed toward those of us who are already disciples, those of us who are following Christ. And if you remember, we studied chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3.
00:02:10
Speaker
Josh did a great message last time at the end of chapter 3 on prayer. And so now we're ready to go into chapter 4 and we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 6. But I wanted you to be aware of something that's going to happen. This is in our journey going through the letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 is like walking through a doorway.
00:02:35
Speaker
And when we walk through the doorway, we're going to enter something new. Up until this point, we've been looking at our position in Christ. We've been studying all the different things about the doctrine of salvation and how we've come to know the Lord through Christ and how our sins are forgiven and we're children of God and all these wonderful things. But when we get to chapter four and we go into five and chapter six,
00:03:02
Speaker
and finish it out, we'll be talking not so much about doctrine but duty. We'll be talking not about our position in Christ, but our practical walk as a Christian to live for the Lord in everyday life. Do you know that God expects more from me? God expects more from you, from all of us that are His children, than just to come on a Sunday morning and that's it.
00:03:27
Speaker
That's the extent of our devotion and our commitment to Christ. And so what we're going to do is we're going to move from learning and talk about living. Are you living for Jesus Christ? You're here today because you want to learn about Jesus Christ. But also pray that you're living it out through the week. That's where it really gets fun and it gets powerful whenever people around us
Living Faith Daily, Not Just on Sundays
00:03:53
Speaker
see that.
00:03:53
Speaker
There's a word that we see in the New Testament quite a bit. It's mentioned about six times in Ephesians, six times in Romans, and six times in 2 Corinthians. But it's the word walk. And so when it says walk, I want you to know that it's not talking about the way we physically walk and so forth.
00:04:14
Speaker
I remember seeing my dad one time, and I told my brother, I said, look at the way dad walks. It's like he kind of swings his arms like that, you know. And so anyway, I said, he's got an interesting gate is what they call that. But I'm not talking about the way we walk physically. I'm talking about the way we live. Are we living out our devotion to Jesus Christ?
00:04:37
Speaker
So you're going to hear the Apostle Paul in this passage say that he urges us to walk worthy of the calling, to walk worthy of the calling. So another thing that we're going to be looking at this morning in particular is that word worthy. Do you know that the Greek word worthy that we're going to see in a moment
00:04:58
Speaker
It has the idea of balance. It's like scales. That's why at the front, you'll notice there's a weighing scale here where you put one thing on one side of the scale and it weighs it down, right? But then what you would do is to give someone the equal value as you place an equal amount on the other side of the scale. And whenever you get those two balanced,
Living Worthy of Christ's Atonement
00:05:25
Speaker
That's what it's talking about when it's talking about worthy. Of course, we'll never be able to work our way into heaven. You know, salvation and sonship, you know, coming to know the Lord through Christ, that's a gift. So we're not talking about working our way to heaven and trying to get enough good works on that side to kind of balance it out.
00:05:48
Speaker
No, it's more like gratitude induced living, where the Lord has been so good to us that we're saying, Lord, I wanna live for you every single day. I'll never be able to make up for all you've done for me, but you have been so good. Like that song we were singing earlier, you've been so good and so gracious, so merciful to me. I wanna give you my very best. And so that's what it's talking about when you consider in your mind
00:06:17
Speaker
the atonement of Christ and the sacrifice, everything he's done for you, all the blessings that you've received through Christ. Doesn't it motivate you to say, I want to give him more than just Sunday morning from 9 to 10 or Sundays only to give him every single day. So that's the idea. It's the idea of commitment in light of all that the Lord has done for you. And so to say, OK, Lord, I want to live for you.
00:06:46
Speaker
That idea of walking for the Lord and considering how to walk for him, how to be committed to him, that's what we're gonna look at not only this morning, chapter four, verses two, all the way down through 16 talks about how to live a worthy life, how to say, Lord, I wanna honor you in the way I treat others in the church family.
00:07:09
Speaker
That's verses 2 through 16 of
Guidance Through Spiritual Challenges
00:07:13
Speaker
chapter 4. But we'll see as we continue through in the weeks ahead, chapter 4 verse 17 through chapter 5 verse 21 refers to how to live before our community. How can we live in such a way that we make our community hungry?
00:07:30
Speaker
to say, I want to follow Christ. I want to know a God like you know. But then chapter five, verses 22 to chapter six, verse nine, talks about how we live at home with our family, our spouse, our companion, our husband, our wife. How do we live in front of our children? Do our children see us living for the Lord and loving Him?
00:07:54
Speaker
But then we'll finish up in chapter 6, verses 10 through 20. How do you live a worthy life when you get all of these invisible spiritual combatants that want to come against you, that want to come and say, hey, I'm going to try to stop them from living for Christ? So how do we live for the Lord when all that's going on around us? That's all of what we're going to look at.
00:08:19
Speaker
But I was thinking about Christ's great sacrifice and how it makes us want to walk in a certain way. And I couldn't help but think about this incredible unit, some call them the old guard, but there's a certain group of soldiers that guard the tomb of the unknown soldier.
00:08:39
Speaker
When I was just a small boy, I remember going to Arlington Cemetery, and I saw these men, and I couldn't believe it, like they just would go right in front of this one, sort of like a memorial or a tomb, and they'd go this way, and they'd turn around this way, and they'd salute the soldiers that were buried
Analogy of Soldier's Dedication and Christian Commitment
00:08:58
Speaker
there. And I said to my father, I said, what are they doing? What is this about?
00:09:03
Speaker
And he said, those men, that's where the unknown soldiers are memorialized. And so every minute of every day since July 2, 1937, that regiment, the old guard, regardless of the weather, I mean, even when it's raining, I started to put a picture of rain, how they're doing in the rain, but you wouldn't be able to see it as clearly as that photo
00:09:30
Speaker
But regardless of the weather and regardless of the numbers, what if there's only one person standing there? What if nobody's standing there? Do you know that these men, they guard that tomb faithfully, day in and day out, every single moment of every single day. I mean, we're talking 24 seven, seven days a week, they just continue to do it. And so I thought, wow.
00:09:54
Speaker
and they take 21 steps and they pause for 21 seconds because a 21-gun salute, that's the highest honor that could be given to a soldier. And so it's like they're honoring the sacrifices of those men who lay down their lives for our freedoms.
00:10:13
Speaker
That's what this is all about. So Ephesians chapter four, verse one, when it uses this word, I therefore, I just want you to know what it's doing is it's reaching back to everything we've looked at already in chapter one, in chapter two, in chapter three.
00:10:32
Speaker
that it's told us how Christ's atonement covered for our sins.
Walking Worthy with Unity and Humility
00:10:36
Speaker
It's told us how now we have a new identity in Christ. All of that makes a difference, therefore, in the way I live. The way I live on Monday, the way I live on Friday nights, and the way I live on Saturdays, the way I use my time, and the way I treat other people, it makes a huge difference. So I would like to ask if you would stand in honor of Christ in His word,
00:10:59
Speaker
I want you to listen closely to how we can honor our King. It says here in chapter 4 and verse 1, going down through verse 6 just this morning, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
00:11:22
Speaker
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the 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 and through all and in all.
00:11:52
Speaker
But let's just stop right there with verse six. Would you go to the Lord in prayer with me? Lord, we want you to make this passage come alive for us because you've done so much for us. Lord, we want to live for you. So show us what is living for you mean.
00:12:09
Speaker
We understand that it's gonna be a journey from chapter four through chapter five, all the way through chapter six. There are gonna be many things that we'll learn about as we go through this, but for this morning, help us understand what you said first. What should come first here in our walk with you? Knowing how worthy you are, help us to live for you every single day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you, you may be seated.
00:12:38
Speaker
Let me just point out a few things about walking with him.
00:12:42
Speaker
The first thing we notice right off the bat in chapter four and verse one is that we have to count the cost of walking with him.
Cost of Following Christ and Paul's Example
00:12:51
Speaker
Perhaps some of you are here this morning and you're not walking with him, but you're gonna be considering walking with him. Maybe as we go closer to a time at the end of the service that we call the invitation, it's Christ's invitation to you. Will you follow me? Will you trust me? Will you honor me with your life? Will you live for me?
00:13:12
Speaker
Whenever that happens, you're going to need to know, OK, so if I give my life to him, that means everything's going to be easy and comfortable. Never will there be a sacrifice on my part because he sacrificed for me. Well, wait a minute. We might want to recheck verse one. This man named Paul that the Holy Spirit inspired to write this, he says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.
00:13:42
Speaker
I want us to think about that. I, therefore, prisoner for the Lord. I believe it reminds us of the cost. I just want to remind you that the US infantry regiment that guards that tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I mean, they drill and they practice, get this, eight hours a day, not when they're on duty, when they're off duty.
00:14:04
Speaker
They're practicing and they're drilling. And like I said, it doesn't matter about the weather. I read one testimony of a soldier how one time a squirrel came up and he thought he was going to run up his leg, but he couldn't stop marching and going back and forth. So he had to just sit there and think, OK, I hope this squirrel doesn't come up my leg. I mean, I would have used that gun on that dude. But anyway.
00:14:31
Speaker
But the other thing was he said cicadas came in one time and they were like all over their uniform and somewhere on their ear and so forth. And he said, man, I was thinking, my duty is one hour? Oh, buddy. But anyway, those guys are real. And so they
Endurance in Faith Amid Hardships
00:14:47
Speaker
have to go through things like that when they agree that they're going to walk and they're going to make those steps in honor of those soldiers that have given their lives.
00:14:57
Speaker
Man, they have to know, going in, this is what it's gonna mean. When I read these words, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, I thought of three things that we need to decide whenever we're considering the cost. If you're considering becoming a Christian and following Christ today, I wanna just say these three things real quickly. The first word is the word determination. He says, I therefore, I therefore,
00:15:24
Speaker
Hmm, you know, in Romans chapter 12 and verse one, it's something similar whenever the Lord says, because of God's mercy, I urge you to present your body a living and holy sacrifice. Are you willing to say to God every day, Lord, my life is yours. I want to totally surrender your life. Perhaps whenever we've been singing a song of worship, you've seen someone offer to the Lord praise with their hands open wide.
00:15:53
Speaker
More than likely, what's happening is they're not trying to show out. No, what they're saying is they're saying to God, they're not singing a song for anyone else but for their king. And what they're saying is, Lord, I surrender my life to you. Have you ever done that? Every morning, I think we are to start the day by saying, Lord, my life belongs to you today. I want my life to count for you. That's the determination that I think it takes. But you have to be willing.
00:16:23
Speaker
What if his plan for you doesn't mean comfort on a certain given day? What if it means discomfort? That's what I see in the word prisoner, because certainly for Paul, I'm sure there were a lot of places he had rather been rather than in a Roman prison.
00:16:40
Speaker
But that's where he was. And he was there. Why? Because he was walking with Christ. He was sharing the gospel of Christ. He was following God's will for his life. As a matter of fact, do you know that whenever he was mistreating Christians, if you run the tape back, this man wasn't always living for Christ. He was against Christians at one time. Maybe there's somebody listening today and you've been against Christians and church and the Bible, perhaps a long, long time.
00:17:10
Speaker
Well, do you know that whenever Paul surrendered to the Lord, he sent a man named Ananias over to talk to Paul to pray for him? And do you know that Ananias was instructed by the Lord to tell Paul this? I want you to tell him how much he must suffer for my namesake. Wow. If you know that going in, are you still willing to follow?
00:17:36
Speaker
If you know, people are gonna reject me. People may laugh at me. People may actually put me to death. You know, something like that. Would you be willing to say, you know what, even if I suffer, even if it's uncomfortable following Him, I'm gonna follow Him because I'm counting the costs now of what it will mean later. The other thing I want you to know is the duty. He says, I therefore, prisoner for the Lord,
00:18:04
Speaker
for the Lord. Do you ever do anything in your life for the Lord? You know, most people, I think, live for themselves, for self. But when we come to know Christ, something happens when we surrender. Because what we're saying then is, no longer am I living for myself.
00:18:24
Speaker
I'm living for you. I'm living for the Lord. And so it's an incredible change that's happened. It all goes back to the scale. It all goes back to saying, you know what? You're worth it. Even if it's uncomfortable for me,
00:18:41
Speaker
Even if I'm not popular anymore, I'll still follow you because you're worth it. And so you put on the scale your life and you say, Lord, I'll never balance it, but I certainly want to put everything I can on that side to give you not the leftovers, not the scraps of my life, to give you my very best to say, Lord, I want to live for you, for you and you alone.
00:19:10
Speaker
The first step is an important decision, where you answer the question, is Jesus worth what it will cost me to surrender and to follow Him? That's just the first step. Let's go to the second step. The second step is to realize that every Christian is called
00:19:30
Speaker
to walk with Christ. You see, the reason this is in the New Testament, the reason this is in the Bible is because it wasn't just for Paul. It wasn't just for those New Testament Christians. It's for us. All of these things are written for our instruction so that we can know how to be a disciple, how to live it out, how to apply what's written in the Bible to our daily lives.
00:19:57
Speaker
And that's why we read the rest of verse one, where he says, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. The calling to which you have been called. I couldn't help but think about that calling, and I thought, well, for sure it's a passionate call, isn't it? He uses that word urge. It means to appeal.
00:20:23
Speaker
Many of you used to play on maybe a little league team, a Babe Ruth team. Perhaps you played football or you were in basketball. You had a coach. You know what it's like to play volleyball and a coach to push you and push you and to urge you and urge you to say, come on, give it more.
00:20:40
Speaker
That's the idea where this man, the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is writing to us in our day in 2023. And he's saying, come on, he's worth more than that. You can do more. And that's why he's saying, I'm urging you to do this. But then also notice it's a personal call. Did you catch the pronoun, the plural pronoun? You? It means all of us. It means each of us.
00:21:08
Speaker
It means all of us collectively, but each one of us individually. The Lord is calling you to live for him. He's calling you and me to say, okay, Lord, you're worth it. And so whatever it means for me to adjust my life, to follow you in obedience, I'm willing to do it. That's why I think it's interesting. It's such a practical call because he says, I urge you to walk.
00:21:35
Speaker
in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. Remember what we said earlier? It's a code word walk, and the code word means to live it. It's like a lifestyle.
00:21:47
Speaker
So it's very practical. It's a practical call. He's calling you to walk with him, not to just sit there on a pew. He's not talking about sitting. He's talking about living. He's talking about obeying. He's talking about serving and honoring. So it's motion. There's nothing stationary about what God has called you and me to do. You know,
00:22:12
Speaker
I believe that it's such a privilege when it talks about in a manner worthy. Like I said earlier, it's like on one side of the scale, the worth of Christ. How much does your Savior mean to you? How much does His Atonement mean to you? His death on the cross, what does it mean?
00:22:31
Speaker
Well, on the other side, you've got the worth of Christ on one side, the walk with Christ is on the other side. It's pretty hard for the Lord to believe us when we say, you mean everything to me when we don't even spend a single minute with Him on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We only feel like I'll give you every Sunday morning. That's great.
00:22:55
Speaker
but just know that he's worth far more, right? Isn't he worth far more than just a Sunday morning? And so it's a purposeful calling.
Emulating Christ in Attitude and Behavior
00:23:04
Speaker
You know, that purposeful calling is this, to call to Christ's likeness. That's your calling. That's my calling.
00:23:14
Speaker
You know, we're called to walk as Jesus walked. Sometime, if you're a note taker, you should write down 1 John chapter two and verse six. 1 John chapter two and verse six. Because it simply says that we are called to walk as he walked. To walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, attitudes like Jesus, relationships like Jesus, to conduct ourselves and behave like Jesus. Man,
00:23:44
Speaker
You know, Chuck Swindoll, I was reading his commentary on this passage, and he said that he attended the memorial service for the legendary coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry. He said, I remember when Tom Landry passed away and they had this memorial service, he said, I was there. And he said, I could not believe what I heard one of those players say, his name was Randy White. Some of you may remember the days when Randy White played for the Dallas Cowboys.
00:24:15
Speaker
But here's what Chuck Swindoll said that Randy White, who saw the coach whenever they would lose, whenever they would win, he saw the coach not on game day only, he saw the coach during the practices all through the week. And here's what he said about Tom Landry's life. He said he didn't just talk the talk.
00:24:36
Speaker
He walked the walk. I always respected that in Him. You see, He knew He was genuine. Do those around us know that it's genuine? We feel called to walk with Christ. We feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. This is how I'm supposed to live in my life.
00:24:58
Speaker
So there's the cost for walking with Christ and there's the call to walk with Christ, but there's also the code, the code when walking with Christ.
00:25:10
Speaker
You know, America's special forces, the elite teams in the US military, do you know that they operate by certain codes of behavior? I mean, it doesn't matter if you're talking about the Rangers or the Green Beret, if you're talking about the Seals or the Para Rescue, they call them the PJs or the Air Force, or if you're talking about the Raiders, I'm not talking football, if you're talking about the Marine Raiders,
00:25:38
Speaker
Well, you know, there's a code that should mark every Christian, man, woman, older, younger, middle age, it doesn't matter. We're all called to live with the same code.
Unity and Commitment in Church Community
00:25:50
Speaker
If we're gonna be living worthily for him, how should we live? I like verses two and three. Let's see as it explains the code to each one of us. It says, with all humility,
00:26:04
Speaker
and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." What would you naturally think would come next whenever the Lord is saying, okay, you need to walk worthily.
00:26:26
Speaker
to walk worthily of the Lord Jesus Christ. What would you normally think of? Okay, if I'm going to live worthily for Him, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go that place. All those don'ts, right? What about the do's? What about who we are? What about some things we actually live for? Is that even on the radar screen?
00:26:50
Speaker
Because I think the code is who we are in the way we have these attitudes and dispositions, our commitments. And certainly when you read verse 3, you see that all of this verse 2 and all of verse 3, it's all moving in one direction. You know what the direction is?
00:27:09
Speaker
commitment to the body of Christ, commitment to brothers and sisters in Christ, commitment to the others on the team, commitment to those that are following the Lord and say, Lord, I want to demonstrate to this community and to the world how much you mean to me.
00:27:29
Speaker
by how deeply I'm devoted to these people that are in this room. That is the code. It reminds me so much as I've read different books on military and seals and rangers and all these different gods. I'm so impressed by their commitment to one another.
00:27:47
Speaker
And then I think, Lord, does that describe my commitment to this body of Christ? Does it describe my commitment to my brothers and sisters in the Lord? It should. Let's look at it together and let's just break it down. He gives five essentials for faithful Christian living, all of them in the one direction of unity, unity toward the body of Christ. The first word I see on the list is with all humility.
00:28:18
Speaker
You may not know this about humility. I didn't realize it until I was in the study and I was like, whoa, do you know that the Greeks and the Romans, they had no place for humility. They only believed in pride.
00:28:32
Speaker
pride. And so there was no place for it. So what the Christians had to do was the early Christians had to think, how can we convey what we see modeled in Jesus Christ? And so you know what they had to do? Since there was no word, they had to coin their own term. So they took two words and they made a compound word. They took the word for to think or to judge.
00:28:57
Speaker
And he took another word for lowly and they thought, okay, how is the Christian supposed to think about themselves? Lowly, lowliness, humility, where we have a sane estimate of who we are and who we're not.
00:29:14
Speaker
You know, I think sometimes in this day and time, people are trying to live, they're trying to live above who they are. And I think it's such a shame. We ought to be real. We ought to be truthful. And if anybody ought to do that, it ought to be Christians. We ought to be honest and transparent. And I think it begins with humility.
00:29:32
Speaker
Remember Philippians 2 verses 7 and 8 tells us that Jesus himself, he himself humbled himself. You know what it says he did before he humbled himself? He emptied himself. Isn't that what it takes to be humble? You're going to have to empty out yourself. I'm going to have to empty out myself and say, Lord, you know what? If it were not by the grace of God,
00:29:59
Speaker
Thank you God for your grace and for your mercy. But there's also gentleness that is mentioned next. Gentleness is self-control. Gentleness is like power under control. You ever heard anybody talk about a horse as being gentle? That horse is gentle because that horse has been broken by a trainer. A trainer broke that horse. A trainer tames a lion. But neither one of those are weak.
00:30:27
Speaker
The idea of gentleness is strength, incredible strength that's now been brought under control, and it's not loose. That's what I think it's referring to when it's talking about gentleness. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 11, in verse 29, I'm gentle, humble of heart. What about patience? The opposite of patience would be short-tempered.
00:30:52
Speaker
But here I see someone that needs to be long tempered, long suffering, patient. What does it take for your buttons to be pushed to the point to where you just explode? Well, all I know is when we come under the lordship of Jesus Christ and he's in control of our hearts, our minds, our responses, our reactions, it's incredible what he can do through us.
00:31:18
Speaker
The other thing I notice is bearing with one another. It means forbearance. It means whenever I get to know people and I start seeing their faults and I start seeing their flaws, that I don't write them off, that I start saying, okay, Lord, you'll have to give me forbearance that I would be able to bear with one another. And then he talks about love.
00:31:42
Speaker
Love is unconditional, unconditional, and it's continual. That's the kind of agape love that it's talking about. So let me now, I talked to the husbands earlier, let me talk to the wives. Even if your husband forgets Valentine's Day, you should love him unconditionally and continually. So there we've got perfect balance now in this whole situation.
00:32:08
Speaker
You know, some refer to verses four through six as like a rhythmic hymn, a rhythmic hymn. There's a steady drumbeat, a drumbeat of the spirit saying, be committed to one another, be committed to one another, be committed to one another. That's why I wanted to close with one last thing, and that is the cadence, the cadence in walking with Christ.
00:32:32
Speaker
When I was in high school, I was in the band. I went out for football, but I almost got killed. I mean, it was like, am I size really? You know, so I thought maybe the band is a better choice for me than football.
00:32:46
Speaker
But I learned how when you're in the band, you gotta walk in a straight row. You gotta walk in a straight line. And not only that, but you also, if you're at the back, you gotta keep the diagonal straight. And so it's like all these three different angles, you gotta constantly be walking because you're a unit, right?
Model of Unity in the Trinity
00:33:05
Speaker
Well, whenever I was looking at these closing verses four, five, and six, it's so easy to summarize it because it's talking about three different angles.
00:33:15
Speaker
being in alignment with the Spirit, being in alignment with the Son, and being in alignment with the Father. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. See, the Trinity is the secret to unity. Remembering that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they're never
00:33:35
Speaker
at disunity. No, they've always got oneness there. And so did you pick up on all this oneness? Do you see how important oneness is to God? There's one body, one spirit, just as you recall to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. Do you know that it all revolves around the Trinity?
00:34:03
Speaker
For example, the first three relate to the Holy Spirit, one body and one spirit, just as you recall to one hope. The spirit is mentioned in that grouping of three. But then he moves on to say, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
00:34:22
Speaker
One Lord would be the Lord Jesus Christ. So saying, I'm not ashamed to identify with Christ through baptism, to follow Him publicly and to not be ashamed of Him. But there's also this one God and Father of all. Of course, that's the Father.
00:34:43
Speaker
You know the legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, he won 10 NCAA titles with UCLA Bruins. Whenever we used to have hoops on Saturdays for the kids, I used to put some of those quotes up.
00:34:58
Speaker
From the Bible, I put some from coaches, some from players, and so forth. But I remember there were a couple of quotes that stood out to me from John Wooden about a basketball team. And I thought, if that's what they say about a basketball team, how much more about a church body? Here's what he said. It takes 10 hands to score a basket. You got five players on a team with two hands each.
00:35:26
Speaker
It takes 10 hands to score one basket. He also said, the star of the team is the team. We supersedes me. And I thought, there's something we need to learn from that.
00:35:43
Speaker
I couldn't help but go back to my Old Testament, some of the passages that have always stood out to me, and I read 2 Samuel 23, 15 through 17 recently, and I thought, oh my goodness, there it is. You see, those three men, the three mighty men of David,
00:36:04
Speaker
They were so devoted to their king that when they heard David say, oh, that I could have a drink from the well that is at Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was occupied by enemy forces. But you know what those three men did? Under cover of night, they broke in there. They took one of their skins and they filled up water from that well at Bethlehem and they brought it back and they said, here, David, we did this for you. We did this for you.
00:36:33
Speaker
And you know what David did? He uncorked it and he poured it out and he said, God forbid that I should drink this water that these men gave to me at the risk of their own lives.
00:36:45
Speaker
I want you to know that anything and everything that we do for Christ, it's not overlooked.
Christ's Worthiness as Motivation
00:36:50
Speaker
He's just like David in the sense that God knows how precious the rejection, He knows how precious the time and the effort and all the things that you give. He knows all about that. But I ask you, as we close the message this morning, what would you be willing to do for our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, considering what He's done for us? You know, in heaven,
00:37:16
Speaker
If you were to look in Revelation chapter five, there's one theme in Revelation five. You know what it is? They're all singing praises and they're saying one thing over and over again. They're talking about worthy. Worthy is the lamb. Jesus is sometimes referred to as the lamb of God because he was willing to lay down his life to die for us that our sins could be forgiven. But do you know that God's will, it's always done in heaven.
00:37:46
Speaker
Why is God's will always done in heaven? You know what I think part of the reason is? Because they're so focused on how worthy, how worthy the Lord is. That's why they say, I don't mind to do His will. If you'll focus on the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ, you won't mind whatever it is that you need to do in order to follow Him. I urge you today during this invitation to keep your eyes on the worthiness of Christ
00:38:16
Speaker
I urge you beyond today, beyond invitation, beyond Sunday school, beyond this property, when you go live your life this week, I urge you, keep your eyes focused on the worthiness of Jesus Christ. You won't mind whatever it costs you. I want us to go to the Lord in prayer. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I'm just praying that today, during this time of invitation, that people would see Jesus high and lifted up.
00:38:45
Speaker
that they would know that because of all that we've studied already in chapters one and two and three, that you're so worthy, that it would call us to follow you for the rest of our lives until our very last breath, like that song said, as long as I have breath, as long as I am able, I want to live for the Lord. So help us, oh Lord, to have that kind of attitude, to realize that because of what he did for me on the cross, that he rose from the dead,
00:39:15
Speaker
that He's coming back from me and has gone to prepare a place for me. He's so worthy, I wanna give Him everything I can. And so help us to live that way this day and every day. I pray for those who have never personally repented of sin and trusted in what Jesus did on the cross. May this be the day that they make that decision. Bless our time of invitation, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:39:46
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church, located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.