A Call to Unity.

Ephesians 4:1-16

1  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.

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In chapters 1 to 3, the Apostle Paul has been dealing with the doctrinal foundation.
At the end of chapter three, Paul exhorted the church to stand together and concentrate on being rooted and grounded in love, in the faith.

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
 
In chapter four, the Apostle exhorts unity in the faith.
He begins by pleading with them to walk worthy of their calling.
We have seen how Paul taught the doctrine of predestination, the fact that each Christian is chosen before the world began.

Ephesians 1: 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 

5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 

We know from Romans 8:29, 30.

29 For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. 
30 And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.…

Paul clarifies that teaching here in chapter four of Ephesians.
1  I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,

Walk worthy because we are called to holiness of living and glorifying God in our lives by good works.

How do we do that?

Well! We can’t in ourselves, because we are talking about the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
It is all about walking in the Spirit, keeping short accounts with God.
The result of this will produce what Paul is exhorting us to do.

2  with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, 
3  endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

We are to walk worthy, not to gain God’s love but because of God’s love.
We could never earn God’s love and mercy and neither can we keep it by works. God freely loved us and it is in response to that love that we walk worthy of it.

Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Lowliness and gentleness are opposites to pride and arrogance. When we have realised that it was God who loved us and quickened us to life, giving us the faith to believe. We have nothing to boast of, in ourselves on the contrary, our boast is in Christ alone.

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 

Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast. 

Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. 

To walk in pride and arrogance would be denying the very thing Christ did.

2. with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 

Unless we manifest longsuffering and love, the body cannot grow.
It is very easy to react to wrongdoing by others. The natural response is to seek revenge.

The  Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom, said that “ longsuffering is the spirit that has the power to take revenge, but never does”. 

Without this quality, unity is jeopardised.

3  endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

Endeavouring, striving, to keep. This suggests that unity is something that we already have in Christ and that it is something that needs to be maintained.
Maintenance, takes effort, it takes observation and work. A machine needs regular maintenance if it is to continue to function well and so does a body. If the body is not maintained by exercise and nutrition, it gets sick and weak and can’t function as it should.

Brothers and sisters are unified in that they share the same parent. They are unified by relationship, by blood. However this does not always guarantee unity.
Brothers and sister fall out, they disagree, they argue and it takes more than just being related to keep a oneness.
We all know families that have been split apart by infightings and bad feeling.

We the church are brethren too and no doubt there are times when things don’t go the way they should. There are disagreements in the church. The only way to maintain the unity in Christ is by Humility, Longsuffering, Kindness, forgiveness in Love.

We are part of the same body, the body of Christ. There is one God, one Christ and one Spirit. We were all called by the same Lord and we were all baptised into one body. We are in Him and He in us. He is in us all.
 

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. 

However, even though we are one in Christ, we are individual members of His body and each of us have a responsibility to maintain that oneness.

7  But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. 

Paul goes into this teaching in great depth in 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31.
He explains how we are all members of one body and individual members of it.
He tells us how the body can only function correctly if all the members work together in unity.

1 Co 12:25  That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. 

1Co 12:26  And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. 

Christ defeated the enemy on the cross of Calvary, he died and descended in Hades and preached to the captives of His victory over sin.
This same Jesus also ascended, defeating death and the grave and as the conqueror, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.

8  Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men." 

To understand this difficult verse, we need to go to Psalms. Where it says.

"You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you let your Holy One see corruption" (Psalm 16:10). 

Peter quotes this Psalm in his preaching on the day of Pentecost, speaking of Jesus: "You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption" (Acts 2:27). 

You will notice the word “Hades” in place of the word “Sheol”. This is referring to the same place.
Hades in Greek and Sheol in Hebrew.
He led captivity captive, speaks of those in captivity to sin and the world, who are taken captive by Christ in a new life.
 

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.) 
 

V8. And gave gifts to men

What are these gifts that are given to men by the conqueror of death?

11  And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 
 

Apostles: those that are sent out, this is referring to church planters. (Not referring to the Apostles of Christ but to apostles in the church).
Prophets: those that preach the word of God. Those that Proclaim the truth.
Evangelists: those with a ministry of Evangelism.
Pastors and Teachers: Leaders of the flock, the church fellowship who are also equipped to teach.
 

Besides all these there are many other gifts and ministries within the body of Christ.
Administration-discernment- exhortation- benevolence- caring -giving – healing- helps- hospitality-knowledge- leadership- mercy- service. And many more. 

All these are given to one end.

12  for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 

Christ has not left us to our own devices. He has equipped us for the ministry of the gospel.
This will continue as long as we are needed on earth, until Christ Himself shall return.

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; 

This is all part of our sanctification. Making holy the church, as a preparation for the Bridegroom that is to come.
Later in Ephesians, Paul uses an analogy of husbands and wives in an explanation of the relationship between Christ and His church. He says:
Ephesian 5:22 -27.
VV 26, 27 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
 

Paul goes on to warn about some of the things that could spoil the unity of the church.
As did Christ Himself, in Matthew 24, He told how the antichrists and false teachers would come and we need these gifts in the church to stand firm against these things. So that we are not like children, or sheep without a shepherd.

Paul says: V14  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, 

And how should we deal with all this? Well the answer is in the way Christ dealt with it all. In love.

We must stand up against the false teaching and heresy, not in aggression but speaking the truth in love.
For this is how we become more like Christ.
We must point them out for the safety of the rest of the body. We know that Paul did this and Jesus did this.
They named those who were teaching falsely.

Some Christians feel it is wrong to name false teachers, they think we should leave it to God to judge them.
Well, that is correct, God will judge them. However it is our duty as Christians to guard others against such men. We are to judge in the sense that we have a responsibility to distinguish between false and true.
The Greek for Judge is (krinō) it means "to set apart so as to distinguish, separate."

This is what happened in the Bible.

In Luke 13:32, Jesus did this very thing. Speaking of Herod Jesus said.

Luk 13:32  And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, (Meaning Herod) Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. 
 

In this instance, our Lord not only called a person by name, but He called Herod a name, a fox! He didn’t hide Herod’s evil character, but publicly exposed it to others.

Another time speaking to the Pharisees:

Mat 12:34  O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 

John the Baptist did the same: Luke 3:7 Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
 

We find the Apostle Paul does the same thing. Paul called Elymas out and God judged him.
Sergius Paulus, who was eager to hear the Gospel was in danger of being turned away from the truth.
 

Act 13:6  And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus: 

Act 13:7  Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. 

Act 13:8  But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 

Act 13:9  Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 

Act 13:10  And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 

The Gospel writer Luke names the seven sons of Sceva in the Acts of the Apostles.
It is all about speaking the truth in love.

15  but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- 

Christ is the head of the body. We are members, all with differing ministries. We are joined together, each part doing its job to supply the needs of the whole. The result of this, is growth and edification. A strong building on a firm foundation.

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.
 

This is unity.

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