“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, ² with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, ³ endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. ⁷ But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

⁸ Therefore He says, ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.’ ⁹ (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

Over the past few weeks, we have looked a lot at the individual responsibility that we bear before the Lord and as we see the end drawing near. But what about how we interact inside our local bodies, our local churches?

Paul endeavors, led by the Holy Spirit, to help us learn that in this 4^th chapter of Ephesians. He will point out and call us to things that we need to do as a body, how we act and interact with each other, and as such, strengthen the body of Christ, the local church. The fact that we are fast approaching the return of our Lord and Savior should focus us on the work at hand. The time for lukewarm churches is past, and we should seek to be diligently working to help each other. We are challenged by Paul to walk worthy of the calling we have in Jesus. We are to take the way that we live with each other very seriously and not take each other for granted.

How then are we to carry ourselves as members of this church and in relation to each other?

We are to be lowly, gentle, and long-suffering. We are not to be pushy and always in defense of our own rights and wants. We are not to be driven by having our own agenda. We are to be lowly and gentle with each other. All too often, we can be harsh and use this as a call to be holy. But Jesus is gentle with us, and He came as a servant, lowly in His ways. We have to learn that, in the Kingdom of God, we are to be lowly, humbled, and that the highest calling is that of being a servant. Jesus came as a Servant, and we should seek to mimic Him.

We are called to be long-suffering. We all fail each other, we all mess up, we all say that wrong this, do the wrong thing, jump to the wrong conclusions, and it is inevitable that wrongs will come between us. We need to be forgiving and patient; we need to understand that we are all simply dust; we cannot read your mind, read your hints, know how you will react all the time, and sometimes we just put our foot in our mouth. Please forgive me, please cover my sins in love, and remember all that God has forgiven you.

In Matthew 18 21-35, Jesus tells us the parable of the unforgiving servant who refused to forgive his fellow servant even though he had been forgiven so much. In the same passage, Peter is reminded to just keep forgiving each other; don’t keep count, just keep forgiving and forgiving.

The bond of Peace. We are called in verse 3 to endeavor to keep the peace. Peace in a local church is had by hard work; it is a constant act that, if neglected, will end in the fall and destruction of that local church. Notice that we are aided and, in fact, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do this. Peace, lasting peace, does not come without hard work and with the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we are called to be submitted to the Holy Spirit. Is He leading our daily lives? Are we actively listening to Him and obeying Him?

There is no doubt that we are being led to forgive, to be humble, and to be gentle with each other, but we are defiant and think that these things are signs of weakness. But in Christ and because of Christ we can be these things, and these things – lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering – make our churches stronger. When these things are in place, when we are actively in submission to the Holy Spirit and to each other. When we set our goal as helping the other person be more like Jesus, and they set the same goal for us, then we can actively pursue unity and peace. The local church is more important than the association; in fact, there is no association without the local church.

Peace and unity are to be grounded in the Truth; that is why it is so important to be led by the Holy Spirit. He, we are told in John 16:13, will lead us into truth.

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”

Too many churches will sacrifice truth for peace and unity; this is not the peace and unity from God. The foundation of our peace, our unity, our lowliness, and our endeavors must be led and sustained by the Holy Spirit, who knows ALL TRUTH. In this local church at Ephesus and in other local churches, the power of the Holy Spirit was able to unite Jews and Gentiles into one body, which is proof that God can unite anyone at all in His power. Only true faith, only true submission, and a true desire for holiness can bring unity into a body of sinful men and women. These are all based on the truth of God’s word.

Obedience is always the foundation of unity (see verse 4-6): one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and so on. What truly unites us is that we are all children of God by faith in Jesus. This is the very foundation that we have to unite us. All else is division and confusion, to be honest. Now we can be cordial to unbelievers, and we can be nice to them. We can be friendly to them, but there can be no true unity unless we are in Jesus, and not only in Him, but also obedient to Him.

A lot of people talk about believing in Jesus; good, but do we obey Him? This is the real question. In John 14:15, Jesus says this, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Well, one of the most important commandments is here in the way that we treat each other, honor each other, and serve each other in the Lord’s local church.

Jesus is coming soon. Are we ready to meet Him and give an account?

Matt. 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

Ezekiel 34: 29-31 “And I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are My people,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘You are My flock, the sheep of My pasture, My people, and I am your God,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

As many of you will know, Dr. John MacArthur went home to be with the Lord this week. He was a great Bible scholar. I did not agree with all that he taught, in particular the idea of Calvinism, but in just about every other aspect, his theology was solid. In an interview a while ago, he was asked about his goal in life, and he simply replied that his goal was to ‘glorify God.’ There was no fanfare, no accolades, and no pretense, just the plain and simple truth of his life’s goal, to ‘glorify God.’

We are told in many places to keep the main thing the main thing, and Dr. MacArthur knew how to do that. In every interview, in all of the interactions that we often see online, he was able to live out his goal of glorifying God. He never wavered in his doctrinal stands and did not compromise for money or fame. May we all be like this.

But as I was thinking about this, it hit me, and it kept hitting me that too many of us have missed the point of why we exist and why we are saved; it is to glorify God. But what does that mean?

The word glorify is not as mysterious as we think it is; it simply means to ‘form the right opinion.’ Our goal, our purpose, and what should drive us is to live in such a way, carry ourselves in such a way, operate our local churches in such a way as to help people form the right opinion of God. Let that sink in; we are to live in such a way as to help the people around us form the right opinion of God.

Are you and I doing that? And, if we are, are we doing so faithfully? Are we doing so consistently? These are legitimate questions about how we are living our lives.

Let us take a look at Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God”; the heavens help people to form the right opinion of God. Now, there are a lot of people who do not come to the right conclusion, and that is because they have preconceived opinions that hinder them from coming to the right conclusion about God. Over and over again, I see that when these supposed ‘evolutionists’ are confronted with questions about origins, they get stumped and fumble their words because intrinsically they know that the world in which we live, the planet on which we live, was intelligently designed. There are no ways around it once they begin to dissect the science.

One has to ignore several very concrete laws of life, physics, and science to be an evolutionist. One has to suspend rational thought to be an evolutionist, and one has to take a huge leap of faith to be an evolutionist. Thus, the heavens do their job, but sinful people refuse to come to the right conclusion. We learn from this that we are not responsible for how people react to our glorifying, but that we do glorifying right.

Many people disagreed with Dr. MacArthur on same sex marriage, on the simplicity of the Gospel, on the fact that Jesus was and is the only way, and that there is a Hell to shun and a Heaven to gain, but nonetheless, Dr. MacArthur stood firm and stood on the sanctity and security of the Holy Bible. We should endeavor to be just as secure, just as sure, just as dogmatic, and just as well-versed as he was. We should all be diligent students of the Holy Bible and be secure in its doctrines.

Do our marriages show the glory of God? Do our relationships show the glory of God? Do our churches show the glory of God? On and on we can go with these questions.

What if we based all of our actions on this simple foundation? Will what I am about to say, do, act, re-act, and endorse help those around me to form the right opinion of God? How would this simple action change the way we live out our lives? How would it make our marriages better? Our churches better? Our spending better? Our whole approach to life better?

If we make glorifying God the sole goal, the sole focus, I am not sure that we know how that would change the world around us. We have to be ready for the pushback, even from Christians. Dr. MacArthur and other leaders like him were hated by just as many or more people than those who loved him. But his sole goal was to please God; all else was second, and at that, a distant second.

All too often, when the world thinks of glorifying God, they only think of Him as loving, as kind, as a big jolly spiritual Santa Claus of sorts. But if we are to let the world know who God is and to form the right opinion of Him, then we have to also show the other side of God. He is a God to be feared, not only in the respectful sense, but in the drop on your face, trembling kind of fear.

Isaiah 6:5, “So I said: ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.’”

He created Hell; He sent the flood; He sent snakes to kill thousands of Israelites in the wilderness; He allowed some 600,000 men to die in the wilderness because they refused to enter the Promised Land; He poured out His wrath on His own Son when He became sin for us; and one day, billions will go to the Lake of Fire as a consequence of rejecting the free offer of salvation that our gracious, loving God provided. This is the part of God that we do not often show, that we try to avoid, and that we ourselves fear. God is good, and as such, He hates evil; we must be careful not to condone it.

How do we love our brothers and sisters in Jesus? Can they see and form the right opinion of God from our love? Are our churches dens of Godly love, forgiveness, grace, kindness, peace, safety, holiness, security and joy for our Christian family? Can a saved stranger walk in and feel as if they have been here for a lifetime? They should be able to because of Jesus and His Spirit in us that binds us together.

What is my purpose, our purpose, the purpose of my family, our local church? It is simply this: we are to glorify God, and in so doing, help others to form the right opinion of Him.

Jesus is coming soon; let us be about the Master’s business.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario