The Word Is Alive Ephesians

The Word Is AliveEphesians Chapter Four Narrated by Tony Gillon

Chapter Four • Summary of Chapter Four • The fundamental instructions for Christian living.

Chapter Four • Summary of Chapter Four • The fundamental instructions for Christian living. • The spiritual gifts for ministry.

Chapter Four • Summary of Chapter Four • The fundamental instructions for Christian living. • The spiritual gifts for ministry. • Put off the old self.

Chapter Four • Summary of Chapter Four • The fundamental instructions for Christian living. • The spiritual gifts for ministry. • Put off the old self. • Do not grieve the Holy Spirit with inappropriate behaviour.

Chapter Four • Ephesians 4:1–16 - Unity in the Body of Christ

Chapter Four • Ephesians 4:1–16 - Unity in the Body of Christ • Paul now turns to exhortation based upon the truths he has been teaching, a common format for his letters, in which doctrinal truths are stated first, here in chapters 1–3; then application to life is built upon that doctrine in chapters 4–6. The exhortations of Scripture become empty moralism without this Gospel foundation.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Ephesians 4:1–6 - Exhortation to unity

Unity in the Body of Christ • Ephesians 4:1–6 - Exhortation to unity • Paul exhorts the church to unity based on the truths of the one God and his one work of salvation.

Unity in the Body of Christ • 1 I therefore, the prisonerin the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Prisoner: • Paul’s imprisonment for the sake of the Gospel is in the Lord and for those whom he brings it to: • This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. (Ephesians 3:1).

Unity in the Body of Christ • His exhortations have great power, since he himself has taken these matters seriously enough to suffer confinement and loss of personal liberty in the Lord’s service.

Unity in the Body of Christ • To lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. • This is not about the individual role that believers are to undertake in their own service but a fundamental reminder of the Gospel principles to which all are first called.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel (Philippians 1:27).

Unity in the Body of Christ • For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10).

Unity in the Body of Christ • As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. • (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

Unity in the Body of Christ • Christians are to live in a manner worthy of the adoption, holiness, and unity to which they were called: • Just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will (Ephesians 1:4–5).

Unity in the Body of Christ • Humility was regarded as distasteful by the pagan world of Paul’s day and remains so in modern philosophies such as Buddhism. Pride was more highly prized. • All of the virtues mentioned — humility, gentleness, patience, and most of all, love — were displayed in Christ’s own character and are to be evident in the daily walk of every Christian.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Peace is a state of reconciliation and love; therefore it acts as a bond to unite believers in Christ. Believers do not create unity but are to preserve the unity already established.

Unity in the Body of Christ • 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Just as a human body has one spirit that animates it, so Christ’s body, the church, is enlivened by one Holy Spirit who enlivens Christians to eternal life. • On the church as a body, see Romans 12:4–8 and 1 Corinthians 12:12–31.

Unity in the Body of Christ • One hope: Christians do not have separate ‘hopes’ but are together called to eternal life and to enjoy God forever in resurrection glory. The fundamental hope of the Christian comes about because Jesus conquered sin and death, and this will be the same victory for all who continue to faithfully serve Christ as Lord, united to him through his church. They are also called to express that unity this side of eternity.

Unity in the Body of Christ • One faith refers to the doctrinal truths Christians commonly confess. • One Spirit, one Lord Christ, and one God and Father constitute a Trinitarian formula.

Unity in the Body of Christ • One baptism: • Christians have disagreed about the proper mode of baptism beginning in the early history of the church.

Unity in the Body of Christ • One baptism here, however, may refer to the baptism of all believers into one body: • For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13), which is the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit when one becomes a genuine believer in Christ.

Unity in the Body of Christ • If this view is correct, water baptism would be an outward sign of the inward reality of the believer being in Christ as the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit: • Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit’ (John 3:5).

Unity in the Body of Christ • The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8).

Unity in the Body of Christ • The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8). • He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. • (Titus 3:5).

Unity in the Body of Christ • There is, therefore, a profound spiritual unity of all genuine believers who are ‘in Christ’: • I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (Continued).

Unity in the Body of Christ • The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:20-23), founded on one faith in one Lord, irrespective of denominational differences.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Others hold that the reference here is to water baptism, but would disagree concerning the proper mode, e.g. sprinkling or full immersion.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Above all, through all, in all: • God is omnipresent: • Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. (Continued).

Unity in the Body of Christ • If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. • (Psalm 139:7–12).

Unity in the Body of Christ • Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting-place? (Isaiah 66:1).

Unity in the Body of Christ • Thus the Christian church is one body, wherever its separate congregations may be found throughout the world: • Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. (Romans 3:29-30).

Unity in the Body of Christ • Ephesians 4:7–10 - The different gifts

Unity in the Body of Christ • Ephesians 4:7–10 - The different gifts • Paul describes diverse gifts in the church. These come from the ascended Christ, distributed through his Holy Spirit.

Unity in the Body of Christ • 7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Unity in the Body of Christ • 7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. • But each of us was given grace: • Although all believers are equal in the sight of God, they are called individually and are gifted in order to fulfil the particular calling God has placed on each person separately.

Unity in the Body of Christ • To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. • (1 Corinthians 12:7). • Grace though is a universal free gift poured out upon each person.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift does not refer to different levels of saving grace but of grace given to serve Christ’s church. • To hold an office in Christ’s church (vv.11–16) requires a special calling from Christ himself, who rules his body as its head (v.15).

Unity in the Body of Christ • 8 Therefore it is said, • ‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; • he gavegifts to his people.’

Unity in the Body of Christ • It is said: • Paul cites Psalm 68:18, where the one who ascends is the triumphant Lord God. • Paul sees this as referring to Christ Jesus in his resurrection as head of the church.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Most in 1st Century Judaism would interpret this part of the Davidic psalm to refer to Moses ascending Mount Sinai and coming down with the law, so Paul sees Jesus in the role of Moses in a sense.

Unity in the Body of Christ • After the ‘new Exodus’, which had been achieved in his death and resurrection, setting the human race free from bondage to sin and death, Jesus ‘went up’ into the heavenly realm where he now reigns as Lord. Instead of coming down again with the law, as Moses had done, Jesus ‘returned’ in the person of the Spirit, through whom different gifts are now showered on the church.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Gifts: • In Psalm 68:18, the divine victor is seen: receiving gifts from people, but Paul adapts the passage to his purposes, as NT authors sometimes do in citing the OT, to show that Christ gives gifts to his people from his spoils of victory.

Unity in the Body of Christ • Interestingly, ancient Syriac and Aramaic translations of Psalm 68:18 also have gave. • The gifts given by Christ turn out to be the church leaders described in v.11.

Unity in the Body of Christ • The captives over whom Christ triumphed are most likely demons, this theme of victory over demonic forces was noted in.

Unity in the Body of Christ • God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church (Ephesians 1:20–22).

Unity in the Body of Christ • 9 (When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)

The Word Is Alive Ephesians