Transcript

A lone cowboy nobody knew rode into a mining town. He ordered some food at the local saloon, and after he was done eating, he went out to see that his horse, with all his belongings, was missing.

He turned around, walked back into the saloon, pulled his guns from his holsters, and shot them in the air.

Then he said, “Whichever one of you stole my horse better have it back by the time I finish my dessert. Otherwise, I am going to have to do what I did back in Texas. And trust me, I don’t want to ever have to do that again.”

He then sat down, ordered his dessert, and began eating. The people in the saloon started talking amongst themselves, murmuring and looking at the stranger with fear in their eyes.

The stranger finished his dessert, walked out, and his horse was there where he had left it. He got up on the horse when the patrons ran out after him.

One of them said “Mister, we are sorry for what happened. But please tell us what happened back in Texas after somebody stole your horse?” The stranger looked at him and said, “I had to walk home.”

For those who have trusted Christ as their Savior, our daily walk is about our walk home. We will arrive at our home in heaven after our time and life on earth is complete.

“Walking” is a biblical metaphor, used in the Scriptures to describe a person’s daily conduct, lifestyle, and pattern of behavior.

In the Old Testament, we learn about Enoch and Noah who “walked with God.” For these men, their conduct was characterized by their love, obedience, and relationship to God.

For the believer under grace, the Lord has much instruction for our walk. And just like Enoch and Noah, who pursued God and sought to live in a manner that pleased Him, may it be said of us, too, that we “walked with God” as we walked home.

Ephesians 4:1 says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”

In the first 3 chapters of Ephesians, Paul set forth the believer’s position in Christ with all the blessings, honors, and privileges that go with it.

Here, at the midpoint of the letter, the content then swings from Paul teaching about the Church’s position in the heavenlies to then speaking of our practice here on earth.

R. B. Shiflet writes, “As the first three chapters of Ephesians have explored the wealth of the believer in Christ, chapter 4 begins an explanation of his walk.

“Chapters 1 through 3 declare the calling of the church; chapters 4-6 describe the conduct of members of the church.”

Paul begins by writing, “therefore.” “Therefore” is a term of conclusion drawing an inference or a result from the preceding section. This term also marks the transition from positional to practical truth, from our blessings in Christ to our behavior in Christ.

Paul is saying, “Because of what you now know to be true doctrinally, this is what you should do practically.” What we believe will always determine how we behave in life.

Here in this letter, Paul followed a similar pattern as the epistle of Romans where he spent the first eleven chapters explaining doctrine and truth regarding our justification by faith and God turning from His program with Israel to have one with the nations.

Then, in chapter 12, Paul introduced our duty and responsibility in light of God’s grace and mercy: “I beseech you THEREFORE, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice…”

Paul is saying that you Gentiles, believing people of the nations, have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. You were once spiritually dead in your sins but you are now alive in Christ, and you are saved, sealed, and seated in Him.

You once were far off from God, having no hope, but now you have been brought near and reconciled to Him by the blood of Christ.

Not only that you are fellow heirs, fellow members of the Body of Christ and fellow partakers of the Spirit and all that is promised in the gospel of grace.

Based on all this and more that Paul had explained in chapters 1-3, Paul BESEECHED the Church. The word “beseech” means “to beg, to entreat, to encourage.” Paul is urging and imploring the Body of Christ to take a course of action.

And Paul makes this appeal on the basis that he is “the prisoner of the Lord.”

Paul had earlier reminded the Ephesians of his imprisonment in Rome, that he was “the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,” in chapter 3, verse 1.

In chapter 4 now, Paul mentions that he was a prisoner of the Lord a second time, and he makes his plea to the Church in light of it, because it demonstrated that he would not ask believers to live in a way in which he himself had not lived.

Paul was in custody and in prison in Rome out of loyalty to Christ and due to making known the gospel of grace that the Lord had revealed to him for this dispensation of grace. Thus, as a prisoner in the service of Christ, his instruction carried weight and meaning.

But Paul’s main point in stating that he was a prisoner of the Lord, is that he was bound to Christ by the chains of love and gratitude in his willing servitude to Him and in obedience to His will. Paul was the prisoner of the Lord whether he was in jail or not.

As this poem by Annie Johnson Flint puts it, “The great Apostle called himself, ‘The prisoner of the Lord;’ He was not held by Roman chains, Nor kept in Caesar’s ward;

“Constrained by love alone, By cords of kindness bound, The bondslave of the living Christ, True liberty he found.”

In this liberty, constrained by God’s love and grace, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, lived for Christ and beseeched the Ephesians to live for Him in light of the truths and blessings which he had laid out in the first three chapters.

The grace of our salvation, our high position in Christ, and all our blessings in Him are to affect our behavior and the way we conduct ourselves in life.

In the Old Testament, God’s dealings with Israel under the law were “Obey Me, and I will bless you.” But under grace, it’s the opposite. God tells the Church through Paul, “I have already blessed you, now obey and live for Me.”

We are urged to obey and live for God by grace, knowing that we are eternally and richly blessed in Christ right up front.

Grace living is not about a forced legalistic conformity to external rules, but an inner willingness to live out the will of God, desiring to honor Him in light of His goodness to us.

That is what Paul beseeched the Ephesians based on the overall context of the first three chapters, but in the immediate context, Paul also beseeched the Ephesians to live in light of the last verse of chapter 3: “Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

God deserves honor, glory and praise for His grace and kindness in all that He has done for us in Christ. We deserve none of it.

Right after this benediction of praise to God, Paul the prisoner of the Lord implored the church to live in a worthy manner for God.

As we allow the truths and blessings of God’s grace to affect our lives and let these things motivate us to serve, change, and grow, God will receive glory in the Church that He is due, not only in the ages to come but now, today in this age of grace.

Paul beseeched the Ephesians to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”

Paul had been thrown in the pen, so to speak, so he picked up a pen and he wrote a letter, writing the blessed, powerful, and Spirit-inspired epistle of Ephesians.

In that letter from prison, Paul wrote a plea. The plea was not for himself to be set free. Rather, it was for us to walk worthy.

The term “walk,” of course, is not literal but figurative. Paul used this metaphor to describe the manner of our life, our daily conduct, and how we live each day.

Whether at home, at work, in the classroom, in the park, or on the street, you get around every single day in life by walking.

Walking in Scripture refers to one’s habitual direction of life, our lifestyle, what we do, and how we conduct ourselves as we move about in life on a day-to-day basis.

The Christian life is compared to a walk because it starts with a step of faith, trusting Christ as our personal Savior. And every step forward from that point is also a step of faith in Christ as we live for Him.

The believer’s life is also a walk because it involves steady, sustained motion and progress, and it demands balance and strength, which we receive from the Holy Spirit.

God’s goal for every believer is to be conformed to the image of His Son, and every step in our walk is about bringing us nearer to that goal.

Prior to entering the promised land, the Lord told Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses” (Josh. 1:3). The promised land was God’s blessing for Israel to walk in and possess.

Believers under grace don’t have a promised land on this earth. Rather, we have spiritual blessings and a position in Christ in heavenly places. Paul here begs the members of the Body of Christ that in every place on which our foot treads in life, we walk in light of our promised heavenly blessings that God has given and that we already possess in Christ.

In so doing, we will “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” The word “worthy” means suitably and in a manner worthy of.

It has the root meaning of balancing the scales, that what is on one side of the scale is equal in weight to what is on the other side, and thus the term indicates equivalence.

A practical example would be that a person “worthy” of his pay is one whose day’s work on one side of the scale corresponds to his day’s wages on the other side of the scale.

What is on the scale of verse 1 is our “walk” on one side and “vocation,” or calling, on the other side. God desires that our “walk” balance in weight with our “calling.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote this of the term “worthy”: “Think of two things which are of the same weight, so that when you put them on opposite sides of the scale there is no tilting to one side or the other, but they balance perfectly…

“So what the Apostle is saying is that he is beseeching them and exhorting them always to give equal weight in their lives to doctrine and practice. They must not put all the weight on doctrine and none on practice; nor all the weight on practice and just a little, if any at all, on doctrine. To do so produces imbalance and lopsidedness.”

What exactly is the believer’s “vocation [or calling] wherewith ye are called”? We are to balance our walk with it, so it’s important to define it. The first thing we can see clearly is that the term “calling” places the emphasis on what God has done for the believer.

And earlier in Ephesians, Paul wrote, “…that ye may know what is the hope of His CALLING, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (1:18).

And a couple of verses later, here in chapter 4, Paul wrote that “ye are CALLED in one hope of your CALLING” (4:4).

Our calling is about the believer’s hope and the riches of our inheritance in Christ. We have a heavenly hope and inheritance in Christ.

And the calling wherewith we are called refers again to the truths and spiritual blessings that are true of each believer found in Ephesians 1-3.

A worthy walk is one that is consistent with a believer’s dignified position as a saint and a member of the Church, the Body of Christ. To walk worthy means to harmonize one’s practice with our position in Christ and to have that position influence our daily lives.

When a prince is called to be king, he must learn to act in a manner equal to his new role. When he is crowned king, now he must act like a king.

For us, having trusted Christ as our Savior, we now have a blessed and high position in Christ in heavenly places.

And God has crowned us “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (1:4), “predestinated us unto the adoption of children” or placed us as adult sons and heirs, blessed us with all spiritual blessings, sealed us with the Holy Spirit, and united us, Jew and Gentile, as “one new man” in the Church under the Headship of Christ.

Now, Paul pleads that we walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, or that we live as one who is holy, blameless, an undeserving but richly blessed heir, secure in Christ, united and one with all members of the Church, submitted to the will of our living Head.

We cannot “balance the scales” of our walk and our calling in our own strength and effort. The only way we can approach living according to the high and holy calling we have in Christ is by living out Ephesians 3:16: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.”

We don’t walk worthy so that God will love us, but because He does love us. We don’t do it to be blessed by God, but because we are blessed so richly by His grace. We are motivated to walk worthy out of gratitude for the goodness of God.

Ephesians 4:2 says, “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.”

Paul goes on to speak of the characteristics and graces of a walk worthy of our calling.

And first, we see that though we each have a high and honored position in Christ, God doesn’t want that to go to our heads. Our high calling, which is by God’s grace and given to us who do not deserve it, should not lead to being lifted up with pride, but to lowliness.

The story is told of a strong young man at a construction site who was proud and bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength. One day he made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen in this regard.

After several minutes, the older worker had enough. “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” he said. “I’ll bet a week’s wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that building that you won’t be able to wheel back.”

“You’re on,” the young worker replied. The older worker reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then he turned to the young man and said, “All right. Get in.” That was going to result in a walk back with all lowliness!

Life has a way of teaching lowliness. And grace teaches us to live with lowliness as well.

To walk “with all lowliness” means with all possible lowliness, and to not hold back on being humble. Humility is the foundation for the other three attributes that follow of meekness, longsuffering, and forbearing love.

Peter wrote in his first epistle, “and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God…” (1 Pet. 5:5-6). God wants us to live with the right estimation of ourselves, who are so small, weak, and needy, and a true understanding of Him, Who is infinite & almighty.

Just like faith is needed for each step of the believer’s walk, so too is humility.

For us to walk worthy of our calling, we must realize our own unworthiness and need of the Lord and His sufficiency. We must humbly surrender our will to God and allow Him to lead us, yielding to His instruction in His Word. God works through us as we are humble, and in lowliness, we must depend on Him every step of the way in our walk.

And in this lowliness, God would have us put others first in our walk worthy of our calling. As Philippians 2:3 states, “but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”

Thomas Guthrie wrote, “Look at the mighty ship…with her towering masts and carrying a cloud of canvas. How she steadies herself on the waves and walks erect on the rolling waters like a thing with inherent, self-regulating life.

“Why is she not flung on her beam’s end, sent down floundering into the deep? Because unseen beneath the surface a vast well-ballasted hull gives her balance and takes hold of the water, keeps her steady under a pressive sail and on the bosom of a swelling sea.

“Even though to preserve the saint upright…God gives him balance and ballast, bestowing on the man to whom He has given lofty endowments, the attending grace of a proportionate humility.”

God wants us to also “walk worthy…With all lowliness and meekness.” These two attributes go together. One cannot possess meekness without humility.

Meekness and weakness are not synonymous. And it does not refer to timidity or cowardice. Meekness refers to gentleness and mildness, and to power under control.

The Greek word translated as meekness was used to describe wild animals that were tamed. A tamed, wild animal still has its strength and spirit, but its will is now under the control of its master. For example, a tamed lion is still strong and powerful, but his power is under the control of his master.

Numbers 12:3 says, “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.”

While Moses was meek above all men, he challenged Pharaoh fearlessly to let God’s people go from their bondage, and he boldly confronted Israel’s rebelliousness and idolatry.

Scripture shows that a meek person can show emotion and become angry. But their emotion and righteous anger are controlled and carefully directed, and it rears up when God’s name or work is maligned, or people are harmed.

The Lord Jesus stated that “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29), which are the first two attributes of verse 2. A walk worthy of our calling is about being like Christ.

We know that meekness has nothing to do with weakness when our Lord, Who is all-powerful, called Himself “meek.”

Walter Wright commented on Christ’s meekness: “The One Who made the worlds, Who flung the stars into space and calls them by name, Who preserves the innumerable constellations in their courses, Who weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance…

“Who holds the waters of the ocean in the hollow of His hand…when He comes into human life finds Himself as essentially meek and lowly in heart. It is not that He erected a perfect human ideal and accommodated Himself to it; He WAS that.”

In that meekness, Christ served those in Israel with gentleness and mildness, with power under control, wholly submitted to the Father’s will.

Meekness is an important attribute for a worthy walk so that we serve the Lord and others in Christ’s mildness and gentleness, and so we submit our wills to God and have our emotions and ourselves under the control of the Holy Spirit.

God also wants a “walk worthy…With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering.”

Long-suffering is the opposite of being short-tempered. Manford Gutzke once said: “To become long-suffering one has to be long-bothered.”

Longsuffering is to not be easily provoked and to patiently suffer and endure people or difficult circumstances that may try our patience to the limit.

The old nature can have a short fuse, be impatient, and then snap, lash out in anger, seek retaliation, and be belligerent and quarrelsome.

But God’s will for our lives is for us to be longsuffering and exercising self-restraint in the power of the Spirit. The longsuffering saint is “patient toward all men,” 1 Thessalonians 5:14 teaches, and they patiently accept God’s plan in difficult circumstances by faith.

God is “slow to anger” the Scriptures say, and in walking worthy, God would have the members of Christ’s Body, in light of their high calling, to do the same.

Proverbs 16:32 reads, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

Finally, God wants a “walk worthy, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.”

Lowliness, meekness, and longsuffering are reflected in a forbearing love for others that is continuous and unconditional.

Forbearing one another means bearing with each other and putting up with faults, failures, and mistakes, making allowance for differing personalities and temperaments. It’s not about maintaining a façade of courtesy while inwardly seething with frustration.

This is an attribute in our walk that springs from God’s love. A few verses earlier, Paul wrote, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love.” As we are rooted and grounded in God’s selfless love, we can forbear one another.

And showing forbearing love is to recognize that we’re not all perfect on this side of heaven.

Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, once said, “I saw a sign on a strip of highway once that I would like to have copied on my gravestone. It said, ‘End of construction. Thank you for your patience.’”

Being longsuffering and showing forbearance in love to one another is based on an understanding that God is still working on all of us, and God is not finished with us yet.

The following is an example of a walk worthy of our calling, and our calling in Christ is all by the grace, kindness, and the love of God.

After an accident in which she lost her arm, a girl named Jamie refused to go to school or church for an entire year. Finally the young teen thought she could face her peers.

In preparation, her mother called her Sunday school teacher and asked that he not call attention to Jamie. The teacher promised, but when he got sick on Sunday and had to call a substitute, he forgot to tell the second teacher.

At the conclusion of the lesson that day, which was about inviting friends to church, the sub led the class in doing the hand motions to the children’s poem: Here’s the church, Here’s the steeple, Open the door, See all the people.

Jamie’s eyes filled with tears. A 13-year-old boy looked at her and realized how she must be feeling. So he went and knelt beside her. And with one hand apiece, they supported each other, making the church, the steeple, and the people.